Total Sci-Fi’s Guide to the Incredibly Strange and Obscure in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Movies

The Facts

Written by Ted Fithian, Neil P. Varnick, Griffin Jay, Henry Sucher
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Produced by Ben Pivar
Music: Hans J. Salter. Frank Skinner
Cast: John Carradine, Acquanetta, Milburn Stone, Evelyn Ankers, Lloyd Corrigan, Ray Corrigan
Running time: 61 minutes
Also Known As: N/A

The Plot

Mad scientist Dr Sigmund Walters (Carradine) is experimenting with human glands and sex hormones. He succeeds in turning a captured gorilla into a beautiful, but animalistic, woman, with dire consequences...

The Lowdown

By the 1940s the horror output of Universal Studios — home of the genre — was well past its prime. The kind of cheap and cheerful potboilers the studio was rapidly turning out were a far cry from the highs of the 1930s’ classics like Dracula and Frankenstein. The monster team-up movies were continuing, but a new franchise was just beginning with a series of outlandish wild woman/jungle pictures of which Captive Wild Woman was the first.

Universal was also faced with a serious competitor for the first time: RKO’s horror unit under producer Val Lewton, with directors like Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise and Mark Robson making subtle, atmospheric and frightening films like Cat People (1942), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), and The Body Snatcher (1945).


Universal’s answer to Cat People was Captive Wild Woman, a film lacking in all the sophistication and subtlety of Tourneur’s understated masterpiece. Instead, audiences got Ray ‘Crash’ Corrigan (one time Hollywood stuntman and Western star) strutting around in a patently fake gorilla suit, and Acquanetta, the ‘Venezuelan Volcano’ cast for her looks rather than any acting ability (it’s essentially a silent role).

This budget version of The Island of Dr Moreau focuses as much on the circus setting and the details of 1940s’ animal handling (shown with documentary realism, even if pinched from an earlier movie) as it does on the outlandish horror of the film’s premise. The silly picture is saved by the straight acting by John Carradine (not usually known for his dramatic restraint) and the casting of model/actress/whatever Acquanetta as the monkey in human female form. Captive Wild Woman is a minor thriller, but in the right mood it’s one you’ll go ape over.

Cult Cast

John Carradine was a larger-than-life Hollywood figure, an acclaimed Shakespearean stage actor, a mainstream movie character actor and the star of countless dodgy B-movies. He started in bit parts (he’s in Bride of Frankenstein briefly), but had become the go-to-guy for mad scientists and evil villains in the 1940s. He had a turbulent personal life, while four of his sons (David, Robert, Keith and Bruce) all became actors. He died in 1988, aged 82.

Acquanetta, whose full name was Burnu Acquanetta (‘Burnu’ meaning ‘burning fire, deep water’), was a model and would-be starlet promoted by Universal as a possible horror franchise actor. Her career was short-lived (thanks to her limited abilities) and she retired after marrying a used car salesman in the 1950s, restricting her ‘acting’ to appearing in his cheap TV commercials. She died in 2004, aged 83.

Director’s Cut

A former movie editor Edward Dmytryk was best known as one of the ‘Hollywood Ten’ who served prison time after being blacklisted by McCarthyism and held in contempt of Congress. After months behind bars, Dmytryk decided to testify and ‘name names’. Film-wise, he’s best known for a series of classic film noir, like Murder, My Sweet (1944) — an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely — and Crossfire (1947). Captive Wild Woman was only his third film. He died in 1999, aged 90.

Cult Moments

These mostly involve star John Carradine, in his first leading horror role. His introduction is just perfect for such an evil character: we hear him before we see him, then he’s captured silhouetted in a window by lightning from the storm raging outside. The second comes when he mercilessly kills a drunken zoo worker who has helped him kidnap Cheela the ape: all we see is a close up of his sinister face after he pushes the hapless man within reach of the enraged ape…


WTF? Moment

They don’t come much bigger than the gorilla-on-the-operating table scenes. Starting with the hand, we see the monkey transform into a woman. Later, enraged by jealousy, “Paula Dupree” (as the monkey woman has been dubbed) undergoes a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation into a hideous halfway stage, neither gorilla nor woman, but something of both. That and the fact the monkey woman takes the trouble to wear a snazzy cloak to attack innocent people…

Behind-the-Scenes

Virtually all of the animal footage featuring lions and tigers being trained in the circus was lifted wholesale from the 1933 Universal movie The Big Cage (an opening credits card thanks animal trainer Clyde Beatty for the footage). Despite this, the film (and editor Milton Carruth) does a great job of matching the old footage with the new movie’s stars. It’s just a shame all the circus stuff is so tedious: after all, there’s a mad ape woman on the loose!

Creators Talk

“It was interesting to work without speaking in Captive Wild Woman. It was more difficult, a challenge. I read an article once that said I was not an actress at all, and that in fact I couldn’t even talk. They didn't understand that this was deliberate, and that I had to project more because I had to do it with my body language, my eyes, my face. Every movement had to mean something!” — Acquanetta
[http://junglefrolics.blogspot.com/2009/10/acquanetta.html]


Availability

Out on Region 1 DVD as part of the five movie, two-disc set Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive. No extras.

Online Resources

http://junglefrolics.blogspot.com/2009/10/acquanetta.html
[Acquanetta career review and interview quotes]

Remake

Oddly enough, modern Hollywood doesn’t seem to have room for movies about mad scientists turning gorillas into mute animal women. The film did spawn two sequels in Jungle Woman and The Jungle Captive, with only the second featuring Acquanetta.

The Bottom Line

An efficient little B-movie, Captive Wild Woman is one of the lesser Universal ape movies, with a great John Carradine performance and the mute presence of the unforgettable Acquanetta making it memorable. Just don’t confuse it with great art (or even great movie-making).

By Brian J. Robb