The Jungle Captive

1944's "The Jungle Captive" concluded Universal's Paula Dupree trilogy, a cut above the second, "Jungle Woman," neither as good as "Captive Wild Woman." Of the three, only "Jungle Woman" was not included in the 1958 Son of Shock television package, all three finally gathered together in MCA's massive 1972 collection 77 Horror Greats. "The Jungle Captive" made two appearances on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater (9 years apart), unencumbered by the interminable stock animal footage that cluttered up previous entries, here a more straightforward mad scientist endeavor with Otto Kruger as pathologist Stendahl, whose assistant, billed in the ads as 'Moloch the Brute,' is played by Rondo Hatton, still a year away from his famous Creeper series (both produced by Ben Pivar). With Acquanetta having departed Universal, the role of Paula Dupree now went to unknown actress Vicky Lane, who had an even shorter career than her predecessor, having completed just one featured role before this, which ended up her final film. At least The Ape Woman (now mute again, unlike in "Jungle Woman") gets to briefly walk around in full bestial Jack Pierce makeup (lovely Vicky also gets a more skimpy wardrobe than Acquanetta, who wore less only for the posters). Aside from the catatonic Paula no other characters return, though the doctors played by John Carradine and J. Carrol Naish both get a mention; with a helpless heroine in Amelita Ward, hapless hero in Phil Brown, plus the absence of the 'Venezuelan Volcano,' the short series comes to a merciful end in a pointless sequel filled with padding that offers nothing but running time until the painfully predictable climax. Rondo's famous features and gravelly voice at least enjoy what must have been his largest role yet, Universal pleased enough to move forward with three more starring vehicles in 1945.

The third in Universal's dismal Ape Woman series. Perhaps it is a step up from the awful second movie, Jungle Woman, but it's nothing to write home about on its own. This one has mad scientist Otto Kruger trying to bring the Ape Woman back to life, even at the expense of his pretty female lab assistant. Excitement most definitely does not follow.

Kruger's always fun to watch but he gets little help here. The Ape Woman is now played by Vicky Lane, replacing the attractive but talentless Acquanetta. Ms. Lane spends about half of the movie comatose. When she does wake up, there's only one brief scene with the monster makeup on. Undoubtedly most monster fans will be disappointed at how little "ape" there is in an Ape Woman movie. The makeup used is pretty cool, however. It looks similar to the later makeup used on Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. Rondo Hatton gets one of his better roles here as Kruger's henchman Moloch. He's still a terrible actor but the part is less exploitative than some of his other roles. Jerome Cowan plays the police inspector investigating it all and has a couple of amusing moments. The tacked-on romance between Don Young and Amelita Ward (the future Mrs. Leo Gorcey) is nauseating but thankfully they're separated for most of the film.

Despite the short runtime, the movie is padded with pointless little scenes that appear to be designed solely to fill five minutes here and there. It's one of those movies that probably should have been over in twenty or thirty minutes. If you're a Universal completist, give it a look. For everyone else, it depends on how valuable your time is. I doubt this is going to become anyone's favorite.

This is the third and final film in Universal's 'Ape Woman' series, which began with the entertainingly goofy Captive Wild Woman (1943), that film followed the year after by the dull and repetitive Jungle Woman. The Jungle Captive is a slight return to form for the series thanks to the fact that it actually delivers a mad scientist and an ape-woman, both of which were conspicuous by their absence in the second film. Otto Kruger is particularly entertaining as loopy Dr. Stendahl, who takes his experiments on reviving dead animals to the next level by operating on the dead body of Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman (Vicky Lane); it's a performance to rival the greats of the mad scientist sub-genre - Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, George Zucco and Boris Karloff.

In order for his operation to be a success, Stendahl needs to perform a blood transfusion, and uses his pretty assistant Ann Forrester (Amelita Ward) as the unwilling donor; this troubles the doctor's hulking henchman Moloch (Rondo Hatton), who has feelings for the girl. After reviving the ape-woman, and successfully transforming it into Paula Dupree, it becomes apparent to Stendahl that his subject's brain is sub-normal. The scientist decides that the answer is to do a switcheroo with Ann's brain; meanwhile, Ann's fiance Don (Phil Brown, Uncle Owen from Star Wars) is frantically searching for his missing girlfriend.

While the The Jungle Captive admittedly treads very familiar ground, fans of the genre will no doubt appreciate the fact that it delivers precisely what is required to be a fun time.

6/10.

As in the first movie in this series, Captive Wild Woman, we're introduced to an apparently kind man who is apparently pursuing beneficial medical research. As in that movie, we just as quickly find out he is a mad genius, with little regard for human life.

The movie quickly picks up where the second on the series left off, where Paula, the Ape Woman was in a morgue. Mr. Stendahl (the end credits in the copy I viewed named him Dr. Stendahl, but he is usually called Mister) has developed a process for bringing back life to the dead through blood transfusions and electricity. Supposedly, he wants to bring back life to Paula because she's a step up from the rabbits he had been using, but avoids the ethical problems of using a human subject. Since he doesn't care, however, if people die (his servant Moloch kills a man while stealing Paula), it's unclear why he doesn't simply revive a dead human body, or kill a human, and then revive them.

After he brings Paula back to life, she is still in her ape-woman form. Unlike in the second film Jungle Woman, where she could change back and forth between ape-woman and woman, in this film (as in the 1st) she requires human blood and hormones to appear as a woman. To become more human, she would require a transplanted cerebrum from a human, again as in the first. In order to learn how to turn Paula into a human, Stendahl had to have Moloch steal the files of Dr. Walters (from the 1st film) from the office of Dr. Fletcher (from the 2nd film). Apart from these references to the earlier films, no one from those films returns to this one; the only recurring character is Paula herself, and she is played by a different actress. There does not seem to be any footage used from the previous films, except perhaps a short close-up of Paula's hand transforming while she is strapped to a table. There was a shot like that in the first film, but they may have just re-created it.

Stendahl's reasoning for wanting to turn Paula into a human after reviving her is just as questionable as his reasoning for wanting to revive her. He thinks turning her into a woman would prove he could bring a human back to life. It would seem to me that it would only prove he could turn an ape-woman into a human, or at any rate, something like a human.

People seem divided as to whether the second or third film is the worst of the three, and I'm not sure myself. They're all decent, at least, but there is no question the first was the best of them.

Third and last entry in the series, deemed the worst (rated BOMB in the "Leonard Maltin Film Guide") but actually slightly superior to its predecessor due, for one thing, to its having a proper plot line (rather than a rehashed one) and the fact that the mad scientist (even if he is stubbornly referred to as "Mr." Stendhal throughout!) this time around is just that. Indeed, here too, the mainstay (apart, that is, from the standard 'house style' for this type of fare) is Otto Kruger's central performance (the Ape Woman herself, now played by Vicki Lane instead of Acquanetta and reverting once more to being a mute, is certainly not the protagonist in this case!).

Kruger is involved in the revivification of small animals but is keen to progress on to larger ones – with his ultimate goal, of course, being Man himself; since the title creature (a convenient and somewhat lazy amalgam of the earlier 'episodes' in the franchise) is a hybrid, he knows he will be almost there if he manages to resuscitate her. The problem is that, once she has assumed human form yet again (having made imposing henchman Rondo Hatton steal the necessary files from the home of the doctor played by J. Carroll Naish in JUNGLE WOMAN {1944}, the process having actually been laid down by John Carradine in CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN {1943} – neither of these actors, however, put in 'unofficial' appearance and, thankfully, we are also spared the circus stock footage that made-up a sizable amount of the earlier films' running-time), it is discovered that she has suffered brain damage and he plans to replace it with that of his own female aide. Why the doctor, certainly among the coldest of his ilk, does not simply abduct another girl, when he would invariably have benefited from the heroine's presence by his side rather than as a laboratory subject, is anybody's guess…but, then, the latter is vehemently against her superior's intention to play God so, in this way, he would be removing the threat to his Great Experiment, were it not for the fact that, through Hatton's sloppiness, the Police – in the guise of a bemused Jerome Cowan – are already on his trail, and so is the girl's fiancé, yet another assistant!

The busy finale has hero and heroine taking advantage of the Ape Woman's disappearance to escape Kruger and Hatton's clutches, only for the three to be recaptured after a short while in one fell swoop. Needless to say, however, the villain is not allowed to go through with the operation as Hatton, enamored of the leading lady (which Kruger puts down by referring to his "hardly Casanova" looks, the actor having been stricken with the deforming affliction acromegaly, and to add salt to the wound suggests that the Jungle Captive is "more in your line"!), turns on Stendhal at the instigation of the girl's boyfriend. The doctor shoots his thug dead, Lane metamorphoses into monster and cuts free of her straps and, just as she is about to incongruously attack her 'donor', Cowan appears on the premises to intervene. For the record, director Young, who had the classic swashbuckler THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1934), an Alexander Korda production, on his resume' was now reduced, for whatever reason, to helming the lowliest of Universal Horrors – though, to be fair, he sure made an entertaining job of it!