The Monster and the Ape (1945)
A famous scientist invents a humanoid robot (the titular "monster"), so a greedy rival scientist plans to steal it for use in his criminal plans. His henchmen often kidnap a trained gorilla (the titular "ape") from the zoo, to aid in the schemes.
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Please don't spend money on this.
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
I used to correspond with Carole Mathews who plays Babs Arnold and she once told a cute story at one of the film festivals she attended. She had two nieces, who were probably 6 or 7 years old, when the serial was released in 1945. They came home from the Saturday matinée crying about how "Aunt Carole" was going to die. When their mother calmed them down, they told her that they have seen the chapter where Carole is tied to a chair and put on the conveyor belt leading to a roaring furnace. She told them that Aunt Carole was an actress and that it was just a movie. If I'm not mistaken, I think she even had them talk to Carole on the phone to convince that she was not in any real danger. Cute story considering the fact that an actress's young nieces would really believe what they saw on the screen
When I was thirteen years old, I doted on this serial, waiting anxiously for Saturday afternoon to devour the next episode, and playing out the episodes with my friends. I am now 69,but I remember the excellent acting of Ralph Morgan and George Macready. The plot and adventures were fun. The monster is a robot. Macready is a king of crime who wants to use the robot for evil. The cliffhangers were mostly laughable cheats. In one episode you see a stunned Robert Lowery on a moving track go through the doors of a crematorium furnace. In the next, he jumps off before he gets to the doors. Aside from that, lots of fun.