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Jungle Woman
USA 1944
produced by Universal
directed by Reginald Le Borg
starring Acquanetta, J. Carrol Naish, Lois Collier, Richard David, Eddie Hyany, Nana Bryant, Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone, Samuel S.Hinds, Douglass Dumbrille, Pierre Watkin, Christian Rub, Alec Craig, Tom Keene (as Richard Powers)
story by Henry Sucher, screenplay by Bernard Schubert, Henry Sucher, Edward Dein, music by Paul Sawtell, makeup by Jack Pierce
Ape Woman Acquanetta, Universal horror cycle
review by Mike Haberfelner
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A direct sequel to the previous year's Captive
Wild Woman: Dr Fletcher (J.Carrol Naish), one of these nosey
scientists, buys the gorilla's body after it has been shot dead in Captive
Wild Woman ... and for no reason at all it comes back to life as
Paula Dupree (Acquanetta), who almost immediately falls in love with Bob
(Richard David), the fiancé of Doc Fletcher's daughter Joan (Lois
Collier). Jealousy though once again makes Paula go bonkers, and before
long she starts killing chickens and a retard (Eddie Hyans), then she
convinces Bob that Doc Fletcher is abusing her, so Bob takes her away ...
though inexplicably, he later takes her back to Doc Fletcher, where she
immediately tries to hunt down and kill Joan. Ultimately though, it's up
to Doctor Fletcher to kill Paula before she can do any damage, and though
he's almost convicted to it, when her corpse is seen turned back into an
ape, he is acquitted of the crime (and all the injustice he has actually
done to the ape woman by making her one of his subjects for examination)
... Captive Wild
Woman was an at best average entry into Universal's
horror cycle, which has lost quite some steam in the 1940's as
it is. Jungle Woman is an bargain basement sequel to the already
low budget earlier film, reusing many of its more costly sequences
(especially Clyde Beatty's animal training sequences) in its first quarter
to make the film look more expensive than it actually was. In all though,
the film is disappointingly dull, no more than an uninspired reworking of
the earlier film (which wasn't great to begin with) that doesn't even try
to come into its own or even live up to the standards of the
less-than-special former film. In a word, a disappointment, and a futher
nail in the coffin of the once proud Universal
horror cycle.
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