The Monster and the Girl

1941 "LOOSE! and thirsting for revenge...a huge gorilla with a human brain!"
6| 1h5m| en| More Info
Released: 28 February 1941 Released
Producted By: Paramount
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

After a young woman is coerced into prostitution and her brother framed for murder by an organized crime syndicate, retribution in the form of an ape visits the mobsters.

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Reviews

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.
Rijndri Load of rubbish!!
TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
JoeB131 This is an interesting film where they took a film noir plot and transplanted it (pun intended) into a monster movie. So a nice guy from a small town goes looking for his sister who has been tricked into a 'white slavery' ring (They never do outright say, "Prostitution" because Hayes Board and stuff) and ends up getting framed for the murder of a gangster by rival gangsters. The hilarity begins when Mad Scientist George Zucco transplants the nice guy's brain into the body of a gorilla, because that never goes badly in these kinds of movies. The movie then proceeds as the gangster's henchmen are slowly picked off by the Gorilla, which has mysteriously acquired stealth ninja skills in addition to being, you know, a gorilla. Kudos to the guy in the monkey suit, as he pulls off his scenes with a bit of pathos, like when he encounters his old dog who knows its him. This movie has a lot of really nice touches like that, but it's mostly just fun cheese. I also think it is interesting as a snapshot of how society was back then, not being able to talk frankly about sex but lots of smoking scenes.
FieCrier I learned about this movie from a sidebar to an article on "horror noir" in Films in Review, where it was highly recommended.It does mix horror and film noir in its own peculiar fashion. It starts off more noir than horror. A woman addresses the camera, surrounded by smoke or fog, to tell us a tale. We're taken to a courtroom, where a stoic man is being tried for murder. The woman from the introduction enters the court as a spectator, and a couple of the other spectators call attention to her.The man on trial doesn't say much in his defense, speaking in a monotone. The woman jumps up to insist on speaking. She seems like a tough dame, and it turns out she's the man's sister. What she says doesn't help much, and she isn't a credible witness; it's implied she's a prostitute.Through a flashback to better days, we see the siblings when they were much more animated and happy. She wanted to leave their small town, but when she goes to the city she finds it hard to get work. She meets a man she falls in love with, and gets married, but when she wakes up after a party on her wedding night, he's disappeared. A strange man is in her bedroom informing her how much she owes for the room and party, and offers her work in a cabaret entertaining men...The brother goes to the city to find the missing husband, and gets framed for murder by a criminal conspiracy by the men his sister now works for. Back in the courtroom, he's convicted, vows revenge, and is executed, but not before he agrees to donate his brain to science.Post-mortem, his brain is implanted into an ape. It's not clear what the scientist hopes to accomplish by that. Something about evolution, perhaps seeing what the ape's potential is if its brain is upgraded. For some reason, the scientist seems to expect an intelligent ape, rather than a man's mind in an ape's body. It isn't clear to what extent the executed man's brain retains its personality or memories, but the ape does carry out his vow of revenge, and his own dog seems to recognize him.There were several other primate horror movies Universal made, among them the three titles in the Paula the Ape Woman series: Captive Wild Woman (1943), Jungle Woman (1944/I), Jungle Captive, The (1945), and then the Bela Lugosi film Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). It's a funny thing about primates and horror, they go back pretty far. The Doctor's Experiment, The Professor's Secret, and The Monkey Man (all 1908) are three of the earliest ones, the latter one even involving a brain transplant!
Mike-764 Scot Webster is looking for his brother-in-law who mysteriously left his wife and left her in at the hands of a racketeer and his mob. Webster is later set up with the murder of a mob enemy, convicted and set to die, but swears revenge on those who set him up. He donates his brain to science and it is later put into an ape, which proceeds to carry out Webster's venegance. The plot sounds pretty good for its genre, but the Webster's trial takes up a little too much time plus the scenes with the ape just seem to be lacking the excitement that this movie should generate. 5 out of 10.
dcole-2 OK, so it's about a human brain transplanted into an ape's body -- it's still a unique, original and stylish film. Director Stuart Heisler treats it all very seriously and the cast does a great job. It's beautifully shot and lit -- and there's even a sub-plot about white slavery and prostitution that's shocking for the time. A first-rate job by all concerned.