From the Shelf: The Ape (1940, William Nigh)
Acquired: Given to me by my mother a number of years ago.
Seen before?: Once - February 15th, 2005.
I didn’t have much to say the first time around, and I don’t have much to add to that not-much. This is a B-movie programmer of the worst kind, the kind that is neither interesting nor incompetent enough to be memorable. It’s literally film as product, cranked out like a sausage and tossed out to an audience that wasn’t there to see it but wanted their money’s worth for the day.
The only one working beyond basic workmanship, as was true for many a film in which he appeared, is the great Boris Karloff, who seems to be doing all he can to invest his stock character (the obsessed mad scientist) with soul and gravitas. Karloff’s character is easily the most noble in the film; though he commits evil deeds, he does them in service of a worthy cause (curing paralysis), and everyone he sins against is pictured as loathsome wastes of breath. I’d think the screenwriter was trying to make a point about the slippery morality of working for the greater good if the whole of the film wasn’t so threadbare; instead, I suspect he was typing pages five minutes prior to their filming.
Up next: The river and death…
