Captive Wild Woman (1943)

Perfect cast and a good story

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Captive Wild Woman" is a fun programmer from Universal. It's mostly notable for its exciting animal sequences, supervised by a man named Clyde Beatty (whose name is dropped in the script). John Carradine stars as a surgeon making a name for himself with his supposedly miraculous operations. Circus secretary Beth Colman (Evelyn Ankers) brings her younger sister (Martha Vickers) to Carradines' sanatorium for treatment, not knowing he's actually your typical mad scientist, obsessively transferring glands from one animal to another. He acquires the circus' new ape, Cheela (played by Ray Corrigan), and succeeds at transforming the gorilla into a stunningly sexy young woman (Acquanetta).A wonderful cast all around also helps make this watchable: Milburn Stone is amiable as trainer Fred Mason, Lloyd Corrigan frets well as circus owner John Whipple, Fay Helm makes the most of her brief screen time as a worried nurse, and Paul Fix is a good drunken slime ball as ousted circus employee Gruen. Carradine refrains from hamming it up too much, delivering an enjoyable villainous performance. As you can see, he has no problem resorting to murder when he has to. Beatty doubles Stone for the long shots. And Turhan Bey recites the ending narration!Handled in capable fashion by director Edward Dmytryk, this B monster picture is good, straightforward entertainment that leads to a thrilling climax.Six out of 10.

The only reason that Captive Wild Woman is remembered today is for being one of the training films of Edward Dmytryk. We all have to start somewhere and stuff like this is where Dmytryk learned his craft. The following year he entered A list directors with Murder My Sweet so it might have been worth it.As a film subject for one of Svengoolie's horror fests it's perfect. For fans of camp horror films what's better than John Carradine trying to make himself a woman out of a gorilla. The mild mannered Carradine as director of an insane asylum has the perfect cover for his ghoulish experiments where an ordinary ape by planting a few human glands from a female turns into the sultry Acquanetta. Now imagine if Carradine was gay, he'd get a male gorilla and try for Tyrone Power.Milburn Stone is in the cast as a Clyde Beatty like lion tamer and that's Beatty in long and rear projection shots. Now having seen Beatty in films all I can say is that he was a great lion tamer as an actor. Acquanetta soothes even the savagest beast around him, but she gets jealous when Stone pays more attention to Evelyn Ankers and those gorilla instincts return.This one is so bad it's one of the biggest hoots out there. My only question is how did Bela Lugosi miss being the mad scientist?

1943's "Captive Wild Woman" was a first in many ways- Universal hired Ben Pivar to produce a series with a female monster, and signed veteran character player John Carradine with the intent of making him a 'horror star,' successful on both counts. Acquanetta also was introduced to the movie-going public, after small roles playing native girls in "Arabian Nights" and "Rhythm of the Islands," in the title role of Paula Dupree, the human result of glandular experiments conducted by Dr. Sigmund Walters (Carradine), injecting massive amounts of female sex hormones into a captured ape, plus the necessary brain transplant from the doctor's interfering nurse (Fay Helm). Acquanetta's wide-eyed performance is entirely mute, a wise decision considering the resulting sequel "Jungle Woman," quickly followed by another, "The Jungle Captive," where the character, now played by Vicky Lane, has again been rendered mute. Jack Pierce's makeup design was similar to The Wolf Man, appropriately ferocious but recognizably simian. The only weakness is a heavy reliance on stock animal footage originally filmed for Clyde Beatty's "The Big Cage" (1933), which in all probability was the main reason why this movie was made in the first place (roughly 20 minutes out of 60). John Carradine, in the first of a long line of mad scientists (over 40 years!), is initially quite charming, obviously a dedicated specialist, but once he sets up the theft of the ape, he reverts to type (his next would be Monogram's "Revenge of the Zombies"). Included in the SON OF SHOCK Universal package issued to television in the late 50s, "Captive Wild Woman" aired four times on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater: July 6 1974 (following 1967's "Mission Stardust"), May 29 1976 (following 1958's "The 39 Steps"), July 9 1977 (following 1967's "Satanik"), and Mar 12 1983 (solo).

The film is not really 10/10. I just want to get the vote average up.Anyway it's simply a "Mad Scientist puts human brain in an ape" movie and you can't expect too much, but this film is one of the best of it's infamous kind. Carradine is quite a dedicated scientist who will, as usual do just about anything to accomplish his goals. Acquenetta, top billed, has virtually no dialogue whatsoever, she usually just looks over at the camera in a possibly intoxicated haze. The film will not change your life but if you've seen most of the Universal horror classics and want to explore some of the lesser ones, this is a great one to start off with.