The Hairy Ape

Originally, "The Hairy Ape" was a play by Eugene O'Neill that was set in the 1920s. However, in this Hollywood version, it's set during WWII (giving it a patriotic flair) and the original tragic ending was replaced by a happy one!

When the film begins, Hank (William Bendix) is a merchant sailor who acts an awful lot like Popeye. He's big on fighting and drinking and working--and not much else. However, when a dreadfully spoiled and awful rich woman comes aboard the ship where he serves, she sees his ugly mug and she calls him a 'hairy ape'. This obnoxious comment, surprisingly, causes an existential crisis in Hank and he spends the rest of the film trying to figure out who he is...and whether or not he really is just a hairy ape.

As I mentioned above, the ending was changed and so all the shock and sting of the original play is gone. This makes the story quite tepid and along with surviving copies being lousy, this makes the film one that you could just as soon skip. Not terrible but I sure want to see a version that sticks closer to the original.

By the way, at the beginning of the film, they are in Portugal. So why are so many folks actually speaking Spanish?!

Always liked Susan Hayward,(Mildred Douglas) who played the role of a gold digger, who would use men to her own advantage, get what she wanted and dump all the guys with a swift kick you know where. Mildred Douglas has to sail on a ship and meets up with Hank Smith,(William Bendix) a steam room coal shoveler who is hairy and she gets one look at him aboard ship and calls him a Hairy Ape. This comment brings a great deal of rage to Hank and Mildred becomes very fearful of this person and can hardly sleep at night. Hank even goes to a traveling Circus and views a large Ape in his cage and watches the Ape crush a rubber tire like it was a pretzel stick and gets the idea that he is going to smash Mildred's body just like the Ape was doing to the tire. There is a surprise ending to a rather entertaining 1944 film.

Eugene O'Neill's play is used only as a frame for this production, with even the name of the eponymous lead being changed, and the action brought forward in time into the Second World (U-Boat) War period, wherein are added additional sub-plots, characters and dialogue not even remotely descended from the original. It is notable, therefore, that O'Neill's powerful brand of Expressionism is incorporated within the making of this work, by director Alfred Santell, displaying the strongest creative impulses in his career, by the splendid cinematographer Lucien Andriot, as well as production and art designer James Sullivan, and others. The result is a cultural hybrid, geared partially to please wartime audiences, but marked by the finest performance in the career of William Bendix; a singularly consistent and vicious interpretation by Susan Hayward; and by fine work from always reliable Dorothy Comingore and Roman Bohnen - the few scenes that Bendix and Hayward share are incandescent and directed brilliantly by Santell.

Hank (William Bendix) is a coal stoker on a ship that travels between New York and Lisbon. He is brutish, shouts a lot and enjoys fighting. When he has an encounter with Mildred (Susan Hayward) who calls him a "Hairy Ape", he is so enraged that he wants to square things with her. They land at New York and Hank traces her and confronts her in her apartment. Can they resolve their differences?

The film is much better in the second half as we see more from Susan Hayward's character. She takes the acting honours in the film. The scenes between her and Bendix are emotionally charged and she portrays an unlikeable wealthy spoilt brat very convincingly. Dorothy Comingore is also good as her friend Helen, who finally abandons her after Mildred's appalling treatment of her friend, Tony (John Loder). Bendix is good in the lead role but this film is ultimately let down by the noise levels. The shouty dialogue is very annoying and the film is occasionally inaudible because of the shouting. Thank goodness for the scenes with Hayward where we can involve ourselves with the dialogue more clearly. The film starts badly with lots of shouting and a fight in a bar that goes on for far too long. Unfortunately, half of the film is delivered in this intrusive way, so it's ultimately just not very good.

I dare anyone who watches this film to take his or her eyes off William Bendix even for a moment. For anyone who remembers him as the bumbling sidekick in those old war movies and the miscast role as Babe Ruth and humorous radio's Life of Riley - will be amazed at this multifaceted role as the stevedore shoveling coal who ends up showing more character in his little finger than all the rest. Why he was not even nominated for Best Actor category must have been a disappointment. I read somewhere Eugene O'Neill disliked the movie (maybe because it had a happy ending!)

I caught this film on channel 13 wee hours on a Sunday morning.