Captive Wild Woman (1943)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Best movie ever!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Lesser Universal horror film that has a few things going for it despite its faults. John Carradine plays a mad scientist working on glandular research who comes up with the brilliant idea of transforming a female gorilla into a human. The result is Paula Dupree (Acquanetta), who gets a job with lion tamer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) because the animals seem afraid of her. Paula develops feelings for Fred and when she sees him embrace his girlfriend Beth (Evelyn Ankers), she "hulks out" and returns to ape form.Exotic-looking Acquanetta found herself cast in several roles like this. Not surprisingly, her career was very brief. She looks cute but doesn't say a line in the entire movie and is ultimately forgettable. Evelyn Ankers appears in one of her many girlfriend roles she did at the time. At least here she gets to be heroic and save her sister from becoming another ape woman. That's famous animal trainer Clyde Beatty in all of the lion taming stock footage. Amusingly, Milburn Stone was given this role because he resembled Beatty enough from behind to fit the stock footage. He's fine though he never was leading man material. That brings us to the real star of the movie, the great John Carradine. He's the best part as the nefarious Dr. Sigmund Walters, one of those wicked old horror movie scientists who dismisses pesky notions of morality and silly things like law to perform experiments on people in the pursuit of the great god Science. Carradine was no Karloff, Zucco, or Atwill but he could play roles like this in his sleep and quite well.As I said, this is one of the lesser Universal horrors and perhaps the first clunker of their second horror cycle. The plot could have been made to work with more focus on the villainous Carradine and maybe more screen time for the ape woman. But unfortunately someone had a jones on for Clyde Beatty and all that circus stuff so that goes on forever. Still, it's a short B mad scientist movie with someone in a gorilla suit and lots of stock footage of lions and tigers. I seriously doubt it will kill you to spend an hour on it.

1943's "Captive Wild Woman" was a first in many ways- Universal hired Ben Pivar to produce a series with a female monster, and signed veteran character player John Carradine with the intent of making him a 'horror star,' successful on both counts. Acquanetta also was introduced to the movie-going public, after small roles playing native girls in "Arabian Nights" and "Rhythm of the Islands," in the title role of Paula Dupree, the human result of glandular experiments conducted by Dr. Sigmund Walters (Carradine), injecting massive amounts of female sex hormones into a captured ape, plus the necessary brain transplant from the doctor's interfering nurse (Fay Helm). Acquanetta's wide-eyed performance is entirely mute, a wise decision considering the resulting sequel "Jungle Woman," quickly followed by another, "The Jungle Captive," where the character, now played by Vicky Lane, has again been rendered mute. Jack Pierce's makeup design was similar to The Wolf Man, appropriately ferocious but recognizably simian. The only weakness is a heavy reliance on stock animal footage originally filmed for Clyde Beatty's "The Big Cage" (1933), which in all probability was the main reason why this movie was made in the first place (roughly 20 minutes out of 60). John Carradine, in the first of a long line of mad scientists (over 40 years!), is initially quite charming, obviously a dedicated specialist, but once he sets up the theft of the ape, he reverts to type (his next would be Monogram's "Revenge of the Zombies"). Included in the SON OF SHOCK Universal package issued to television in the late 50s, "Captive Wild Woman" aired four times on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater: July 6 1974 (following 1967's "Mission Stardust"), May 29 1976 (following 1958's "The 39 Steps"), July 9 1977 (following 1967's "Satanik"), and Mar 12 1983 (solo).

Dr. Sigmund Walters (John Carradine) is a mad scientist (of course) who wants to put the glands of a human into a gorilla (for some reason). He has to kill to do it but it works and the gorilla turns into beautiful Paula Dupree (Acquanetta). She falls for lion tamer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) and gets angry when she realizes he has a girlfriend (Evelyn Ankers). She then begins to revert to her gorilla form...Even for a horror film this plot is pretty stupid but they pull it off. It moves quick, has good acting and some very exciting lion taming at a circus (even though they reuse the same shots multiple times). Stone is just OK but Carradine hams it up, Ankers looks beautiful and screams nicely and Acquanetta doesn't have a word of dialogue but looks incredible. A silly but very enjoyable Universal horror film. Not one of their classics but lots of fun.

Silly, forgotten Universal horror film, now found on DVD in a Best Buy exclusive set. This one concerns a mad scientist with Nazi undertones (John Carradine) who kidnaps a circus gorilla and turns her into a human being (played by Acquanetta). As a human, Acquanetta has an uncanny ability to control lions and tigers, and is thus employed at a local circus (the one whence she, as the gorilla, was kidnapped) to help big cat tamer Milburn Stone. If Milburn Stone looks familiar, it's because he became famous as "Doc" Adams on Gunsmoke. The movie is silly but fun, with Carradine hamming it up like he usually does. And, while Acquanetta does little acting, she has a hypnotic look with those giant eyes. Unfortunately, the film, like many of the Universal Horror movies, ends abruptly, with a weird narration about the Carradine character. The animal work is pretty stunning for the time, and the editing is mostly convincing that Stone and the big cats are in the cage simultaneously. I would credit director Dmytryk, who was far too competent to be directing this kind of crap (the next year he would do the wonderful Murder My Sweet). If you love animals, you might be sickened at what is done to them. Lions and tigers are thrown into a cage and forced to fight each other. The one big fight ends with a fire hose, and the tiger, at least, looked like it was badly injured. The film is completely forgotten nowadays, but it did spawn two sequels.