Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown!...# 2...The Ape Man !!

Here it is kids, the second to the last Hairy Halloween classic !
This is perfect film for the holiday that cellebrates the weird, the creepy, and the spooky !
Is it a werewolf ? No, even worse !

This time it's.......

The Ape Man....A true classic of Simian Cinema ! The Ape Man....A masterpiece of Monkey Movie Madness ! The Ape Man.... A powerful...er..amazing....well...awww crap !...It's got a gorilla in it ! If your the hard boiled gorilla man fans I know you are, then you've hopefully seen it ! If not...What are you waiting for ?!! Be forewarned, my mad monkey minions, there are spoilers ahead ! So if you haven't seen the Ape Man yet, skip now to the bottom of the post and watch it...Go ahead..we'll wait. After you've watched it, read on , and well have a good laugh at it. The plot; apparently for some reason, Dr. Jonathan Brewster (Lugosi) felt the need to inject himself in the spine with the spinal fluid of a gorilla. Why you ask? Who the hell knows ! It's a damn well weird thing to do to yourself ! I would assume the fluid was taken from the gorilla Brewster keeps lock away in his basement laboratory. (Emil VanHorn ) The results of this bizarre experiment, are a bad case of poor posture, an Amish beard and a hairline that starts at his eyebrows. Dr. Brewster is so horrified by his ape-like appearance, that he hides out, making the world think he's dead. Enter, Agatha Brewster ( Minerva Urecal), the nutty Doctors even nuttier sister. The old battle axe's arrival is tipped to a reporter by a loony halfwit tipster named Zippo,(Ralph Littlefield) that keeps popping in and out of the story periodically. The reporters the goofball Zippo tips off , are none other than Jefferson B. Carter (Wallace Ford) and his cutie side kick photographer, Billie Mason.(Louise Currie) In a quest to interview the loony old Brewster sister, they wind up at Dr. Brewster's creepy mansion. Before their arrival, old Agatha had gotten the shock of her life to find her brother she thought dead, to be very much alive...though more than a little messed up ! When the reporters arrive outside the old house, they hear the Docs gorilla raising hell, and decided to investigate. Agatha, (not wanting to disclose her Brothers secret, covers for the noise by claiming it was a recording of ghost sounds from some old castle she was at. ( she's a medium, you see.) As luck would have it , Billie Mason snaps a photo of the old bag for the article they are writing, just as the ape faced Bela pears through a window behind her. He sneaks off, not being noticed, and the reporters leave...Very suspicious of the goings on in the old house. Meanwhile Bela, decides the only chance he has to get cured is to inject human spinal fluid into his back. The fact that it needs to taken from a live host, and it will kill them to extract it, is inconsequential. So old Bela and his trained Hench gorilla set out to go on a murderous rampage in a macabre scavenger hunt to collect the fluid. Bela's friend and fellow physician,Dr. George Randall, (Henry Hall) is approached to do the injections. Horrified at how he intends to acquire the stuff, George refuses at first, but relents after Brewster has his gorilla kill his butler. The shot does the trick and they all live happily ever after...NOT. The cure only works for a short while, so off the hairy duo go to procure more of the secret sauce. After several more killings, Bela figures he has enough to reverse the curse permanently. Now all these hairy murders haven't gone unnoticed by the dynamic newspaper duo ,and after yet another tip from the Idiot Zippo, they follow the clues back to the Brewster mansion. Can you guess what they discovered on the photo of the old hag Agatha, that Miss Mason took...You guessed it, old monkey face Bela himself! The cops have determined that the killing were done by an ape, because of the crushed bones in the victims, and here they find an ape staring at them in the photo. So after a few more words of wisdom from the moronic Zippo, off to the Brewster place the intrepid duo fly. Meanwhile old George is brought out to the old house to do the honors with the injections. In a fit of morality, George refuses his friends request and breaks the vial of the good stuff. Bela doesn't take this lightly and kills him out of spite. Before long, the girl reporter winds up captured by Brewster and sis, and Carter winds up face down on the floor with a vase busted over his head. ( a classic still, beautifully colorized by artist Mark Thompsen) Meanwhile, back in the lab, old Brewster's pet gorilla takes a liking to the pretty Miss Mason. Brewster menaces the poor girl, whilst Jeff Carter, having regained consciousness, is frantically trying to get into the lab with the cops. Bela is closing in on the dame when she accidentally releases Magilla from his cage. Not wanting to see his little girlfriend sullied by the Dr.'s grimy paws, the gorilla attacks old Bela, and proceeds to kill the crap out of him. With Brewster pushing daisies, Magilla turns his affections toward Billie Mason who ain't to happy about that. Just then Jeff Carter and the cops burst in with guns blazing and turn the poor monkey into hairy Swiss cheese. As if on cue, the to reporters fall in love and all is happy....Even the idiot Zippo, who wrote the crazy thing. Is The Ape Man a great movie ? I'd be a damned liar if I said yes. But it is a fun movie...Wallace ford is likable as the wise cracking reporter, and Louise Currie ain't too hatefull to look at. Bela is as over the top as I've ever seen him in any movie ! There is some nice atmosphere in a lot of the shots, and the story moves along at a pretty good pace. A British lobby card, with it's English title, Lock Your Doors...The Ape Man made more sense I think.                                                          Probably not the best idea Bela ! told ya ! So on behalf of Emil VanHorn, enjoy the movie...and have a good laugh at the expense of... The Ape Man !

Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown! # 3 ...The Monster and the girl !...1941

Trick or Treat ! Hiya folks ! This installment of our Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown is most definitely a treat ! What better treat than a little Mad Science ? Well friends, it doesn't get any madder than the science in The Monster and the Girl !

Monster and the girl is a bit of a hidden gem in the Universal vaults, as it was far out shined by the classic monsters in Universals stable.
For every Frankenstein, Dracula And Wolfman, Universal had lesser titles like Murders in the Rue Morgue, Man Made Monster, and Monster and the Girl.
The production values of Monster and the Girl are excellent. The cast is exceptional and includes the likes of genre veterans Paul Lucas, Joseph Calleia, Onslow Stevens, Marc Lawrence, Gerald Mohr, and the maddest of scientists, George Zucco !
The Story is very dark in subject matter, dealing with seedy underworld doings, false imprisonment, and a woman being forced into prostitution. As much of a downer as this is, it is important to the set up of the plot.
You see, The evil gangster boss, W.S.Bruhl ( Paul Lucas) has framed Scot Webster (Phillip Terry) for a murder he didn't commit.
A few well placed bribes later, and poor Scot is found guilty as charged.
With his execution looming closer, Scot is approached by the seemingly kindly Dr. Parry. (George Zucco) Parry makes a deal with Scot to remove his brain after the execution for science....Mad Science !
Back in the lab, the good doctor has a monstrous gorilla !(Charles Gemora)
Old Doc Parry comes home, Jar in hand and dumps poor Scot's brain into the newly emptied gorilla noggin.

While all this is going on, Scot's Sister Susan is drugged and duped into the seedy world of prostitution by W.S.Bruhl and his twisted slime-bag confederates.
 After a fashion, word starts to get around about Bruhl's doings and it gets back to Gorilla Scot.

Being not just an average monkey, Scot escapes his cage and begins a vengeful game of cat and mouse with Bruhl's goons.
One by one, the thugs meet a gruesome demise by having every bone in their bodies broken.
The press dubs the mysterious killer "The Mangler", and after another on of Bruhl's men winds up the same way, they start getting a little panicky. There is a brilliant scene with Marc Lawrence having a full blown panic attack, "I don't wanna get mangled !I don't wanna get mangled !"...I won't spoil any more for you, as I hope this really wet your Apetite to see it!

Now for the good stuff !
The gorilla in this movie, is widely thought by gorilla man, and ape suit fans, to be the best gorilla suit ever put on film up to that time. I'll go it one better, by telling without doubt, that it was the best suit, up until Rick Baker hit his stride in the 70's ! It's that good !

It was created by the great Charles Gemora, using reference photos and studies of real gorillas.
 The suit was revolutionary, in the fact that Gemora incorporated bags of water under the skin to give realistic sway and heft to the gorilla as he moved...And what movement ! Charlie was beyond a doubt the best at acting like a real gorilla. Every movement exactly mirrors the movements of the real animal. No monster performance here, Charlie went for realism and it shows ! The lighting and atmosphere in Monster and the Girl is top notch, with narrow glints of light catching the gorilla from dynamic angles giving a surreal effect to the ape. The close-ups of Charlie's magnificent gorilla are perfect, and don't come off as "mask-y" at all...It looks real !

This is a super rare behind the scenes shot of Charlie taken during filming. Pretty damned cool !

So give Monster and the girl a spin and see for yourself why this is the best ape ever !

Hows this for a Tricky Treat !

Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown! #4 ..... THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST!

I am forever thankful that the gloriously nutty Ed Wood of PLAN 9 infamy, also created the little gorilla suited gem THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST (1958). This creepy little tale of wed-us interruptus posits that a newly married Charlotte Austin has an inexplicable connection to the caged beast in her husband's basement. Steve Calvert mixes it up in Corrigan's old suit and hungers for a taste of his master's new bride. After the escaped anxious ape is dispatched with a few bullets, the hypnotic investigation into the weird draw our angora clad beauty has to the furry fellow reveals a past lifetime as the Queen of the Gorillas! Though the film doesn't sustain the delightful strangeness of it's first half, devolving into African stock footage, it does feature one of the few white apes of cinema, and for that, deserves a rewatch or two!

    Here's the trailer with a few thoughts from John Landis - a fellow gorilla suit enthusiast if there ever was one!

Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown! #5 ..... Microspook !

 

BOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Look out for.....

Microspook !

  The hairy and horrible countdown continues with the hysterically dreaded film known only as ...Microspook!

This film is tailor made for Halloween...Haunted Houses, masked maniac with a pet killer goriller...and more horrifying than that..Emil Sitka in a goofball low rent gorilla suit getting confused for the real thing! You can't ask for a tricky treat better than that !
   Microspook (1949) is in the same vein as the classic " Old Dark House" comedies, made very popular in the 30's and 40's. This is actually my favorite type of gorilla movie, more so than the straight up jungle adventures. They just seem a lot more fun to me!

   Microspook stars veteran radio comedian Harry Von Zell, ( Of Burns and Allen fame),Christine McIntyre, and Emil Sitka.

Von Zell, made a name for himself playing a practical joke addicted goofball radio announcer.
In Microspook, Harry's co-workers are so fed up with his antics that they talk one of Harry's sponsors into wanting Harry to do a live broadcast from an authentic haunted house.

His co-workers later sneak into the house intent on scaring the heck out of Harry with an ape suit worn by the great Emil Sitka. ( Sitka was a staple in the Three Stooges shorts, and considered by Moe Howard to be the fourth Stooge)
Needless to say, things don't turn out quite as expected as the house is already inhabited by a killer gorilla ( Ray Corrigan) and his eccentric keeper.

One of the classic gags in gorilla movies is the old " real gorilla is mistaken for a fake gorilla gag".
To pull this off properly, you need the "fake Gorilla" to a fairly low quality suit.
Well, in Microspook, the producers spared no expense in procuring the worst looking gorilla suit on the planet, from the Columbia wardrobe department.
The suit literally is made of fur and gaffers tape and in some stills, it really shows !

Hollywood Gorilla Man Emil Sitka (Yes, you heard that right!) throws a fright into the lovely Christine McIntyre. On top of this comedic gorilla, Emil also played gorillas in other films, (including Jungle Jim and the Lost Tribe) sometimes wearing the gorilla suits of the great Charles Gemora !

Emil and Christine plot to scare the hell, out of Harry Von Zell !

Word to the not so wise...don't smoke....in a gorilla suit...

The Mighty Sitka stalks the halls of the haunted house !

What a great profile this suit has ! It's like something from a Don Martin cartoon !

  

Sitka meets the even Mightier Ray Corrigan !

Emil Sitka and Christine McIntyre ring Harry Von Zell's chime !

( photo from the collection of Bob Burns)

The weird thing is that I really like that goofy suit !

It has that same quirky charm as a tie made of construction paper and macaroni noodles that small children would make for their dad on fathers day.

The badness of Emil's suit shines like a spotlight when put next to Ray Corrigans awesome suit,

and makes old Crash's suit all the more real.





This leads to mass hilarity that I can only imagine since I haven't seen Microspook yet !

We can get an idea of what it is like through a wonderful article and photos on a website devoted to Emil Sitka , created by his son, Saxon Emil Sitka.

Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown!...# 6...White Pongo!

Now I freely admit that WHITE PONGO is pretty far from the parameters that we have set for ourselves, but I cannot get that frosty locked freaky ape outta my mind when considering not just the horrific gorilla film, but rather the horrific gorilla. While the film itself is nowhere near frightening, or dramatically interesting, the bizarre albino ape strikes a powerful pose in the press stills, lobby cards and posters. I don't doubt for a moment that Corrigan's white nightmare was the primary reason the moviegoing masses bought a ticket. Though the suit had none of the realism Gemora strove for, the outlandish and grotesque White Pongo is certainly fascinating enough to capture our attention 70 years later.

Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown!...# 7...The Ape !

Here we go into the fray yet again, as we continue the count down the Halloween ! What's creepier than a killer gorilla prowling for hapless victims? A gorilla who's out to use you for mad scientific experimentation, that's what ! So pull up your pumpkin, and we'll tell the tale of  Monogram Pictures" The Ape", starring horror legend, Boris Karloff.

Karloff stars as ,Doctor Adrian, a lonely country doctor, who is on a guilt ridden search to find the cure polio, the disease that claimed his wife and daughter years earlier.  A young girl in town, (Maris Wrixon) also suffers from the dread disease, and Doctor Adrian is damned and determined not to let the disease take another innocent life. the key to the cure, he hypothesises, is the introduction of human spinal fluid into the spine of the patient. The only drawback is the spinal fluid must be extracted from a live donor. As luck would have it, this causes the donor to die, thereby cutting down the list of potential volunteers. In a series of fortunate events, a traveling circus happens into the little town the good doctor lives in. One of the exhibits is a huge gorilla,( The great, Ray Corrigan). The poor beast is horribly abused by his trainer. Then one evening, after viciously flogging the crap out of the poor gorilla, the A-hole trainer makes the mistake of getting to close to the vengeful behemoths cage. Then the gorilla does a little flogging of his own. (YAY !) One dropped cigar later, and the circus is now on fire, with part of the cage burned through, the ape escapes into the night The circus folk find the mangled body of the trainer, still somehow alive, and take him to kindly, old Doc Adrian (Karloff) to try to save him. The monkey did a thorough job of whipping his ass so the trainer's well on his way to a dirt nap. Old Doc figures since the guy's on the way out, a donation to the spinal fluid bank won't hurt him any way.(since to extract it is always fatal.) After getting the secret sauce, old Doc injects the young girl he's trying to cure and sees a glimmer of hope in the treatment. Meanwhile, as Doc's returning to his office, the mean old gorilla has come sniffing for the trainer's scent. As luck would have it, the trainers blood stained jacket is still in the office and old Magilla can smell it ! It breaks through the window scaring the hell out of the Doc! But rather than run away, the old Doc busts a bottle of chloroform over the enraged critters snot locker ! Then when the monkey was two sheets to the wind, Doc jumps the monkey with a knife and stabs the hairy intruder though the heart, from behind. Then , in a moment of mad inspiration, he skins it, and makes a costume out of it, and set out to get as much spinal fluid as he needs to cure that poor girl. I do want to point out, that for the most part, Doc was taking it from local scumbags.( who probably deserved it) I also want to say, that Docs motives were to help the girl, and by virtue, mankind as a whole through finding the polio cure. This is polar opposite to Lugosi (in the Ape Man) killing for spinal fluid to cure his own selfish ass! ( after having messed him self up in the first place !) But, back to the Karloff flick. The Ape costarred Ray "Crash" Corrigan as both the real gorilla, and Doc Adrian in disguise. This was necessary as Karloff could barely stand in the heavy costume, much less move in it. Karloff wore the suit for one scene only, as a reveal of the culprit. This film marked the last time Ray's original gorilla costume ( Bonga) was ever used, as it was falling apart. When the gorilla is looking through the windows of Docs office, you can see the monkeys teeth through horizontal rips in the upper lip. You can also see a steel wire sticking out from the lower lip that was part of the mechanism to make the mouth move. After the Ape, Crash retired the old suit, and had a new suit constructed, that was even more menacing. But at any rate, I like this little film, because it truly shows old Boris giving a heck of a performance as the painfully conflicted Dr. having to kill, to save lives....Not many new TRICKS, but a very cool TREAT !

Hairy Horrorthon Halloween Countdown! # 8 ...Seven Footprints to Satan!

Did someone say...SATAN!
The Church Lady is forever etched in my mind anytime the name of the Great Nemesis is mentioned. Today's entry is another Golden Age Gemora Gorilla - this time with man himself portraying the devilish ape. The text below is cannibalized from a post I made 6 (!) years ago but hey- I'm old and I gotz 2 kids!

I have added a few videos and the time where Gemora menaces the pasty faced 'hero'.

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN was originally penned by Abraham Merrit in 1927, and was one of two works adapted to film (the other was BURN WITCH BURN!, filmed as THE DEVIL DOLL in 1936). Merritt had a modest literary output; his primary occupation was that of editor for THE ALL AMERICAN WEEKLY, a Randolph Hearst publication.



Here is a brief, innocuous description of the film from IMDB – coming from the mind of   Benjamin Christensen I imagine that the last line in the summary is most relevant. I was introduced to Christensen’s landmark film HEXEN via the brutally surreal and random 30’s shocker, MANIAC. The titular character has moments of crippling hallucinations where images of demons and witches from the Danish docudrama are superimposed upon scenes of mental torment. It is abundantly clear that they are in class beyond this exploitation films’ original material.


A young man of society wants to make an expedition to Africa, but his fiancée asks him for help about one of her father’s guests shortly before his planed departure. Her suspects about that guest were serious, this man tries to steal one of her father’s rubin, and she and her fiancé are kidnapped and brought to a house, where strange things happen. The whole thing becomes a nightmare under the direction of a mysterious Mr. Satan.



The voluminous pages of THE MISSING LINK website have this to say about the early Hollywood effort of the Great Dane:
Daredevil Jim Kirkham, complains when he feels that his life is too mundane, until he and his sweetheart find themselves prisoners in a haunted castle while searching for a gemstone stolen during a reception at her house. The castle is inhabited entirely by monsters, wild animals and screaming victims, but eventually the horrors are revealed to have been nothing more than an elaborate hoax to show him that mundane reality can be as bizarre as any adventure.
A thrilling parade of monsters in a startling symphony of light and shadow, invested with a darkly mocking wit.

That seems a more apt description! I have yet to see the film myself. It was long considered lost until a European version surfaced. Though it is minus the sound effects and synchronized music that accompanied the North American release, the surviving print has Italian intertitles, a recent score, and is available at Creepy Classics. Another item on a long list of gorilla suit must-haves.

 

Another rare still - note a youthful Angelo Rossito with the curled shoes, best known for his FREAKS role with horror buffs, also widely recognized for his appearance as the Master in the third MAD MAX installment.

 The cult film guru Michael J. Weldon of Psychotronic magazine (which sadly may be out of print for a spell while they rebound from some distribution problems) had these comments about the classic dark house film. Weldon’s distinctive obituary pages are unmatched in print or on the web – both the obscure and forgotten names of cult and underground film get their due recognition in a few lines of print. The quote below is indicative of Michael’s expansive knowledge and his top spot as the go-to Hollywood grave watcher.

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS is overloaded with impressive horror makeup faces, interesting characters and visual surprises. One brief (pre-code) scene shows a naked oriental woman (we only see part of her). Her hands are then bound above her head with leather straps while the gorilla holds her feet! A hairy faced man (William V. Mong) who I think is a werewolf and a bearded dwarf (young Angelo Rossitto) both help the hero. A witch woman in a sexy dress (Nora Cecil) and a club footed cripple with long hair (Sheldon Lewis, who was DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE in 1920) both threaten. Also with the director as Eve’s uncle and Loretta Young (an extra). The director, best known for his incredible WITCHCRAFT 2 THROUGH THE AGES (22), also made THE HAUNTED HOUSE (28) and HOUSE OF HORROR (29) in Hollywood, both also with Todd and Mong, before returning home to Denmark. Todd, famous for 30s comedy shorts, died of carbon monoxide poisoning in her car in 35. The Japanese Kamiyama Sojin (also in THE BAT - 26) died in 44 in a U.S. internment camp. Hale, from Ireland, retired after the 40s and lived into his 80s.



 Appears around 7:50


Appears around 5:40


Appears around 5:19