Jungle Captive * (1945, Otto Kruger, Phil Brown, Rondo Hatton, Vicky Lane, Jerome Cowan, Amelita Ward, Eddie Acuff) – Classic Movie Review 5240

Director Harold Young’s very cheap, risibly awful 1945 sequel to Captive Wild Woman (1943) and Jungle Woman (1944) has almost nothing to recommend it beyond some noble efforts by the actors against the odds and its short running time of 63 minutes.

Taking over from John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman and J Carrol Naish in Jungle Woman, Otto Kruger stars as crazed scientist Dr Stendhal, who tries to change Paula the incredibly hairy but equally dead Ape Woman (Vicky Lane, taking over from Acquanetta) into a live and lovely female, after his disfigured servant Moloch the Brute (Rondo Hatton) steals her corpse from the morgue.

It does provide plenty of laughs though for those who like to scoff at bad movies. Universal Pictures was the pre-eminent studio for fantasy films in the Thirties, but this is a good example of its failures in the Forties.

Also in the cast are Phil Brown, Jerome Cowan, Amelita Ward, Eddie Acuff, Ernie Adams, Charles Wagenheim, Eddy Chandler and Jack Overman.

It turned out to be the third and final part of the trilogy.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5240

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