Return Of The Ape Man!

When is an "ape man" not an "ape man"? When that "ape man" appears in the 1944 flicker Return of the Ape Man. This is one of those delightfully awful movies from the poverty row side of Hollywood and it stars Bela Lugosi, John Carrdine and George Zucco (almost). The final name appears only momentarily in the movie, but was taken ill and replaced by a bloke named Frank Moran.

Moran plays the title role, but alas is only an ancient caveman and not anything really much like an ape. From some of the dialogue and even the movie's title card one gets the sense a different creature was intended. Moran is mildly menacing at times, but hardly an "ape man".

He was defrosted from some Arctic ice by scientists Lugosi and Carradine who went looking specifically for a cave man in ice. Now it's worth pointing out that this movie has no apparent connection to the earlier Lugosi effort titled The Ape Man.

Lugosi's scientist is properly mad and murderous and ends up dissolving his partnership with the much more easygoing Carradine in the most macabre manner. There are some younger folks to fill in as hero and heroine, but the story is hapless from the get-go with plot holes easily fixed which were not. The scenes are all on stages aside from some images of glaciers falling apart and the scenes are just dumb. Almost as dumb as the police, who will shoot at nearly anything at anytime. You'd almost think Ed Wood had something to do with this mess.

But that said, I found a few things here and there to hang some fun on. If you can see this one for free, it's worth a fan's time, but don't pay much for it unless you're obsessive like I am.

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The Ape Man!

What happens when a scientist and his amigo concoct an experiment which changes said scientist into a bizarre Human-Ape hybrid creature who must kill to preserve his diminishing human traits? The Ape Man starring the legendary Bela Lugosi is the afflicted scientist and what he does to cling to humanity is well and truly inhuman. This is a zany movie with one mysterious character who dabbles in fourth-wall busting off and on throughout. William "One-Shot" Beaudine directed this programmer, a diverting entertainment I think, but hardly great.

Low-budget horror flicks have to be taken on their own merits and even with some fine actors like Lugosi and Wallace Ford and Louise Curry, a reporter and his photographer respectively who stumble across the weird scheme, the whole doesn't really add up to queer sum of the parts. We've got them, plus Lugosi's sister who is a medium and his partner in crime who balks eventually at helping him. The biggest attraction though is Emil Van Horn as a "real" ape who serves as henchman for Lugosi as he goes about his devious business.

This is a ride, albeit a cheap one and a short one and at times a bit of a slow one, and you pays for the ticket and takes your chances. I for one like it.

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The Ape!

The Ape is one cockamamie movie. Boris Karloff made a deal with Monogram Pictures for nine movies (which included three turns as Mr. Wong a Chinese detective) and this humble 1940 effort is the final one of those. Here he is a country doctor with a difference, former researcher he is a man who is driven by a compelling need to cure the lame and prove his theories. To that end he makes use of what comes his way and that includes two men who are murdered to get at spinal fluid used to make a beautiful young girl walk again.

Now mix with this set-up the arrival of a circus, a circus with a ferocious gorilla who kills his abusive trainer and in the doing sets fire to the whole shebang. The circus folk move on but the small town in which the doctor lives and works must find the escaped gorilla. The doctor finds it first, kills it and uses the ape's hide to prowl the night getting his precious spinal fluid. (I told you it was weird.)

I won't say more, so as not to spoil, but most of this you can see coming a mile off. The gorilla portrayed by Ray Corrigan is pretty darn tough but not as tough as a crazy Boris Karloff it seems.

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