Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

GL84 After being wrongly accused of murder, a condemned man takes up a scientist' plea to be used in his experiment to swap his brain into an ape, and with his new body sets out on a course of vengeance to get the criminal gang who initially set him up while saving the girl he loves.There wasn't a whole lot to really like with this one. Among its main positives here are it's rather fun stalking scenes showing the actual effects of his successful experiment and going out seeking revenge. These here are actual horror scenes that feature something creepy happening as the exploits of the ape-monster going around actually attacking and ambushing his accusers gives this one some solid stalking out in the courtyard around the house where it picks off the gangster by dropping down from the trees onto them, a rather fun stalking scene outside of a hotel lobby where it strikes a couple of henchmen hanging around and really only gets close to the fun of this in the finale where it scales their hotel through the fire ladders outside and then breaches into the room to attack her captors that finally settles the score on his vengeance in fine fashion while delivering a nice enough action scene as well. Given that these are all that's worthwhile here which all involve the killer ape, there's not a whole lot to really like here which is what's the case here. The film's main problem is the fact that there's very little of interest here in the first half as this one plays more on the courtroom drama than any kind of true horror effort here. There's very little interest in these scenes as there's just endless repetitions of people sitting in a courtroom recounting what happened before it goes into a lengthier, more detailed flashback of events that shows in detail what they just talked about, as not only does this one feature the scene they just got done explaining but also going into the setup for the scene to make sense and the result is just really overlong and bland for an introduction to be about. These are completely uninteresting and the fact that it holds up the entire first half of the film is what does hold this one back as much as the film's rather low-budget tone and feel. The process of the body-swap shows this off rather nicely here with the whole surgery glossed over and shown as frantic close-ups without any kind of on-screen help as to what's happening which makes it look so cheap and low-budget that it really stands out compared to other such scenes, and along with the ratty ape-suit used for the creature it really adds to the overall weak look of this one. Overall these are what really hold this one back.Today's Rating/PG: Mild Violence.

melvelvit-1 Stuart Heisler's THE MONSTER & THE GIRL begins with a prostitute (Ellen Drew) coming out of the fog to tell her tale in flashback; she had come to the big city to follow her dreams and fell for a homme fatale (Robert Paige) who tricked her into gangland prostitution but when her brother (Phillip Terry) comes looking for her, he's framed for murder. There's a trial, of course, and her brother's sentenced to death -but before he's taken away, he vows that the gangsters who destroyed his family will get theirs one by one. Now this is where it gets really weird -a mad scientist (George Zucco) comes to see him on Death Row wanting his brain for science (!) and after the execution it's transplanted into a gorilla who proceeds to carry out the kid's threats. Whew! The cast is a classic movie lover's dream -the gangsters on the receiving end of the mayhem are Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Onslow Stevens, Marc Lawrence, and Gerald Mohr while the reporter-cum-love interest (!) is a young and handsome Rod Cameron. The flashbacks, courtroom scenes, gangsters and atmosphere almost (but not quite) make it a proto-noir but it isn't exactly a horror movie, either since the audience is on the gorilla's side all the way. Besides, the kid's faithful pooch from his previous life recognizes him and tags along on the ape's vendetta making this a real tear-jerker at times. I have no idea what target audience Paramount had in mind when Heisler was assigned to THE MONSTER & THE GIRL -the first half was way too "adult" for the Saturday matinée crowd and the second half was far too far-fetched for mature audiences. I was also a bit surprised at the frank depiction of prostitution. Gangsters perform a fake wedding ceremony for Ellen Drew and her slimy beau before the scene cuts to Drew stretching in bed with a sublimely satisfied smile on her face (copied from the one in GWTW where Scarlett purrs like a cat the morning after Rhett carried her up the stairs) when a thug strolls in and informs Drew she'll be working in a clip joint being nice to men from now on. Wow. It was also strange seeing Universal's future singing star Robert Paige as a bad guy. Heisler made AMONG THE LIVING starring Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward & Frances Farmer the same year and in that one I spotted Rod Cameron as an extra in a bar room. His rugged good looks were hard to miss and they must have impressed someone at Paramount when they viewed the rushes because he's 7th billed in THE MONSTER & THE GIRL with a fair amount of screen time. It was released in February, 1941 and AMONG THE LIVING was released 10 months later but because of Rod it looks to me like the last one was lensed first.A one-of-a-kind cinematic experience, that's for sure. Recommended!

petencin This is a great movie, the site review covers it well. The "monster gorilla" is almost just a sub-plot, the real monsters are the bad guys with their inhumanity. This is a movie full of actors you've never heard of and they all do their jobs well. I'm tired of modern movies where the digital image makers can create anything on the screen. I'll take real people, real actors, any day. Even the ape "monster" doesn't go over the top. Just all around excellent, great $1 VHS buy at Kroger!! Fine for the family and kids of any age, kudos to Skippy the Dog and all the other cast members for a fine piece of work. I bought this expecting a humorous, no budget, schlocky affair. I was surprised to find a serious piece of film making that is both entertaining and contains elements of morality and decency that are lacking in modern films and TV. The ape monster doesn't even appear until late in the film, I was actually starting to wonder if the box graphic of the gorilla was just a marketing ploy, selling horror genre tapes for $1 might be easier than selling unknown dramas? But the ape finally appears and carefully claims revenge for the fallen brain owner. Just excellent!

FieCrier I learned about this movie from a sidebar to an article on "horror noir" in Films in Review, where it was highly recommended.It does mix horror and film noir in its own peculiar fashion. It starts off more noir than horror. A woman addresses the camera, surrounded by smoke or fog, to tell us a tale. We're taken to a courtroom, where a stoic man is being tried for murder. The woman from the introduction enters the court as a spectator, and a couple of the other spectators call attention to her.The man on trial doesn't say much in his defense, speaking in a monotone. The woman jumps up to insist on speaking. She seems like a tough dame, and it turns out she's the man's sister. What she says doesn't help much, and she isn't a credible witness; it's implied she's a prostitute.Through a flashback to better days, we see the siblings when they were much more animated and happy. She wanted to leave their small town, but when she goes to the city she finds it hard to get work. She meets a man she falls in love with, and gets married, but when she wakes up after a party on her wedding night, he's disappeared. A strange man is in her bedroom informing her how much she owes for the room and party, and offers her work in a cabaret entertaining men...The brother goes to the city to find the missing husband, and gets framed for murder by a criminal conspiracy by the men his sister now works for. Back in the courtroom, he's convicted, vows revenge, and is executed, but not before he agrees to donate his brain to science.Post-mortem, his brain is implanted into an ape. It's not clear what the scientist hopes to accomplish by that. Something about evolution, perhaps seeing what the ape's potential is if its brain is upgraded. For some reason, the scientist seems to expect an intelligent ape, rather than a man's mind in an ape's body. It isn't clear to what extent the executed man's brain retains its personality or memories, but the ape does carry out his vow of revenge, and his own dog seems to recognize him.There were several other primate horror movies Universal made, among them the three titles in the Paula the Ape Woman series: Captive Wild Woman (1943), Jungle Woman (1944/I), Jungle Captive, The (1945), and then the Bela Lugosi film Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). It's a funny thing about primates and horror, they go back pretty far. The Doctor's Experiment, The Professor's Secret, and The Monkey Man (all 1908) are three of the earliest ones, the latter one even involving a brain transplant!