40's Cheela, the Ape Woman Series

CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN

(1943)

Dir - Edward Dmytryk

Overall: MEH

 

Universal's first of three Cheela, the Ape Woman movies, Captive Wild Woman is the one with John Carradine playing a mad scientist.  Two years in production before it was finally shot, the story had five credited hands involved, which is impressive since the whole thing results to nothing more than a cockamamie tale about sex hormones and brain transplants turning a gorilla into Native American actor Acquanetta.  Though she had some bit parts before this, Universal promoted it as Acquanetta's debut and she fulfills the exotic beauty angle effortlessly even if she does not show up until halfway through and hardly gets anything to do besides not talk and undergo a bestial make-up change.  Carradine is the sinister presence here who seems to delight in coming up with excuses to kill people in the name of science or whatever, which is a hackneyed "ends justifying the means" trope that had already been overused by this point.  Plenty of circus stock footage of lions and tigers in captivity is utilized that has hardly aged well, but the film has a tacky charm to it despite being humdrum in most respects.

JUNGLE WOMAN

(1944)

Dir -Reginald LeBorg

Overall: MEH

 

Following up the previous year's Captive Wild Woman with actor Acquanetta still on board as the same character, Jungle Woman has a rotten reputation as one of Universal's worst horror films from its Golden Era.  While this may seem harsh, such a judgement is not without merit and sadly the top contenders for the studio's weakest works in the genre were often female centered, (She-Wolf of London and The Invisible Woman also come to mind).  The first act is nothing more than a series of flashbacks to footage from the previous film as characters are investigated under oath to bring us up to date.  An opening silhouetted murder sequence is well-done, but this is also repeated again in the finale and even at an hour in length, a significant portion of it proves redundant.  Both star Acquanetta and director Reginald LeBorg voiced their displeasure with the project, which was done for contractual purposes of course.  Acquanetta felt typecast and exploited in a thankless role that hardly required her to do anything, (least of all actually turn into a monster for more than a few seconds), and LeBorg hated the script which in all fairness is no more or less preposterous than any other pseudoscience, B-movie gobbledygook.  J. Carrol Naish saves face in the lead and does not play a bad guy for once, but this is otherwise worth skipping.

JUNGLE CAPTIVE

(1945)

Dir - Harold Young

Overall: MEH

With Acquanetta moving on, Vicky Lane steps in to play the titular Ape Woman in Jungle Captive; the last in Universal's Cheela, the Ape Woman series.  Though it is comparatively superior to its sequel Jungle Woman by boasting a fresh crop of characters and not relying on any recycled footage, it still goes through the stock motions of a mad scientist who justifies his murderous experiments in the same way that all mad scientists do, namely that a few lives are a small price to pay for advancement.  Otto Kruger plays such a misguided villain professionally enough and he is joined by Universal's "Creeper" Rondo Hatton who turns in one of his better performances, even if the poor guy is hired yet again solely due to his alarming and intimidating looks.  Director Harold Young keeps the predictable material from becoming as tiresome as it deserves to be and there are some ghastly bits like grave robbing and Amelita Ward being lured to her doom by her trusted employee, only to get tied down to have her blood removed before a thwarted brain surgery attempt is made on her.  Lane gets to run around in the grisly primate make-up more than Acquanetta ever did as well, but her lack of dialog and personality still makes it a thankless role that any actor could have handled for a paycheck.