As I was reading Tom Weaver's cool book Poverty Row Horrors (a book of film essays) last night, it dawned on me that I've never really sat down and watched 1943's The Ape Man (at least not since I was a kid).
Remembering that I had a copy of the film on a Bela Lugosi multi-film DVD, I decided to pop it in. This Monogram Films cheapie turned out to be a lot of fun.....
It was amazing to me that, like Lugosi's The Devil Bat (1941), many of the images in the film triggered distant memories of childhood nightmares.
(The gorilla behind the bars of his cage (and later escaping during the climax), the secret passage behind the fireplace, Bela and the gorilla skulking through the shadows together, etc...)....
I totally forgot (or just didn't realize) that the great Wallace Ford was in the picture! I LOVED him in The Mummy's Hand (1940), and here he seems to play the same type of character. He's very funny and brings a lot of life into this flick....
I thought the ending scenes were actually pretty exciting (when Bela brings the girl to his secret lab and the gorilla escapes, fighting Bela to the death).....
The gorilla stalking the girl while Ford tries desperately to open the secret passageway door reminded me of that horrable dream we all have where something is chasing you and you're running away in slow motion.....
Monogram Pictures' The Ape Man was a lot of fun last night!
Thank you,
Doug
Remembering that I had a copy of the film on a Bela Lugosi multi-film DVD, I decided to pop it in. This Monogram Films cheapie turned out to be a lot of fun.....
It was amazing to me that, like Lugosi's The Devil Bat (1941), many of the images in the film triggered distant memories of childhood nightmares.
(The gorilla behind the bars of his cage (and later escaping during the climax), the secret passage behind the fireplace, Bela and the gorilla skulking through the shadows together, etc...)....
I totally forgot (or just didn't realize) that the great Wallace Ford was in the picture! I LOVED him in The Mummy's Hand (1940), and here he seems to play the same type of character. He's very funny and brings a lot of life into this flick....
I thought the ending scenes were actually pretty exciting (when Bela brings the girl to his secret lab and the gorilla escapes, fighting Bela to the death).....
The gorilla stalking the girl while Ford tries desperately to open the secret passageway door reminded me of that horrable dream we all have where something is chasing you and you're running away in slow motion.....
Monogram Pictures' The Ape Man was a lot of fun last night!
Thank you,
Doug
