I have to agree with fellow Carolinian "BaronBlood" about BRIDE OF THE GORILLA: this it is, as s/he(?) put it: "A simian soap opera." Of the highest order, I might add. It never fails to amaze me when a filmmaker has at his/her disposal everything that s/he needs to render a classic (or, at the very least, something boasting higher Entertainment Value than this) and DOESN'T. BRIDE OF THE GORILLA manages, by film's end, to look like the kind of movie that Ed Wood, Jr. would've made had he been capable. The shot of the gorilla's reflection (as the gorilla Raymond Burr reflects) is almost laugh-out-loud funny. I expected a LITTLE more from a movie that boasts so much.

In this entertaining horror flick we have a love triangle in an Amazonian rubber plantation resulting in a womanising steward murdering his boss. This leads to a voodoo practicing, loyal servant of the unfortunate dead man to use black magic to turn his killer into a sukaras (were-ape to you or me).I suppose this movie combined that popular staple of the 40's – the jungle film – within a traditional horror film narrative, while still managing to include that other 40's cinematic obsession, a man in a gorilla suit. You'd have to say that it's not the most inspired concoction and one that may have actually been a little dated by the early 50's when sci-fi was all the rage. But from today's perspective it works quite well and the jungle setting gives it something a bit different for what is effectively a horror film, albeit one that I seriously doubt was ever scary to anyone ever. Whatever the case, it features one of the regulars of the genre, Lon Chaney Jr., as a police commissioner. It's not an especially memorable role and is at best peripheral to the overall story. While there is nothing to get particularly excited about here, this one is a perfectly enjoyable time-filler in a Tuesday afternoon kind of way. And there's nothing wrong with that at the end of the day.

Sometimes, when I don't have anything better on hand, I like to put a DVD of a crappy old movie in the player. You know, for kicks. Last night, I was oh-so-honored to watch the 1951 classic Bride of the Gorilla. Not classic enough to be Bride of Frankenstein or Bride of Dracula, and not junky enough to be Bride of the Monster. Oh, and there's no gorilla.The DVD was part of a set, each movie appearing on an episode of Count Gore de Vol's Creature Feature. The good Count introduces the movie, along with some awesomely lowbrow yuks, and then makes a return appearance about halfway through. The jokes are corny, but the delivery is terrific and engaging. Love the Count.Okay. Bride of the Gorilla. It seems plantation worker Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) has the hots for the wife (Barbara Payton) of the company's owner, Van Gelder (Paul Cavanagh). The two don't see eye to eye, of course, and somehow Chavez gets himself fired. This leads to a confrontation in a moonlit garden right outside the jungle, and Van Gelder is killed. But, unbeknownst to Chavez, the act has been witnessed by a witch/gypsy/stereotypical old lady who knows the dark arts, Al-Long (Gisele Werbisek), who puts a curse on Chavez – that he will see himself as a beast of the jungle and act the part, even though no one else will see any difference.What this means is that Chavez, although married to the luscious Payton, goes running off into the jungle every night, ears tuned to the various animal noises. And that leads to goats being found slaughtered and the locals being panicked. If this sounds a little like The Wolf Man, that's because it's sort of the same thing – except here we don't get to see much of Chavez's transformation at all. In fact, he's a gorilla only in the title. In the movie, he's referred to as a mythical beast that walks on its hind legs. You'll find that it doesn't matter and that you don't care.Lon Chaney Jr., who played The Wolf Man himself a decade earlier, is the (strangely competent) inspector here, and Tom Conway as the kindly local doctor who also has a crush on the new widow. Both, along with Burr and Payton, acquit themselves here. It's not their fault the movie has no production values and almost no script.While looking up this movie on IMDb, I found out a lot about Barbara Payton, whom I'd never heard of before. Payton was quite the bed hopper in her day, but she was apparently more than just some naive farm girl – she had a mean streak, too. At one point she was engaged to Franchot Tone but still proposed to Tom Neal, and that led to a huge brawl between the two actors that landed them both in the hospital. Tone wound up in a coma! She bounced back and forth between Tone and Neal. She had an affair with Bob Hope, of all people, that was broken off only when she demanded more money. She had an affair with Woody Strode during the filming of Bride of the Gorilla, and this affair essentially killed her career, as interracial romance was still quite taboo in the early 1950s. Payton lived a short, unhappy career, dying of organ failure before her 40th birthday. Yeesh.Is Bride of the Gorilla worth your time? Nah, not especially. It's short, though, so not too much time would be wasted. It's still better than Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster, though.

Great title, eh? Kind of conjures up rampaging Gorrilas protecting blonde dames from nasty explorers, thinly veiled bestiality, and a great jungle adventure for all, eh? Eh? Well, prepare to be disappointed.Perry Mason plays a guy called Bonny Chevez, manager of a warehouse at a plantation in some jungle, and Bonny's a bit of a fanny rat. He's already dumped the servant girl after sweet talking her into the sack, and now he's set his sights on seemingly brain dead and despondent plantation owner wife Dinah. Now, Dinah's much older husband isn't daft. He's got an old lady (who's a witch and mother of the servant girl) keeping an eye on things, and once he gets wind of Bonny putting the moves on his wife, he fires him during dinner.However, Bonny's done enough ground work to woo Dinah, so she's all prepared to run off with him. That night, Bonny gets a hold of the plantation owner and manages to get him killed by snake bite (He punches the guy in the stomach and the guy just lies there until the snake bites him). Soon enough, Bonny's now running the plantation and married to Dinah. Bonny doesn't realise it, but the witch is just about to put a curse on Bonny that's cause him to think (or turn into, I'm not really sure) a gorilla and run off into the jungle.Here's where the film throws an torrent of missed opportunities at you. We've got Bonny either turning into or thinking he's a gorilla, which includes his hands turning from white to black before getting all hairy (what are they implying?), but no real gorilla action at all! I mean, you've got Lon Chaney Jr in here as a cop after Bonny for the murder of the old guy, but nothing really happens until the last couple of minutes, and even then you don't get to see much. Put it this way, Bonny kills more people when he's not a gorilla, and that's one person.Woody Strode's only in this for about three minutes, then completely disappears.If you really have to see all these gorilla/ape based films, which is a bit of a minefield to be honest to begin with, I'd put this one at the bottom of your list. For a good (hilarious) ape film, watch Bela Lugosi's The Ape Man. That's a good un.