Bride of the Gorilla * (1951, Barbara Payton, Lon Chaney Jr, Raymond Burr, Tom Conway, Paul Cavanagh) – Classic Movie Review 5288

‘Her clothes torn away, screaming in terror!’ Writer-director Curt Siodmak’s 1951 horror movie Bride of the Gorilla is a bizarre, but entertaining so-bad-it’s-good shocker, with preposterous voodoo curse things going on in a South American jungle rubber plantation. It took seven days to shoot but then star Lon Chaney Jr went on a four and a half month publicity tour to promote it.

There, an old native serving woman sees the manager Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) kill his elderly boss Klaas Van Gelder (Paul Cavanagh). Burr later weds Cavanagh’s lovely young widow Mrs Dina Van Gelder (Barbara Payton). The servant then puts a potion in Burr’s drink, cursing him, which makes him go ape and become a gorilla.

It is possible to feel sorry for Burr, Lon Chaney Jr, Tom Conway and Cavanagh, all of whom deserve much, much better, and are normally in entirely classier productions. The alluring Payton couldn’t be finer as Dina, the lady who is up to all the monkey business, and Chaney Jr is unusually cast as Police Commissioner Taro, the police chief on Burr’s case. It is Woody Strode’s film debut as another cop, Nedo the policeman.

Produced by Herman Cohen for Jack Broder Productions and released by the ironically named Real Art, the cheap, studio-bound production, photographed by Charles Van Enger, only makes the film even more ridiculously amusing.

Also in the cast are Gisela Werbisek, Carol Varga, Paul Maxey, Martin Garralaga, Moyna MacGill and Felippa Rock.

Bride of the Gorilla is partly based on Siodmak’s script for The Wolf Man (1941), also with Chaney Jr.

[Spoiler alert] The gorilla makes only a brief appearance at the end of the film.

Payton’s suspicious and jealous actor husband Franchot Tone employed a private detective spy, who photographed her and Strode in bed together.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5288

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