Oddball programmer from Universal that is largely lost to
memory due to the spate of more famous franchises that surrounded it; such as
Universal’s classic monsters series – (The
Mummy, Frankenstein, etc.) – and
exotic adventures – (Arabian Knights,
Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves). It does share a theme about the savagery in
mankind with other films of the era like The
Wolf Man (1941) and Cat People (1942) with a Dr. Moreau element mixed in for good measure. Under the name given her by the studio,
“Aquanetta,” Mildred Davenport plays Paula the Ape Woman, who longs to hook up
with an attractive young man but is hindered by her tendency to change into a
murderous gorilla once in a while. It
seems J. Carroll Naish, re-doing his mad doctor routine from many other
Universal B-flicks, has been playing God with some animal
experiments in the lab. While not
terribly successful, the film still has more than few fun moments of ingenious
practical effects, such as in depictions of the Paula-gorilla’s trail of
violence, especially a sequence in which she dives into a lake and
stalks a pair of boaters from underneath.
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