Starring Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon, Gene O'Donnell, Dorothy Vaughan, Gertrude Hoffman
Directed by William Nigh
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A doctor turns to murder in the guise of an escaped circus gorilla to obtain the spinal fluid he needs to cure a young woman's paralysis.
One of Boris Karloff's films for Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures, the movie is certainly not a favorite of many compared to his other classic films, but I'm rather fond of it. Playing a kindly doctor who is ironically hated by the townspeople due to his mysterious experiments and untrue rumors about him, I found his performance quite noble and more than adequate. The rest of the cast isn't as fine of course although I liked Maris Wrixon as his young patient, and Henry Hall as the folksy sheriff. IMDB credits Ray Corrigan as the man in the gorilla costume, who certainly had a talent for playing apes, and it's a fairly convincing costume for the period. The film stretches believability more than once, and the story wasn't always coherent, but the print I saw had a lot of jump cuts, so it may have been edited quite a bit. I enjoyed the music, and in general found the film a lot more watchable than some of Karloff's other low-budget efforts.
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