Dr. Renault's Secret

I have been watching horror movies for well over forty years but until very recently I had not been aware of this gem of a B-movie. Prolific and versatile actor J Carrol Naish made what I believe to be his horror debut with this, he plays an odd looking man "from Java", in actual fact he was once an ape but has been "humanised" by mad scientist George Zucco. This may sound ridiculous but I am happy to say that they made this concept quite convincing, helped no doubt by Naish giving a truly superb performance. The rest of the cast is also very good but one problem is that the film is set in France yet most of the accents are North American. Would have been more convincing to set it in Canada instead. With a modest 58 minutes running time the movie packs in quite a lot and moves along quickly, the camerawork is very good and the finale, set in a water mill, is excellent. Highly recommended.