Pluskylang Great Film overall

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Tweekums This short film from 1940 features Boris Karloff as Bernard Adrian a doctor who is determined to find a cure to help a young woman, who has been paralysed by polio, to walk again. His animal experiments have only had him so far; now he needs human spinal fluid. When a gorilla kills its brutal trainer before escaping from the circus he sees an opportunity. The trainer is taken to Dr Adrian's lab, where he dies. Dr Adrian extracts the needed spinal fluid and injects it into his patient; early indications shows that it is working but after an accident he needs to find a new source of spinal fluid. Meanwhile the people of the town are hunting for the ape which has killed again and shows no sign of leaving the area.This film was quite a bit better than I expected; Dr Adrian may be using methods that can't be considered ethical by any stretch of the imagination but he isn't an unsympathetic character; he clearly really wants to help his patient rather than wanting the glory of finding a cure. The townspeople are less sympathetic than one might expect with children throwing rocks at the doctor's house and one man having an affair and treating his wife more poorly than one would expect of a film of the era. The ape is obviously a man in an ape-suit but it is better than one might expect to see in a B movie. There are some good twists before the end; the final one nicely explains certain things that seem a little off earlier. Boris Karloff does a solid job as Dr Adrian and the rest of the cast, who were unknown to me, were okay. Overall this might not be a classic but it is a fun way to pass an hour if you are a fan of older films.

mark.waltz The pretty Maris Wrixon has spent the past ten years in a wheelchair because of paralysis and research doctor Boris Karloff, the pariah in his community, is doing his best to cure her. Practically all of the townspeople hate him (although he's the first one they go to in a sudden medical emergency!) and the children all fear him even though they go out of their way to throw rotten tomatoes at his house. A rash of dog disappearances have caused suspicion to be thrown at him, but when a circus fire breaks out and the caged ape escapes, Karloff sees an opportunity to find the serum he so desperately needs in a way that nobody could suspect him.This is a truly horrible movie, fortunately short, but it is almost laughable that somebody could think up such tripe. Karloff gets to try and humanize his character in a scene with one of the doctors (played by Selmer Jackson) who years ago fought his methods, and when they are standing facing each other, actually look almost identical. Jackson looked here exactly like Jack Betts who would play Karloff in the recent James Whale bio "Gods and Monsters", so that aspect absolutely distracts from the scene. Gertrude Hoffman, the old lady playing Karloff's housekeeper, only gets to whisper one line to him. She would go on to be better used as Barbara Stanwyck's murdered aunt in "The File on Thelma Jordan" and most memorably as the "lifer" who stands up to Hope Emerson in the cult classic "Caged".

leonardfranks Basically, Boris Karloff is the only good thing about this movie, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the makers of this film were aware of that. He truly does give a good performance, and adds a good amount of depth to an otherwise rather stereotypical character. But imagine if it had been played by anyone else: a doctor is trying to cure polio, when he is attacked by an escaped circus ape. He kills the circus ape, skins it and makes a perfect costume out of it, and then makes a remarkably unsuccessful attempt to go on a killing spree looking for spinal fluid. It's not a great concept, and no one but Karloff could have added any plausibility to it. And even with him, there are still problems. Lines like "Man... the greatest of animals" are pretty hokey and some of the throwaway scenes that don't relate to the plot (like that random guy and woman whom you never see again looking at the circus) are pretty annoying. I will also note that although there is no such thing as a convincing gorilla suit, that one is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Michael_Elliott The Ape (1940) ** (out of 4)Boris Karloff plays a kind-hearted doctor trying to cure a woman who is paralyzed from her waist down. When a giant ape escapes from a local circus the doctor sees a woman to continue his experiments but this leads to murder. THE APE comes from Monogram and I think it's the perfect example to use if one wanted to compare the "straight" Boris Karloff to the more "over-the-top" Bela Lugosi. Lugosi would appear in Monogram's THE APE MAN, which is a very silly film that has several silly moments but it's actually entertaining thanks to the campy stuff. This film here is just incredibly stiff, lacks any real entertainment and really comes across as boring. The film seems constantly worried that they're going to hurt Karloff's good guy image and no matter what happens through his character, the screenplay is always quick to give some sort of excuse to make him look good. The character is basically a murderer but instead of just being a bad guy, the screenplay is constantly making him look better and all the excuses just leads to a rather boring story. Karloff offers up a good performance but it's certainly not enough to liven up the film or make it more interesting. The supporting cast is mostly forgettable but I'm sure some of this is due to the screenplay simply not giving them much to work with. THE APE has a pretty forgettable story and there's just no life, energy or passion to be seen anywhere. The film is certainly better made than most Monogram movies but that doesn't lead to any sort of entertainment value.