- Director: William Beaudine
- AMG Rating:
- Genre: Horror
- Movie Type: Creature Film
- Themes: Mad Scientists, Experiments Gone Awry, Obsessive Quests
- Main Cast: Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford, Louise Currie, Minerva Urecal, Henry Hall
- Release Year: 1943
- Country: US
- Run Time: 64 minutes
Plot
Whatever poor Bela Lugosi may have done in a past life, the man did not deserve The Ape Man, arguably the worst of his Monogram horror clunkers. Viewed today, it seems that screenwriter Barney Sarecky and infamous director William Beaudine (whose nickname "One Shot" was earned helming movies like this) were out to humiliate the proud Hungarian actor at every opportunity. They had the man, who once turned down the Frankenstein monster because he found the role demeaning, walk about the entire film in a manner that was supposed to appear simian but ended up looking merely foolish. They gave him an Anglo-Saxon name, Dr. James Brewster, without bothering to explain that familiar Middle European accent. And they provided him with a spiritualist sister (Minerva Urecal), whose character name, Agatha, Lugosi of course was incapable of pronouncing. To compound matters, they wrote in a mysterious character named Zippo (Ralph Littlefield), who, in a silly porkpie hat, drifted in and out of the narrative being annoyingly mysterious, only to reveal himself in the end as "the author of the story." "Screwy idea, wasn't it?" he says blithely putting the final nail in Lugosi's coffin.Lugosi's Dr. Brewster had experimented with a spinal serum derived from the fluids of a gorilla. The dedicated medico naturally tested the serum on himself and now appears incapable of walking upright, in dire need of a shave. Needless to say, the only antidote is human spinal fluid (which Lugosi pronounces "fluit"). Accompanied by screaming headlines such as "Ape man killer still on the loose!" Dr. Brewster and his gorilla henchman (Emil VanHorn, whose simian suit paid his rent for years) stalk the dark streets for human prey. A couple of wisecracking reporters (Wallace Ford and Louise Currie, both surprisingly tolerable) briefly wander into harm's way, knocking each other over the head with prop vases. Happily, for unexplained reasons, the gorilla suddenly turns on his master and breaks his neck, ending the nightmare for all concerned, including, one would imagine, Lugosi himself. Typical for cheap Monogram, Lugosi stayed in his ape-like makeup throughout, the expected transformation scene never materializing. The critics were understandably severe -- "Monogram's writer didn't have to wipe the dust from Bela Lugosi's Ape Man, he had to take the mold off," chuckled the Daily News -- but as horror-film historian Tom Weaver so succinctly put it: "Despite their ruinous effects on Lugosi's career, had these Monogram pictures been made without him, they would not merit discussion today." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Review
The Ape Man is for many a made-in-camp-heaven classic; for others, it's a sorry waste of a talented actor whose typecasting doomed him to a sad life. If one can forget that horror star Bela Lugosi was forced to forego his considerable talent and appear in dreck such as this and that this contributed to his early death, it's easy to have a ball at Ape Man. This is, clearly, one of the worst horror films ever made. Inept is too kind a word for the writing and directing. It's almost as if writer Barney A. Sarecky was trying to prove something, perhaps that it is indeed possible to write a screenplay at one sitting, with your eyes closed, creating dialogue only by drawing it blindfolded from a goldfish bowl filled with random sentences cut from "The Big Book of Cliched Sentences." Director William Beaudine's work is atrocious, as is typical of this reviled hack, with no imagination or interest evident at all. The acting, even by the talented Lugosi is at best substandard. All of which, if one is in the right mind, does mean that Ape can be a hoot, especially the ending, which seems to have wandered in from a Tex Avery cartoon. For camp mavens, it's a treat; for Lugosi fans, it's an ordeal. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie GuideCast
- Bela Lugosi - Dr. James Brewster
- Wallace Ford - Jeff Carter
- Louise Currie - Billie Mason
- Minerva Urecal - Agatha Brewster
- Henry Hall - Dr. George Randall
