Captive Wild Woman (1943)

Interesting facts

Captive Wild Woman is a 1943 American horror film directed by Edward Dmytryk. The film stars Evelyn Ankers, John Carradine, Milburn Stone, and features Acquanetta as Paula, the Ape Woman. The film involves a scientist, Dr. Sigmund Walters, whose experiments turn a female gorilla named Cheela into a human by injecting the ape with sex hormones and via brain transplants.

Production

Captive Wild Woman was announced as a film more than two years before its release with an initial starting date to be on August 8, 1941. Preview advertisements for the film in the trade newspapers reveal that the concept of the character was not yet fixed.

When the original script of the proposed film, which included the transplant of a living brain into an ape, was submitted for review under the Motion Picture Production Code, the Production Code Administration suggested several changes so that only a partial brain transplant would occur.

Among the cast was John Carradine as Dr. Sigmund Walters. Director Edward Dmytryk referred to Carradine as having always been "kind of a ham" but that he "had a little talk with him and I think we got a very controlled performance out of him for a mad scientist!" The ape in the film was played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan who began his career as a stuntman with a few starring roles in serials like Undersea Kingdom and B-Westerns.

The film went into production on December 10, 1942, with production halting during the December holiday season and continuing again in January. It was directed by the Canadian-born film editor turned director Edward Dmytryk. Prior to directing the film, Dmytryk worked on several B-films such as the Boris Karloff film The Devil Commands for Columbia Pictures.

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