When Karloff signed his 6 picture Monogram contract in 1938, horror films were still in limbo, but by the time the fifth Wong movie was finished in the summer of 1940, the studio figured they should get their money's worth by putting him in THE APE instead of another Wong. Since exhibitors had been promised six Wong films, Keye Luke filled the bill instead, but Karloff was the main draw, leaving actually no market for a Chinese detective played by a real Chinese. Luke's characterization is more physical than Karloff's, especially in the way he traps the killer, an interesting oddity but still the weakest of the short lived series. COLONEL MARCH OF SCOTLAND YARD would be Karloff's next, and final, detective.