Ape, The
Entry updated 30 September 2024. Tagged: Film.
US film (1940). Monogram Pictures Corp. Directed by William Nigh. Written by Curt (credited here as "Kurt") Siodmak and Richard Carroll, "suggested from the play by Adam Hull Shirk". Cast includes Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Henry Hall, Boris Karloff, Gene O'Donnell and Maris Wrixon. 63 minutes. Black and white.
Dr Bernard Adrian (Karloff) is unpopular in the village where he works, believed to be using his patients as guinea pigs and causing their deaths; this is untrue, though he has managed to hide his experimentation on animals. A new patient is Frances Clifford (Wrixon), partially paralysed (likely by polio), whom he views as a daughter; his own having died from a disease which he "hadn't the weapons to fight", but has now, "or at least, I've got a knowledge of them" (see Medicine) and he promises Frances she will walk again.
An ill-tempered gorilla (Corrigan) from a visiting circus injures its sadistic keeper and escapes. The man is brought to Dr Adrian, but dies: the doctor takes the opportunity to extract his spinal fluid to use on Frances (dutifully recorded in his case notes). He tells Frances if it works her fellow wheelchair-bound sufferers – "all the little boys and girls who can't go out into the sunshine and play" will benefit. The first injection is a success, she can feel her legs – but Dr Adrian is distressed when he later accidentally breaks the phial holding the rest of the serum. Shortly after, the gorilla – having smelt the discarded clothes of the hated keeper – breaks into his laboratory and attacks him: the doctor, showing a cool head, throws a chemical into its face then kills it with a knife. He becomes thoughtful.
He now crosses over into Mad Scientist territory as he wears the gorilla's skin to murder an unpleasant businessman and drain his spinal fluid. As intended, the ape is blamed; the subsequent autopsy reveals a spinal puncture, alerting the medical foundation that 25 years earlier had expelled Dr Adrian, then a "promising young research worker" (see Scientists), because of his "daring unorthodox experiments with spinal fluid". However, their representative does not suspect the doctor of murder and is impressed by what he has achieved with Frances – even offering him a post at the foundation (which he politely turns down).
Frances' improvement is still only slight – Dr Adrian suspects it is for psychological reasons but dons the ape suit again for one more dose of fluid. Due to the number of sightings, the local sheriff's (Hall) men are staking out the area near his house: the doctor attacks one of them, but his would-be victim manages to stab him – he flees, to be shot as he reaches his porch. The sheriff unmasks him as Frances arrives, having seen the ape heading to her friend's house. Her concern causes her to rise from her wheelchair – and seeing this the mortally wounded doctor tells Frances to walk towards him: she does. He dies happy. The ending is ambivalent, a scene with Frances smiling and learning how to walk – the doctor's actions are seemingly not condemned.
Dr Adrian – a good performance by Karloff – is sympathetically drawn: his family tragedy, his noble aims and kindness to the dogs he tests the serum on; he is quick-witted and focused when attacked by the gorilla. Nonetheless, he can be distant to people other than Frances and his single-mindedness allows him to justify murder; though his first victim is shown to be a repugnant individual, his would-be second is not. Frances' boyfriend (O'Donnell), though polite, is nervous of the treatments that cause her pain: "I don't like things I can't understand." Other locals, more overtly hostile to the doctor, are on the brink of becoming a mob (see Anti-Intellectualism in SF). The gorilla gets a little backstory: the circus owner treats him with kindness and can pet him, pointing out that it is fierce only because of the keeper's cruelty. Being more character-based, The Ape is different from most killer ape Horror movies of its era. The scenes with the gorilla and the doctor dressed in its skin jar with the rest of the film, but enliven a story that might otherwise be a little dull. Besides the man in an ape suit, the plot bears no resemblance to the play by Shirk, of which Nigh had earlier directed a film adaption: The House of Mystery (1934). [SP]
see also: The Ape Man.
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