Bride of the Gorilla

Barney Chavez (Burr) is in-love with Mrs. Dina Van Gelder (Payton) but she is married to his employer. Chavez ends up killing the employer but is seen by a voodoo priestess who casts a spell, a curse, on him that turns him into a murderous Gorilla. Barney and Dina end up married but with lots of problems. Police Commissioner Taro (Chaney) is on the trail to find out the answers. The question is: Is Chavez' transformation into a Gorilla real or all in his mind.

Raymond Burr is good in this role - convincing, Barbra Payton does well as a woman tormented, Lon Chaney Jr makes a good police commissioner - so the film is overall fun to watch.

This film is not nearly as bad as the critics say it is - it's actually interesting. There are some intense moments and it's a good ending. If you like movies where one of the characters is transformed into a creature and film concerning voodoo then you might like 'Bride of the Gorilla'.

6.5/10

O.K., so this is not a critical classic. In fact, it's oddball, low-budget nonsense. But you have to admit, it's great fun to watch. It's so strange that it forces you to watch it to the very end, just so you can be sure you are not making an error about the preposterous plot you're seeing. It's campy madness and I'de recommend it to anyone interested in the obscure. You will find yourself wondering: How did they ever get Raymond Burr to take such a role?

Typical and run-of-the-mill monster movie in the Fifties style. Very mediocre terror movie with some scenes fun to watch . On a remote and deep location, in a South American jungle rubber plantation , a foreman called Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) spends much time dodging working and visiting the boss' (Paul Cavanaugh) wife , Dina Van Gelder (Barbara Payton) , whom he tells he would like to take away from her husband. When her hubby , the chief Klass Von Gelder dies from suspicious circumstances Barney deceives his jealous lover Larina (Carol Varga) but the housemaid Larina Gisela Werbisek) uses weird magic to cast a spell on Barney , who's plagued by a strange voodoo curse . Barney starts transforming before his own eyes into a Gorilla and family physician Dr. Viet (Tom Conway) sees that the man is laboring under something he believes is poison . Then an enormous being on the loose begins to become evil and escapes around the lush jungle , killing here and there . When investigating the rampage of an ancient and mythological being called Sukara , local constable Taro (Lon Chaney, Jr.) realizes that Barney is missing at night coinciding with ravaging animal killings on the jungle and he and Dr. Viet work to get to the bottom of the mystery . Along the way, Barney suffers long lapses of memory loss, and continues to see himself as a Gorilla causing wreak havoc . Her clothes torn away, screaming in terror!.Her marriage vows were more than fulfilled!.A Blonde Beauty and a Savage Beast... alone in the Jungle!

Routine and regular monster movie about habitual issue concerning an enormous , unfriendly , stalking and very anger gorilla. This is a cheap , humdrum and monotonous production, written director Curt Siodmak himself , being spoiled by suffering from lousy interpretations and an embarrassing lack of imagination . Fakey special effects might have been decent in the Fifties or Sixties , but they just don't cut it today. T Here only stands out Raymond Burr who travels to jungle where he meets a wife , a plantation and a curse in this African twist on the werwolf legend , replacing him with a gorilla . In fact , there appears Lon Chaney Jr ,though he doesn't takes his Wolf Man usual role , but a local police officer on the trail a strange creature on the loose . Raymond Burr physical changes are amusing to watch , while turning nightly into a rampaging gorilla . And gorgeous Barbara Payton (who acted in important films as ¨Dallas¨, ¨Only the valiant¨, ¨Drums in the Deep South¨, ¨Kiss Tomorrow goodbye¨, ¨The Great Jesse James Raid¨) , she performed one of the saddest stories from dark chronicle Hollywood . Attractive blonde sexpot and her life eventually disintegrated , mostly for her own doings . She was the subject of a spread in Confidential Magazine in the early 1950s when then fiancé Franchot Tone allegedly caught in bed with Guy Madison . Tone later married her , despite of the indiscretion , in addition she had a tempestuous relationship with Tom Neal . But happened the downfall , her once enticing countenance now blotchy and once sensational figure now bloated , Barbara sank deeper into the bottle and had several brushes with law , among them public boozy , bad checks and ultimate prostitution . The 39 years former star was found on the bathroom floor . They're well accompanied by a nice secondary cast , such as : Tom Conway, Lon Chaney, Paul Cavanagh, Gisela Werbisek , Carol Varga and Woody Strode.

The motion picture was badly directed by exiled writer/filmmaker German Curt Siodmak . One of Siodmak's first film-writing assignments was the screenplay for the German sci-fi picture "Floating Platform 1 Does Not Answer", based on his own novel. Curt and brother Robert Siodmak started in the film business writing German inter-titles for Mack Sennett comedies. In 1928 he wrote scripts for movies for the first time; his idea for the script for People on Sunday (1930) constituted the first directorial success for his brother Robert Siodmak. Compelled to leave Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took power, Siodmak went to work as a screenwriter in England and then moved to Hollywood in 1937. He got a job at Universal through his director-friend Joe May, helping write the script for May's The Invisible Man Returns (1940) . It was at Universal where Siodmak became identified with science-fiction and horror; especially with movies like The invisible women (1940) and The wolf Man (1941). Landed a worldwide success with his novel "Donovan's Brain" in 1942, which was filmed four times over the next 20 years. Siodmak directed a few films such as : Ski Fever , The Devil's Messenger , Demon Street , Tales of Frankenstein , Love Slaves of the Amazons , Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, The magnetic monster. His final significant genre credit was for Terence Fisher's German production Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace . Bride of the Gorilla(1951) rating : 4.5/10 . Below average.

In my movie reference books this movie is variously described as a "bomb" or recommended as a suitable choice for inclusion in the 100 worst movies of all time. Nevertheless, I have no qualms in saying that it is not that bad, and was quite happy to sit for 65 minutes (the short running time probably helps) and see it through until the end.

To begin with Curt Siodmak's story is interesting enough (as are many of his screen writing efforts), and has more than a touch of complex moral ambiguity. His direction here however has very little flair and tends to be on the perfunctory side. The low budget is a major constraint, and for the most part the film tends to be on the flat side visually, with unimpressive jungle scenes and minimal interior set pieces of the kind typical for a low budget production.

The cast (described in one reference book as 4 non-actors) are actually all competent, and Raymond Burr, in fact, is quite good in the part, managing to impart a human dimension to what could have been merely an unsympathetic villain. In fact it is interesting to actually analyse how much of the films dramatic load actually rests on his shoulders.

The cast and crew of this cheap horror potboiler are more interesting than anything that occurs throughout the movie itself; we have Barbara Payton, Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney Jr., Tom Conway, Paul Cavanaugh and Woody Strode in front of the camera and writer-director Curt Siodmak, cinematographer Charles Van Enger, editorial supervisor Francis D. Lyon and production assistant Herman Cohen behind it. The ill-fated Payton turns the head of virtually every male she comes in contact with deep in the African jungle where she lives on husband Cavanaugh's plantation: doctor Conway secretly desires her while hot-headed foreman Burr's approach is, quite literally, more hands-on. On the other hand, Chaney is (surprisingly enough) the laid-back but knowing authoritarian figure and Strode is a native police official. The plot is very simple but, frankly, does not make a whole lot of sense: after a particularly agitated dinner complete with thunderstorm, Burr and Cavanaugh (art imitating life – more on that later) come to blows in the garden over their affection for Payton and, conveniently for Burr, a large snake just happens to be crawling near where Cavanaugh hits the ground! Witnessing the event from behind the bushes, Payton's enigmatic maid (a native witch, no less), for some inexplicable reason, puts a curse on Burr (who has in the meantime married Payton) that periodically turns him into a gorilla...starting from his very wedding day (when his hand briefly turns hirsute)! Consequently, Burr takes to losing himself in the jungle for days on end – even if the ape creature itself is barely glimpsed throughout the film. It must be said, however, that the version that I watched ran for just 56 minutes when the 'official' length is elsewhere given as either 66, 70 or 76!! Therefore, the film feels understandably rushed and disjointed if never less than campily enjoyable as it culminates in the gorilla's subjectively-shot chasing of Payton in the jungle, with the former being itself pursued by the gun-toting Chaney and Conway. To get back to the film's tragic blonde leading lady for a minute: after a promising start in movies next to such Hollywood legends as James Cagney and Gary Cooper – in, respectively, KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE and DALLAS (both 1950) – her career soon nose-dived into B (and lesser) grade territory thanks to her own 'colorful' off-screen antics: her most notorious misdemeanor was being the cause of a much-publicized bar-room brawl between suave husband Franchot Tone and brutish former lover Tom Neal which ended with the former in a coma and Payton actually deserting him for the latter shortly thereafter!! But that was not all: nymphomaniac Payton also boasted that Woody Strode was among her conquests (a controversial issue at the time); short-lived husband Tone, having caught Payton's infidelities on camera, spread the damning photographic evidence around Hollywood and this virtually served to end her days as a starlet – her last film appearance being Edgar G. Ulmer's MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955) which I happen to have in my "Unwatched Movies" pile. The last 12 years of her tumultuous life were spent on Skid Row in the throes of booze, drugs, prostitution, beatings, arrests and even a stabbing – before, eventually, dying in 1967 in her parents' home at the young age of 39!