Balaoo

I've long been intrigued about Balaoo, The Demon Baboon, since seeing the poster for the film in Denis Gifford's 1973 book A Pictorial History of Horror Movies: it depicts a weird ape-like creature swinging on a tree branch to attack an unsuspecting young woman.

To my knowledge, less than five minutes of this early French horror film still exist; from the footage that I have seen (available to watch on YouTube), I think it's highly unlikely that the film lived up to the disturbing image on the poster, the 'demon baboon' actually played by a regular looking man (Lucien Bataille), who admittedly swings down from trees, but it's just not the same.

There are several French caption cards which help explain what is happening; I used Google Translate to get the gist of things...

Mr. Coriolis gives his monkey the external appearance of a man, whom he names Balaoo.

Balaoo takes a fancy to Coriolis's niece.

The ape-man's natural instincts to steal eggs get him a kick up the butt by a farmer.

Balaoo sows terror in the village.

Everywhere, mysterious things are happening.

Guessing that Balaoo is the cause, Mr. Coriolis admonishes him very severely.

Scared, Balaoo flees on the back of a train.

Mr. Coriolis is annoyed to learn that Balaoo has disappeared and is in Lugano, Switzerland, where he begins his exploits again.

The peasant women run to complain to the Mayor.

In Lugano, in Ticino, a strange animal is sowing terror in the countryside, scaring women.

I hope that helps!