The Ape (1940)

During the brief 1937-1938 lull in horror film product, Boris Karloff worked for the cheap Monogram Studios, making a series of rather lackluster Mr. Wong detective pictures. When scary movies became in vogue again after the smash hit of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN in 1939, Monogram decided to make Karloff's last contracted movie a horror one.In THE APE, Boris falls into his comfortable niche of portraying a well-meaning and kindly old doctor. As Dr. Adrian, he is devoting all his time and effort into curing a beautiful wheelchair bound girl of her inability to walk. He has had some success with spinal fluid injections taken from recently deceased people, but finds he requires more and more of the serum to perfect a more permanent cure to end the girl's paralysis. At the same time, a savage gorilla has escaped from a local circus and is wreaking havoc right near the dedicated scientist's laboratory.Without revealing more details, the plot that is hatched from here on is potentially absurd and unbelievable. Yet, owing largely to Karloff's professional attitude and straight-forward performance, he helps the story rise above its silly premise. Boris is just perfect in his part, neither overacting nor just phoning it in. And this is what makes all the difference.**1/2 out of ****

This dull time-waster is a delirious drag from start to finish. The twisted plot involves Dr. Bernard Adrian (Boris Karloff), who is conducting crazy experiments involving spinal fluid. Meanwhile, a vicious circus ape breaks free and starts murdering townsfolk. The animal soon enters Adrian's lab, but the elderly scientist kills the monkey and then comes up with the devilish plan of wearing it's skin and killing more people so that he can get the desired amount of spinal fluid for his experiments. While the cheesy ape effects have some cheap charm, this typical example of forties B-grade horror is nothing but a badly-constructed bore and should therefore only be viewed by the most die-hard Karloff fans.

I'm working my way through the Horror Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection. THE APE is one of the movies in the set.I thought that THE APE was a fairly original adaptation of the "King Kong" story, with Boris Karloff playing the part of am eccentric doctor, who's only aim is to cure a young woman of paralysis. Albeit his methods may be unorthodox.The doctor his held up to mockery and ridicule in the community. Worse, a jealous boyfriend fears his girl won't need him any more if she's cured, so he resents the doctor's attention.It really is a silly, melodramatic mess of a plot; but, it works; and, Karloff is really in top form.The special effects surrounding the ape are very poor by today's standards; but, fairly impressive for 1940!

1st watched 5/1/2009 - 5 out of 10 (Dir- William Nigh): Interesting movie that just missed the mark for me due to a strange quick ending that I don't believe was prepped well, in my opinion. The movie is about a misunderstood doctor, played by horror great Boris Karloff, who is trying to cure the local town of a crippling disease but is using animals in his experiments and the townfolk don't like his methods. The Ape comes into the story after it escapes from a local circus, causes a fire and then is hiding somewhere in the town. While the authorities are hunting for him it is noticed that he spends a lot of time around the doctor's place but no-one knows why. When the doctor first encounters the creature he stabs it, but it's not apparent that he killed the beast. The ape still continues showing up killing others, but escaping from the authorities. A subplot revolves around a crippled woman that the doctor is slowly healing thru spinal fluid from victims of the ape and wherever else he gets it. It appears to be working but he needs more fluid. This is where the filmmakers lost me because they don't link these two pieces together very well. You can probably figure out what's going on, but I'll let you watch the movie and see if you felt the same way I did about the quick ending. The movie wasn't bad it just felt like the makers didn't have enough movie to really do what they wanted to do and tell the story better. So, this one just missed the mark for me despite the fact that I was glad that I saw it.