Movie Review: The Ape (1940) directed by William Nigh
Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Bernard Adrien (Boris Karloff) was expelled from the Robinson Institute for unauthorized experiments with spinal fluid. He moved to an obscure small town and started a practice as a humble country doctor. marrying and starting a family. Ten years ago, there was a polio epidemic in the area, and Dr. Adrien lost several patients, including his own wife and daughter. A girl named Frances Clifford (Maris Wrixon) lost the use of her legs due to the paralytic effects of polio. Ever since, Dr. Adrien has been secretly resuming his experiments on animals to find a cure for paralysis.
His failures during the epidemic and secretive nature have made the rural town’s population suspicious and fearful of Dr. Adrien. They now go to him only in emergencies, and kids throw rocks at his house. Only his mute housekeeper Jane (Gertrude Hoffman), Frances, and Frances’ mother (Dorothy Vaughn) seem to fully trust him. Frances’ sweetheart Danny Foster (Gene O’Donnell) tries to believe, but he doesn’t trust things he doesn’t understand, like modern medicine. Dr. Adrien’s chief slanderer in the town is Henry Mason (Philo McCullough). We’ll get back to him.
As it happens, the circus is in town. Dr. Adrien convinces Danny to take Frances there as a treat, despite her wheelchair being something of an encumbrance. The visit to the circus itself is fun and nothing bad happens. But after the crowd goes home, we see that Nabu the Gorilla (Ray Corrigan) is being abused by his trainer (I. Stanford Jolley). It turns out that Nabu killed the trainer’s father, who was also an abusive animal trainer. The trainer gets cocky and turns his back while lighting a cigar. Nabu jumps the man and mauls him, and in the ruckus, the circus is set on fire.
The dying trainer is taken to Dr. Adrien’s house. The doctor realizes that he can’t save the man, but his spine and thus the spinal fluid is still intact, and as that stuff is near impossible to get from a healthy person, he harvests the fluid. The fluid is made into an experimental serum to inject into Frances.
Preliminary results are encouraging, but a moment of carelessness destroys the remaining serum. After killing a man named Wilcox offscreen, Nabu invades Dr. Adrien’s lab. The doctor’s keen knowledge of anatomy and surprising combat skill allows him to kill Nabu in self-defense. But he gets a mad idea and decides to keep the fact that Nabu is dead a secret. He skins the beast and makes a suit out of it.
Using the ape suit as a disguise, Dr. Adrien plans to murder someone for their spinal fluid and pin the death on Nabu. Hey, remember Henry Mason, slanderer? Turns out he’s also an usurer, enjoys kicking debtors out of their homes, cheats on his wife, suggests his wife commit suicide, and honestly asks why he should care about other people. No one sheds a tear when the ape kills him, though that weird puncture wound in his spine raises some questions.
While Dr. Adrien rushes to perfect his serum and cure Frances, Sheriff Jeff Halliday (Henry Hall) tries to track down the killer gorilla. The animal’s behavior just isn’t adding up, and he goes in search of additional clues.
Tragedy ensues.
This low-budget B-Movie is another of Karloff’s typecast roles as a mad(dish) scientist who initially means well but is brought down by prejudice and bad luck to do evil deeds. He does a good job with the material. The other actors are less impressive, but the sheriff (who’s only slightly corrupt) is amusing.
The least effective part of the movie is the gorilla costume; as often happened at the time, it is far too obviously a cheap costume. Some of the circus bits were edited in from another movie to save even more money.
The plotline requires a heavy dose of coincidence, and some boneheaded choices by some of the characters. Henry Mason appears to have been drifting on the idea of not being worth killing for years.
Content note: animal abuse, suicide is suggested. Parents of younger viewers may have to explain polio and its effects.
At just over an hour, this movie makes a good choice for a double feature. Perhaps with The Man They Could Not Hang?
