The thing about Universal’s output of horror films in the
thirties and forties is that some stuff is likely to fall through the
cracks. Sure, most of the ones that were
popular enough to spawn franchises became part of the Universal Monsters
brand. There is, however, one that
didn’t.
I’m talking about Universal’s Ape Woman trilogy.
The movie Captive Wild Woman was released in 1943 starring Milburn Stone, John Carradine, Evelyn
Ankers and Acquanetta. The film
extensively used footage from the Clyde Beatty circus film The Big Cage. The film
starts with Stone’s character of Fred Mason returning from a trapping
expedition for the circus and meeting his girlfriend Beth Colman played by
Ankers. Mason then introduces Beth to a
gorilla named Cheela that he brought back from Africa, which he claims is one
of the most humanlike animals he’s ever seen.
Beth then tells Fred about her meeting with an acclaimed endocrinologist
played by John Carradine. The
endocrinologist, Dr. Walters, is being called on to treat Colman’s sister for a
rare glandular disorder. He takes a
rather keen interest when he finds out the Colman sisters both work for the
circus. Walters later visits the circus
and takes an interest in Cheela.
Needless to say, Dr. Walters is a mad doctor with an interest in
transforming some forms of life into other forms of life using glandular
secretions. He gets his hands on Cheela
with the help of a disgruntled circus employee.
With glandular injections from Beth’s sister and a brain transplant from
his own nurse, Walters manages to transform Cheela into a pretty human woman
whom he dubs Paula Dupree (played by Acquanetta). Paula isn’t quite human, though. She has an uncanny way with animals, able to
scare the daylights out of lions and tigers just by looking at them. This nets Paula a job helping with an animal
act, but things start to go pear-shaped when Paula develops an attraction to
Fred Mason and starts to see Beth Colman as a rival.
It’s a fun little movie.
The use of other footage is done really well. Acquanetta puts in a good pantomime
performance as Paula Dupree. And the Ape
Woman make-up for the times when Paula is changing between ape and human forms
is done by industry legend Jack Pierce and is very well done. There are a couple of holes. For example, the brain transplant that’s
supposed to deal with Cheela’s animal instincts don’t seem to do much of
anything besides show that Dr. Walters was willing to kill his nurse.
And that would just be the end of it in most cases. A fun, obscure monster movie. Except that this movie has two sequels.
The sequel, Jungle
Woman, was released the next year.
This film finds the body of Cheela who seemingly was killed at the end
of Captive Wild Woman acquired by a
doctor by the name of Carl Fletcher.
Fletcher finds out that Cheela is still alive and revives her. Fascinated by the work of Dr. Walters, Dr.
Fletcher purchases the sanitarium where he worked so he can look over his
papers and equipment. One day, Cheela
disappears only for Paula to appear on the grounds. Trouble follows though, when Paula develops
another romantic fixation. This time on
Bob Whitney, the fiancée of Dr. Fletcher’s daughter. This movie adds a couple of things to the
“myth” of the Ape Woman. First of all,
the idea that Paula is incredibly strong even when in human form. Second, the idea that the natives of Africa
have stories about a strange doctor changing humans into animals to explain
Cheela’s human-like intelligence. What
this does is adds a bit of ambiguity and mystery to Paula’s story. It blurs the line between human and animal so
you’re never sure if Paula is more human or more ape. One big point against this movie though, is
that Paula develops the ability to speak.
The real issue is Acquanetta’s line delivery. A great number of her lines come across as
flat and emotionless.
The third Ape Woman movie, The Jungle Captive, came out
in 1945 (boy, they put these movies out fast).
Paula’s body once again finds itself into the hands of a mad
doctor. This time, Paula is played by
Vicky Lane. The doctor, Mr. Stendahl
(Otto Krueger), with the help of his hulking assistant Moloch (Rondo Hatton)
once again manage to revive Paula only to find that her mind has reverted completely
to a bestial state. Stendahl decides
that another brain transplant is necessary and has decided one of his female
lab assistants from the university is the unwilling donor. The movie isn’t as much about Paula as it is
about the mad doctor who wants to operate on her and the lab assistants who
find themselves wrapped up in the whole thing.
But still, there it is, a whole trilogy of Ape Woman
films. It’s as many films as The Creature from the Black Lagoon got. Heck, it’s more than The Wolf Man got. After his
first outing, he had to share billing with other characters.
So, why has the Ape Woman faded into obscurity. Well, a good part of it is probably because
the racial and sexual politics of these films is more than a little dated. The actress Acquanetta, real name Mildred
Davenport, was known for being rather cagey about her ethnicity. At the time of these films, people used to
speculate on her race. Some claim that
she was at least partially African-American.
Others claimed she was from Venezuela, nicknaming her “The Venezuelan
Volcano”. Others claimed she was a
Native American of Arapaho descent.
Overall though, these movies doubled down on the idea of her as being
this racially ambiguous “exotic” jungle woman.
It’s something that would have been seen as alluring at the time but
insensitive now. The resulting films
though, are entertaining. The thing
about Universal being the undisputed kings of horror during the ‘40s is that
even their films that weren’t ground-breaking or genre-defining were still
rather watchable. Though, you can tell
they were really running out of steam by 1945 when The Jungle Captive came along.
It is too bad these movies and the Ape Woman never became as iconic as
the other Universal Monsters, though. I
mean, there aren’t really any other female monsters that aren’t defined by
their relationship to another character (like The Bride of Frankenstein or Dracula’s Daughter). The concept certainly has
potential. It’s kind of like being able
to narrowly focus on one of the beast-people from H.G. Wells’s novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. But these movies are still out there on
DVD for those who want to see them. Captive Wild Woman is available on the
Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive set.
Jungle Woman was released as
part of the Universal Vault Series. The Jungle Captive has not been released
on DVD, but I did notice that there’s a copy taken from an old VHS tape that’s
been uploaded to YouTube if people really want to see it.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to hidden
gems from the Universal Horror catalog, but those are a subject for another
day.
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