The Beast Of Borneo is a poverty row studio film concerning a scientist in the Dr. Moreau tradition played by Eugene Sigaliff who travels to Borneo for a wild orangutan to use in his experiments. He and girl Friday Mae Stuart seek out John Preston who is a character modeled after Frank Buck who refuses at first. But the Dutch commissioner Alexander Schomberg calls in a favor. Besides Preston kind of likes Stuart.Of course it doesn't take too long to see who the real Beast Of Borneo is.Some fly by night outfit used some real jungle footage with some truly bad studio interpolations by some very lousy actors. One has only to compare it with the original Dr. Moreau film and what Charles Laughton did in that.Believe me folks this one is from hunger.

I do admit to having a penchant for the cheesy, low rent jungle adventure films of the 1930s; there's just something about the blend of exoticism and cheap production values that renders them fun for me. THE BEAST OF BORNEO is one of the more obscure entries in that sub-genre of film-making, a simple rip-off of THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, and one of the most annoying ever.This short production is about your usual mad scientist character who wants to do some vivisection experiments on various apes in order to prove his theories surrounding evolution. Be warned, a cute baby orangutan is mistreated by being strapped to a table at one point. What this all amounts to is a bunch of extraneous characters wandering around and having long-winded conversations while a laughable guy in a ape-suit provides menace. THE BEAST OF BORNEO loses points for having the most annoying extended fake ape growl ever which is played loudly over the soundtrack over and over again, to the point at which I was ready to throw the remote through the TV screen.

In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, there were an awful lot of jungle films. Most of these were pretty dreadful things--full of grainy stock footage which often showed animals from various continents tossed together. Just yesterday, I watched a Jungle Jim movie--with clips of Asian tigers and elephants mixed with African lions, elephants and rhinos! The films were mostly very sloppy and dumb. However, I was very pleasantly surprised when I watched "Beast of Borneo". I have no idea where it was filmed but it sure looked like Borneo. The natives looked like they could have been from there and the film used actual orangutans--and none of the extraneous footage of other animals. As for the story, it was pretty good. A rather unsavory Russian scientist wants to prove some theory and so he heads with his pretty American assistant to the jungle to find an adult orangutan. This nutty doctor tells his American guide that he has no desire to hurt the animal--but naturally, this is a lie. What's next? See the film for yourself.I am not saying that "The Beast of Borneo" is a great film--just that it is great compared to the typical crappy jungle film. The film gets a lot of credit for the look of the wild and its use of stock footage. However, the story itself is surprisingly low in energy--even when the big climax occurs. An interesting but not terribly exciting film. Worth a look.

Beast of Borneo, The (1934) * (out of 4) A mad scientist needs certain animals to continue his experiments so he travels to a jungle to locate them including one half man, half ape creature. This low budget shockers only real horror element is the scientist and the man in the ape suit. Even at 63-minutes this thing is deadly dull and lifeless without one thing going for it. The man in the ape suit gets several laughs, which presents this from being a total waste of time.Hard to find but that might be a good thing.