Poor Lugosi. He gets saddled here with a ridiculous make-up job and lopes around like Groucho Marx! Dressed in a frock-coat his penguin-like antics had me giggling. And I'm a Lugosi fan! He did himself no favours by appearing in crap like this and the scene where he injects himself is rather sad considering his later problems with morphine.The Ape Man concerns Lugosi as Dr. James Brewster - an extremely unlikely name for a Hungarian - desperately searching out human spinal fluid to cure himself of his apish affliction. He'd have been better off just getting a shave. The newspaper byline over his photo lists him as "strangely missing"!Lugosi and his pet ape kill a butler for his first victim - a guy who looks like Alfred Hitchcock's half-brother. Extraction done, spinal fluid injected, all Lugsoi does is straighten up a bit.Wallace Ford and Louise Currie also appear. Ford had appeared in several horrors up to this point - notably Freaks and The Mummy's Hand. Currie starred in several of these Monogram potboilers. They have my sympathy.As the story develops a character named Zippo pops up now and then to direct things or warn people off when Lugosi's on the prowl...and he turns out at the end to be the author of the story! "Screwy idea, wasn't it?" Screwy is not the word I would use...

While it's understandable that Bela Lugosi may have become disenchanted with the roles he was offered following the success of Dracula, even his staunchest critics would have to agree that he nonetheless managed to turn in some outstanding performances- like that in THE APE MAN. His character is actually sympathetic early on, when his predicament is clearly causing him great anguish, though he's less so when he begins to degenerate into a "monster" out for Vengeance. The makeup doesn't obscure his distinctive features, though it would've been interesting to see him perform with an appliance. (Imagine someone like Lugosi playing Dr. Zaius in PLANET OF THE APES...)

The Ape Man produced by Monogram Pictures stars Bela Lugosi as a scientist who has been experimenting on himself with ape spinal fluids. Why anyone would do that God only knows, but the result is Lugosi as regressed back to a Cro-Magnon state and is kept in a cage with a gorilla who apparently he relates to.As he's a well known scientist he's keeping undercover, but his disappearance has aroused all kinds of curiosity including that of law enforcement with J. Farrell MacDonald and the press in the persons of Wallace Ford and Louise Currie. The press are police are kept somewhat at bay, by Bela's sister Minerva Urecal.But when Bela and his gorilla start killing people for their human spinal fluid so Lugosi can get back to being human again, that of course arouses the populace. I think you can figure out where this is going.It's from Monogram so naturally one's expectations is low and you're not disappointed. In a recent biography of Bela Lugosi, the author Arthur Lennig uses The Ape Man as a prototype Monogram product and contrasts it with the Universal Pictures Gothic horror films. He and I and you'll agree when you see The Ape Man, Universal has it over Monogram by an early round knockout.

THE APE MAN (Monogram, 1943), directed by William Beaudine, with original story by Karl Brown, is a fine example of a bad movie becoming a "camp" classic. Not exactly in the class of Universal's finer products as THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) or THE WOLF MAN (1941), for example, THE APE MAN was to be one of many in a series of horror films from Monogram capitalizing on the past success of Universal's chill package resulting to pale imitations with low budget results. Acquiring Universal's very own Bela Lugosi, whose name alone was the selling point of films such as this, THE APE MAN, coming twelve years after his breakthrough performance as "Dracula" (1931), is simply a comedown from his wide range of films, with some of the worst yet to come. The story opens on the pier where a group of reporters, headed by Jeff Carter (Wallace Ford) of the Globe Tribune, awaiting for the arrival of spiritualist Agatha Brewster (Minerva Urecal), sister of the famous Dr. James Brewster (Bela Lugosi). Also on the pier is a mystery man (Ralph Littlefield) seen reading a front page story about the disappearance of Doctor Brewster, whose to do some coming in and out throughout the narrative himself. Shortly after-wards, Agatha, greeted by Brewster's friend, Dr. George Randall (Henry Hall), informs her that Jim never really disappeared, but due to his discovery of a substance that has changed him into an animal similar in power and danger to an anthropoid ape, he's now hiding in an old mansion in Springdale. Taken to the mansion, Agatha witnesses the experimental results of her brother, locked inside a cage with an ape (Emil Van Horn), dressed in black, walking in hunchback position and sporting facial hair. Aside from controlling the ape with a whip, Brewster even howls like one. In order to return to human form, Brewster will need spinal fluid from a living person, resulting for Randall committing murder to get it. When Randall refuses, Brewster goes on the murderous rampage with his ape, leading Carter and his assistant, Billie Mason (Louise Currie), to enter the scene and get the scoop for the next edition.Others members of the cast include Wheelar Oakman, Jack Mulhall and Charles Jordan. Ever reliable J. Farrell MacDonald appears as the typical Irish police captain, and "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, Scruno in the "East Side Kids" film series (1940-1943), doing cameo duty as the copy boy. Regardless of its "mad scientist" theme hinted during its opening credits with overflowing test tubes and the head of an ape seen behind the titles, THE APE MAN is one not to be taken seriously in spite of serious overtones and acting from the principle players. Lugosi's make-up, basically long hair and beard pre-dating that of a hippie of the 1960s, lacks the reality of his ape-like appearance from ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (Paramount, 1933) that starred Charles Laughton. Minerva Urecal is properly cast as Lugosi's sister, looking both sinister and mysterious as Lugosi himself, especially during her talks about communicating with the dead during her interview with the reporters (Ford and Currie). In the "mad scientist" tradition, however, THE APE MAN contains secret doors and panels; a televisor where scientist can get a glimpse of visitors at the front door, in this case, nosy reporters. In true Monogram tradition aside than cheap sets, bad dialog and repetitive underscoring, there's also a running gag involving a mysterious rube-type character mentioned earlier coming in and out of the story for no apparent reason, finally revealing himself after being spotted by Carter sitting in the front seat of his car. Wait till you hear who he is! This gimmick would be repeated again in VOODOO MAN (Monogram, 1944) featuring "Ape Man" co-stars of Lugosi, Louise Currie and Henry Hall.During the wake of home video in the 1980s, THE APE MAN was one of many public domain titles to either be distributed through various companies on VHS (and DVD two decades later) or be broadcast or "Star Club" from Channel America prior to 1992. Because of its availability and overplay of THE APE MAN, it's rarely mentioned that Lugosi also appeared in a non-sequel titled THE RETURN OF THE APE MAN (1944). Though not essentially scary or high art cinema, THE APE MAN is worth while mainly for watching Bela Lugosi going bananas once in a while. (*1/2)