El gran bruto

Back in 1922 The Hairy Ape premiered on Broadway and in the role played now by William Bendix, Louis Wolheim starred in the title role. It only had a run of about 3 months so it was not a big commercial success for Eugene O'Neil. Still even second rung O'Neil is a lot better than most.

But if you expect to see much of O'Neil here you will be disappointed. In fact you'll be down right discouraged when you see that O'Neil's play has been turned into a cut rate version of Of Mice And Men. Maybe John Steinbeck should have sued.

Knowing that Wolheim originated the role of the ship's stoker I can see why Bendix was cast. He certainly played a lot of blue collar types in his career. And in a straight dramatic no deviation production of The Hairy Ape he might very well have given an outstanding performance. He's not bad in this film.

All the social commentary of what O'Neil was trying to say about the failures of capitalism and the inability of socialism to provide a meaningful alternative are missing. The film is also updated to provide references to World War II, the ship is part of a convoy. What you're left with is the fact that some are born richer and better looking than others and never the twain shall mix.

Bendix as a stoker is a man happy with his lot and in truth it's the guys who are shoveling coal into the ship's furnace that do make her go, up on top the rest just steer. And it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Susan Hayward plays a rich society bitch who is teasing ship's officer John Loder for a little amusement even though her best friend and traveling companion Dorothy Comingore is in love with him. One day she wanders into the engine room and is so repelled by the dirty, sweaty, hairy Bendix that she tags on him the title of the film.

It bothers Bendix that this is how the world might see him even coming from this shallow society queen. Like Lennie from Of Mice And Men he's both repellent and pitiable. Unlike him he very well knows his own strength.

For what we get here both Bendix and Hayward deliver some fine performances. But if you want to see fine film productions of Eugene O'Neil I would check out The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Only the most ardent fans of the man best known to the nostalgia-minded as the title character in the radio/TV sitcom THE LIFE OF RILEY have any business viewing this weak Eugene O'Neill adaptation. The impact of its contemplative dialogue is drastically lessened by static characters and a frustratingly implausible ending. For example, are we to believe that Bendix can get away with breaking into Susan Hayward's apartment tote her around in his arms while leering perversely at her and dump her on the sofa with the close-up clearly showing she will doubtlessly be traumatized for life by this experience and then have the film end with him yucking it up with his fellow coal stokers? This damaging flaw could have easily been replaced by a complete plot rearrangement in which Bendix softens Hayward's callous snobbishness through a comically developed friendship/romance with her. Instead all we get are 90 minutes of Bendix grunting and leering in one of the most unsatisfying and disturbingly sexist pictures to come out of the Second World War.

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.

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?!

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.