The Ape

The Ape (1940)

Jungle Beast or Man of Science?

Dr. Bernard Adrian is a kindly scientist who seeks to cure a young woman's polio. He needs human spinal fluid to complete the formula for his experimental serum. Meanwhile, a vicious circus ape has broken out of its cage, and is terrorizing the townspeople. Can there be a connection?

Date of release
1940-09-30
TMDB
4.9 / 10 (44)
Runtime
1h 2m
Genres
Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction
Director
William Nigh

Casting

Interesting facts

The Ape is a 1940 American horror film directed by William Nigh. The film is based on Adam Hull Shirk's play The Ape, which was previously adapted by Nigh as The House of Mystery (1934). The film stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Bernard Adrian who is seeking to cure a young woman's polio through experiments involving spinal fluid. Meanwhile, a vicious ape has been terrorizing the towns locals, and ends up breaking into Adrian's lab. A battle ensues between the two, leading to the ape’s death, the destruction of Adrian’s spinal fluid samples, and Adrian deciding to skin the ape and disguise himself as the beast in order to kill people to get more spinal fluid.

Production

Boris Karloff had previously worked at Monogram Pictures playing the role of the detective James Lee Wong, based on Hugh Wiley's stories published in Collier's magazine. Karloff appeared in five films as the character within two years. After the success of the horror film Son of Frankenstein (1939), Keye Luke took over for Karloff as the detective in Phantom of Chinatown (1940) while Karloff was cast in the horror film The Ape.

Among the cast was Maris Wrixon who was on loan to Monogram from Warner Bros. Pictures. Wrixon recalled that she received the script for the film one or two days before shooting. She declared that she enjoyed working with Karloff and Nigh, but that working for Monogram was like "living in a poor apartment.

Production on The Ape started on August 6, 1940. It was filmed in the city of Newhall, Santa Clarita, California. While the film was promoted as being a larger budget production for Monogram, film historian Tom Weaver stated that the circus footage in the film appeared to be taken from another film and some shorts of Karloff's character leaving and entering his house are repeated. According to Wrixon, the film finished filming within a week.

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