The Beast of Borneo

An adventurer takes a mad scientist on an expedition into the jungles of Borneo. They're searching for an orangutan for the scientist's weird experiments. Love blooms among both natives and European types accompanied by incessant jungle drums.

When an orangutan is eventually captured, it crushes a native, making a sound like an old man gargling mashed potatoes.

The drums bang on, the natives flee, and the scientist tries to use a serum on the orang with horrific results.

Sort of.

THE BEAST OF BORNEO is a fairly entertaining jungle epic. Kudos for using actual orangutans instead of humans in moth-eaten go-rilla suits!...

In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, there were an awful lot of jungle films. Most of these were pretty dreadful things--full of grainy stock footage which often showed animals from various continents tossed together. Just yesterday, I watched a Jungle Jim movie--with clips of Asian tigers and elephants mixed with African lions, elephants and rhinos! The films were mostly very sloppy and dumb. However, I was very pleasantly surprised when I watched "Beast of Borneo". I have no idea where it was filmed but it sure looked like Borneo. The natives looked like they could have been from there and the film used actual orangutans--and none of the extraneous footage of other animals. As for the story, it was pretty good. A rather unsavory Russian scientist wants to prove some theory and so he heads with his pretty American assistant to the jungle to find an adult orangutan. This nutty doctor tells his American guide that he has no desire to hurt the animal--but naturally, this is a lie. What's next? See the film for yourself.

I am not saying that "The Beast of Borneo" is a great film--just that it is great compared to the typical crappy jungle film. The film gets a lot of credit for the look of the wild and its use of stock footage. However, the story itself is surprisingly low in energy--even when the big climax occurs. An interesting but not terribly exciting film. Worth a look.

Eugene Sigaloff needs to apes to experiment on, so he and secretary Mae Stuart head to Borneo. The only guide they can find is John Preston. He is not going to help them get apes for vivisection, but Miss Stuart remembers she is a woman, announces she is going to put on a skirt, and the next thing you know, she and the two men are off in the jungle looking for orangutans.

There's a story here, the actors are ok, and apparently writer-director-producer Harry Garson got his hands on some travelogue footage to cut into the story. However, it's such an obviously cheap and studio-bound effort, that it seems ridiculous every chance it gets. One of the things that struck me is that the fearsome cry of the adult orangutan sounds like a constipated man, and every time they get into trouble, a seemingly random event gets them out. The result is bad, but somehow not as bad as it seems.

The Beast Of Borneo is a poverty row studio film concerning a scientist in the Dr. Moreau tradition played by Eugene Sigaliff who travels to Borneo for a wild orangutan to use in his experiments. He and girl Friday Mae Stuart seek out John Preston who is a character modeled after Frank Buck who refuses at first. But the Dutch commissioner Alexander Schomberg calls in a favor. Besides Preston kind of likes Stuart.

Of course it doesn't take too long to see who the real Beast Of Borneo is.

Some fly by night outfit used some real jungle footage with some truly bad studio interpolations by some very lousy actors. One has only to compare it with the original Dr. Moreau film and what Charles Laughton did in that.

Believe me folks this one is from hunger.

Beast of Borneo, The (1934)

* (out of 4)

A mad scientist needs certain animals to continue his experiments so he travels to a jungle to locate them including one half man, half ape creature. This low budget shockers only real horror element is the scientist and the man in the ape suit. Even at 63-minutes this thing is deadly dull and lifeless without one thing going for it. The man in the ape suit gets several laughs, which presents this from being a total waste of time.

Hard to find but that might be a good thing.