Bride Of The Gorilla (1951)

Bride Of The Gorilla is a hard movie to classify and place in a genre. I suppose you could try to lump it in with all those killer gorilla movies from the 30's but this one has very little gorilla suit action. It is almost more of a witch flick with voodoo and black magic.

Dina is a sexy dancing blond who has grown tired of her elderly husband and life in the jungle. She wastes away her days dancing in her low cut leopard print outfits or flirting with her husbands workers. Barney in particular strikes her attention. When Dina's husband learns that Barney is making a move for his hot young wife he fires him but Barney convinces Dina to run off with him. Instead of leaving Barney sucker punches his old boss in the guts and leaves him for snake food in the jungle. About this time Lon (The Wolf Man) Chaney Jr. shows up as a cop who wants to convict Barney for murder but with lack of evidence he has no case to build. However it just so happens that an old witch witnessed Barney kill his boss but instead of turning him in to the police she places a voodoo curse on the murdering scum. 

The curse turns Barney into a sort of wild beast by night who roams around in the jungle and kills animals. Its only a matter of time before the beast starts hunting humans as well. This thing is full of plot holes and it really doesn't make to much sense in the end. Barney appears normal to those around him but when he looks in a mirror or a lake he is gorilla. However natives of the jungle claim they have seen him in beast form terrorizing the jungle.

Bride Of The Gorilla may not be the best movie ever made but it runs just over an hour and still manages to be cheesily entertaining. From Lon Chaney Jr. to the bad gorilla suit it serves as nothing more then a time waster. Nothing overly memorable in here but you could do worse.

The Gorilla (1939)

The Gorilla is more of a comedy and less of a horror movie. Its more of a mystery then a thriller and its more of a Ritz Brothers movie then a Bela Lagosi movie. I have never heard of or seen the Ritz Brothers until this movie but I think I have a pretty good feel for who they are and how they act.
They are pretty silly guys and I personally find them funny but they over do their Abbot And Costello routine a bit to much. Or at least they do in The Gorilla.

Bela Lagosi plays a butler with some crazy Kung Fu moves. Okay maybe they are not so crazy but he does know some martial arts and uses them on the Ritz Brothers. Unfortunately Lagosi doesn't have all that much screen time because the film is using him as a red herring. They want us to believe that Lagosi is the killer known as The Gorilla. Of course in the end Lagosi turns out to be a good guy with some creepy mannerism's.
On the other hand The Gorilla does have a guy running around in a giant ape suit and these movies although never really good still appeal me. We have this one really cool scene where the killer Gorilla dangles a woman by her arm from a roof top. The Gorilla hates females and we know this because we are told over and over again. Another thing that I find completely ridiculous about this one is that the characters think the Gorilla can read and write. The Gorilla is supposed to be sending death threats through written letters and that's one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. If ya like dumb, The Gorilla might be a decent pass time but if watching another duo mimic Abbot and Costello might piss you off then stay far away.

The Ape (1940)

This one is from the same director who did the awful Bela Lugosi mad scientist anti German film The Black Dragons and Boris Karloff's Doomed To Die. This guy doesn't have a very good track record as far as I'm concerned and I hope I don't force myself to sit through anymore of his under par films anytime in the near future. I suppose I like this film slightly more then the other two I mentioned but that's just because it has a killer gorilla running around in it. 

Yet again Boris Karloff is the star and this time he plays a mad scientist named Dr. Bernard who's new serum is supposed to help cure Polio. The only problem is that the serum is a concoction of human spinal fluid and who knows what else. Bernard has been in trouble with the law before for his strange experiments on human cadavers spinal column. He continues at his goal and his life long ambition to help a girl get out of her wheel chair and walk again. The main problem with Karloff's character in The Ape is that he is too kind. Its hard to take him as a madman when he loves children and just wants to do good for mankind. On the other hand we have a giant killer gorilla on the loose. We first see The Ape in what is probably the best scene in the movie. A man is teasing the giant ape and poking him with a stick. When a passer by sees that The Ape is being abused he yells at the man to put the stick down. The man replies "He killed my father and I'm never gonna let him forget it". Of course the man in the monkey suit strangles the idiot with the stick and breaks out of his cage. The rest of the movie is down hill and pretty boring from here. Karloff ends up saving the day in his own way but of course everybody still refers to him as mad Dr. Bernard.
The Ape can easily be skipped you wouldn't be missing much. If only I had enough respect for myself to not sit through em all.