User reviews

Bela Lugosi plays the scientist who, with assistant John Carradine, travels to Alaska (or, at least, somewhere north where it's freezing cold) in the hopes of finding a neanderthal man frozen in the ice upon which he wants to experiment with a serum to see if he can restore life to him.

What luck, he finds one (did you have any doubt?) but, upon reviving him decides that his brute brain must go or, at least, be altered with the partial brain of a civilized man. From there things go predictably haywire.

This 60 minute quickie has the usual silly script and cheap sets that you only come to expect from Monogram. Lugosi and Carradine go through their paces but neither actor seems particularly inspired (does anybody wonder why?). The film has the usual climax, with a beautiful young woman passed out in the ape man's arms as the police and her fiance chase after them.

Biggest mystery of the film for me was the third billing given to veteran character actor George Zucco as "the Ape Man," along with Frank Moran in the same part. For starters he's not an ape man, he's a caveman. Apparently, from what I read, Zucco briefly appears in the role but darned if I could spot him. It's more like Zucco is playing the invisible man in this film than anything else.

Lugosi had previously appeared in another Monogram "B" entitled The Ape Man. I assume that film did sufficiently well at the box office to inspire this title though it is in no way or form a sequel, aside from the screen presence of its top billed star.

"Return of the Ape Man" is a very low energy movie with all the expected 'thrills'...including a mad scientist, a monster (of sorts), fainting ladies, brain experiments and murder. Yet, oddly, despite these story elements, the movie itself is surprisingly dull and low energy...mostly due to lackluster writing and acting from this Monogram release.

The story begins with two scientists, Professors Dexter and Gilmore (Bela Lugosi and John Carradine), experimenting on a hobo...keeping him frozen for several months and then reviving him. Dexter is convinced he can replicate this on folks frozen far longer...perhaps many years longer. So, the pair go on an expedition to the Arctic and return with a cave man who was frozen for many thousands of years. Dexter IS able to revive him...but the cave man (who is not ape-like at all) is uncontrollable. So, Dexter, being the great humanitarian, decides to steal someone else's brain, or at least part of it, and transplanting it into the cave dude....with expected results.

Monogram Studios was a very low budget affair. Not as bad as PRC nor Ed Wood Jr., , for which Lugosi made some truly awful films,.....but pretty poor. To me, this movie felt like a dozen other Lugosi films where he played an evil mad scientist...and several of which were MUCH better, such as Universal's "Murders in the Rue Morgue". By the numbers and offering little that is novel or exciting...it's mostly a film for Lugosi fans and perhaps my score of 4 is a bit generous.

Standard low, low budget Monogram programmer stars the legends Bela Lugosi and John Carradine as a pair of scientists. Professor Dexter (Lugosi) is determined that they find a perfectly preserved prehistoric man so they can continue with their cold storage experiments. Naturally, they do find an ape man (prizefighter Frank Moran), who comes back to life and wreaks predictable havoc. Dexter thinks that the solution to controlling the ape man will be donating a portion of a rational mans' brain to the confused cave dude.

Although this is routine stuff, clocking in at barely over an hour, Bela and Carradine are once again great value. Carradine, who played his own fair share of mad scientists over the course of his career, here gets to play the moral centre / voice of reason - and also gets to play that oh so familiar composition "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. Bela, meanwhile, clearly has fun as the irrational, totally self serving cretin who doesn't care what he has to do to realize his ambitions. The supporting cast is sufficient: gorgeous Teala Loring as Carradines' niece, Michael Ames (a.k.a. Tod Andrews) as her fiancée, Mary Currier as Carradines' wife, Eddy Chandler as a police sergeant, and Ernie Adams as a hobo. George Zucco was originally cast as the title character, and had done the required hair and makeup tests, but fell ill, and had to leave the picture. As a result, he's barely in it, spending a few seconds on the slab until the ape man wakes up and is then played by Moran. Still, Zucco clearly had a good agent; his contract allowed him to get third billing no matter what.

Overall, this is a mildly enjoyable lark, with nothing special or memorable about it, but it's got a decent forward pace and enough chuckles to make it palatable. The director is Phil Rosen, an extremely prolific B filmmaker whose credits include some of the Charlie Chan features.

Five out of 10.

RETURN OF THE APE MAN was one of nine films Bela Lugosi appeared for the Poverty Row studio Monogram between 1941 and 1944. In this film, he plays mad scientist Professor Dexter who with the help of his colleague Professor John Gilmore (John Carradine) revives a prehistoric man (Frank Moran) from an ice block. Dexter schemes to kill a modern person to use part of his brain in the newly thawed brute. Thus, the savage ape man will not only become manageable, but he'll have the speech and intelligence to describe his prehistoric life. Why not a WHOLE brain? Because Dexter believes that if he removes all of his subject's old brain, the ape man won't have any knowledge of his former life.

This synopsis suggests the film's silliness. The plot is more coherent than in most of Lugosi's other Monogram films, but it still has its share of inexplicabilities and inconsistencies. Monogram's typically poor production values further enhance the film's cheesiness. The sets are sparse and threadbare. An Arctic sequence where the scientists find the ape man is especially phony looking; one expects the curtain to come down when it ends. The music, consisting of randomly selected stock scores, is dull and often inappropriate, such as a marching band tune during action sequences.

Still, one can derive legitimate pleasure from Bela Lugosi's performance. Ever the trouper, he acts as if he's in one of his Shakespeare productions in his native Hungary and the film is all the better because of it. Lugosi emotes his standard mad scientist part with passion and conviction. He delivers such lines as "Some people's brains would never be missed" in his sonorous Hungarian accented voice with an air of sinister elegance. Such a unique delivery elevates his dialogue from stale cliches to arcane parlance. Lugosi fans should savor RETURN OF THE APE MAN.

It's a letdown for John Carradine's fans, however. As Dexter's sane and ethical partner, he just goes through the motions. His performance is so listless that one perversely roots for Lugosi's far more vibrant character when the scientists argue.

Overall, RETURN OF THE APE MAN exemplifies the situation of an outstanding performer (in this case, Lugosi) rising above his unpromising material.

Return of the Ape Man (1944)

*** (out of 4)

Extremely entertaining B-movie has Bela Lugosi playing Professor Dexter, a man who discovers a way to freeze a person for months and then bring them back to life. He wants further proof of his genius so he and his partner (John Carradine) travel to the Arctic where they discover a Missing Link (George Zucco/Frank Moran). They bring him back and defrost him and before long he is running wild. Dexter, wanting to make it more human, decides to put the brain of his assistant into the creature.

RETURN OF THE APE MAN is without question one of the most entertaining B movies of the decade thanks in large part to some nice direction by Phil Rosen and a great cast of characters. Obviously if you're wanting high art then you might as well keep on walking but if you're a fan of low-budget horror movies then this one here really delivers on the entertainment factor. At just 60 minutes the movie is extremely fast-paced and a lot of fun.

A lot of credit has to go to the cast who are really amped up throughout the film. This includes Lugosi who delivers another strong performance as the mad scientist who slowly loses his mind more and more. Lugosi is a lot of fun in his typical over-the-top way. Carradine is also a lot of fun here and it's great getting to see the two men act together. Zucco can be seen in only a brief shot but his contract required his name to remain on the title card but it's Frank Moran who plays the ape man the majority of the time. He too is great fun as the wild creature.

As you can tell, there's nothing ground-breaking about RETURN OF THE APE MAN but it's not trying to be. It's meant for some fast, cheap entertainment and there's no doubt that it delivers that and much more.

Lugosi, Carradine and Zucco all in the same film, but which one plays the mad scientist this time around? The answer to that question is Lugosi, the Dracula star appearing as Prof. Dexter, who performs groundbreaking suspended animation experiments with the aid of his colleague John Gilmore (Carradine).

After successfully freezing a vagrant and reviving him four months later, the pair go in search of a frozen prehistoric man for their next experiment. They find what they are looking for trapped in a glacier; transporting their discovery back to the lab, the pair wake up the 'ape-man' (Zucco, soon to be replaced by Frank Moran due to illness). Dexter reveals that his next move will be to transplant brain tissue from a present-day human into the prehistoric man, an idea that Gilmore finds abhorrent -- little does he realise that it will be his brain tissue that Dexter uses!

Featuring three icons of horror, and a suitably loopy premise, this film should have been a lot of barmy fun, but the whole thing is strictly routine, playing out like so many other cheap B-movies of the day. The script is weak and the direction uninspired, but the biggest let down is the prehistoric creature: a policeman describes it as looking 'more like an ape than a man', but it doesn't... it looks like a regular man in need of a bath, a haircut, a shave and a change of outfit. I guess 'Return of the Dirty Hobo' doesn't have the same ring about it.

In true movie monster fashion, the 'ape man' ultimately escapes and makes off with damsel in distress Anne Gilmore (Teala Loring), her beau Steve Rogers (Tod Andrews) and the police in hot pursuit. Predictably, Dexter dies at the hands of his creation, and the 'ape-man' goes up in flames in the laboratory.

3/10. Does nothing to distinguish itself from countless other poverty-row potboilers. If it wasn't for the participation of three horror legends, the film would have been completely forgotten by now.

Having now watched some 12 of Lugosi's "cheapies", I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed some of them - but others are just so silly that, for me, it hampers rather than enhances their entertainment value! Unfortunately, RETURN OF THE APE MAN happens to be one of them.

Let's begin with the good stuff: Lugosi and Carradine interact well together and I'd say that their roles here are equally important, despite the latter's below-title billing (though he's not interesting as a straight man, and I obviously prefer him when he goes over-the-top). Well, that's basically it - somehow, I felt that this one fell below the standard of the other films I've watched. Apart from the usual plot contrivances (not the least of which is Lugosi mounting an Arctic expedition, with a million-to-one chance of discovering the 'Missing Link', just so he can prove his theory about 'suspended animation'!) and the fact that, once unearthed, the 'creature' is given very little to do, the film suffers from listless pacing - where everybody apparently takes his sweet time about everything (witness Lugosi's calm and composed reaction at the Ape Man's escape from his laboratory, or the sheer amount of time it takes two cops to break down the door to the lab at the climax) - which really drowns any effort to get involved in the story!

I truly wanted to enjoy this one for what it was and not examine it unduly but the script was so lazy and the handling so uninspired that it was awfully hard for me to excuse its deficiencies simply because it was Poverty Row stuff. Do you want examples? O.K...although I agree that the best line in the film was the one uttered by Lugosi - "Some people's brains would never be missed" - that very sequence is actually where my heart sank and I knew that it was going to get worse from that point on. Why on earth would Lugosi choose, of all people, his own assistant's future son-in-law as his 'guinea pig'?! As I said, the creature itself did nothing but commute from one house (Lugosi's) to another (Carradine's). Oh, yes...he did give us an unprecedented glimpse of his bare buttocks during his climb out of Lugosi's laboratory window! I have to say, though, that the image of Lugosi chasing the Ape Man into the streets with a blowtorch did put an effortless smile on my face! Worst of all, perhaps, is the hurried way in which the sequence where Lugosi traps Carradine is shot: rather than milk the scene for all the suspense it obviously contains by judicious cross-cutting, the director chooses to shoot it in one bland, medium-shot which, if one blinks long enough, would probably miss it!! Similarly tossed away is the sequence where the Creature (now with Carradine in control) goes back to his house and starts wandering about and even sits down to play the piano; one only has to recall how moving Freddie Jones was (in similar circumstances) under Terence Fisher's direction in FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969). Sure, these programmers were made fast and cheap (as were Hammer's, after all) but how costly would it have been for the film-makers to pour some real effort into their work?

The story revolves around an Artic expedition headed by Bela Lugosi and his associate, scientist John Carradine, as they search for what might be the missing link. They find a frozen cave man...why this is called an ape man is totally lost on me. It must be based on the huge lack of success from an earlier Lugosi film called The Ape Man, of which this film has no relation too in plot whatsoever. Anyway, Lugosi brings this man back but finds that it needs at least a part of someone else's brain. He begins to search for possible subjects and settles on Carradine's soon-to-be fiancee. Carradine is not enthusiastic in the venture any further and severs ties, and the real mayhem begins as Bela gets to really ham it up trying to find and finally succeeding with a substitute. The Return of the Ape Man is undeniably cheap, poorly scripted, and laughably acted by most; it does, however, remain thoroughly entertaining due in large part to Lugosi in a charged-up role and Carradine in a rather subdued one. The cast credits list George Zucco but alas he is nowhere to be found. Quite a shame considering his ability to add class to almost anything.

Bela Lugosi and John Carradine, both men played Dracula at Universal Studios and both men said "Yes" when Monogram Studios came calling with offers of work. In VOODOO MAN John was Bela's half-wit servant (Long John called that "The worst film I ever made!" of course he said that before he did BILLY THE KID MEETS Dracula.) At least in this film they are fellow scientists.

Prof. Dexter (Bela) and Prof. Gilmore (John) have perfected a way to freeze human beings and then thaw them out unharmed. They have kept Willy The Weasel (Ernie Adams) a "notorious tramp" (as a newspaper article labels him) on ice for 4 months. When he wakes up he thinks he has just spent the night in their basement! Bela suggests they could revive a person who has been frozen longer and suggests they head up to the North Pole to find a specimen of prehistoric man. With hardly any hesitation Carradine agrees and off they go. (Just keep repeating "It's only a movie . . . only a movie . . .")

Do they find what they are looking for? Well this would be an even duller film if they did not! As Bela says "One chance in a million and we've won!" They waste no time in thawing the Neandertal Man (Frank Moran) out but he is far from happy at being awakened from his 50,000 year nap. Bela grabs a handy blowtorch and forces the man into an even handier cage (You see? Fire is his Master! He probably never understood it.")

Now just bringing a prehistoric man back to life would have any other scientist ringing up the Nobel Prize committee but NOT Bela! He wants to transplant half the brain of a modern man into the ape man's skull so the world can hear first hand what it was like to live back then. Carradine is reluctant to do this ("That would be murder.") but Bela retorts "Murder is an ugly word. As a scientist I don't recognise it." Of course while determining just whose brain should be hijacked the Ape Man escapes and brutally kills a policeman. There is a splendid shot of Bela walking down a city street wearing a tuxedo with a lit blowtorch in his hand! This movie just has to be taking place in a parallel universe! Anyway moral and righteous Carradine reads about the killing in the papers and decides to spill the well known beans to the cops. Bela persuades him to drop by the lab first. Can you guess why? Yes! He has found his brain donor!

This movie is fabulous because of the sheer eccentricity of its plot. Bela, who is not even a surgeon, successfully performs brain surgery without even bothering the shave the Neandertal's head; whats more the patient recovers from this complex surgery and it up and walking in just a few hours! Where did Dr. Lugosi study medicine? Also, why is the caveman not hurt by bullets? Was he petrified after having been frozen so long or is that just one really tough animal skin he is wearing? Watch closely for the scene where the ape man climbs through the window of Carradine's home. You will see this prehistoric man is wearing a pair of 20th century underwear!

Originally the Ape Man was to be played by 2 people. Former prizefighter Frank Moran, who appeared in many movies for Poverty Row studios and even a few for the majors, was to be the title character before the brain surgery and George Zucco was to be the post surgery ape man. A still does exist showing the ape man sitting on a table with Carradine and Lugosi on either side. The profile is definitely not Frank Moran! That nose and those eyes do remind me of George Zucco; but that is not him in the movie at any time. A story goes that he got so fed up during the makeup tests that he "got sick" before his scenes could be filmed and Frank Moran played the role all the way through. Maybe George was still mad at Monogram because of his role in VOODOO MAN.

Bela is great. John seems to be just walking through his role, something he seldom did not matter how bad the script was. Then again the script does not give him much to do. With lines like "I believe you're quite mad!" and "As a public minded citizen it's my duty to report how the poor man happened to have been killed." Maybe that is why Bela's character thinks his colleague could only donate half a brain!

Supporting cast includes Judith Gibson, who was sometimes billed as "Teala Loring" and Michael Ames are the young-couple-in-love. Mr. Ames would later change his name to "Tod Andrews" and would star in such things as FROM HELL IT CAME (1957). Watch closely for Horace Carpenter (Dr. Mierschultz from Dwain Esper's 1934 sleaze classic MANIAC) in a non speaking role as a security guard who is killed by the ape man.

They don't make movies like this anymore. You know what? I am kind of sorry they don't.

How can I not like this film? Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, & George Zucco stars in this fun poverty row quickie. The film lasts around an hour and it's an enjoyable watch.

We have Bela Lugosi as the mad scientist Prof. Dexter who is experimenting with a the frozen body of a prehistoric caveman (George Zucco) - that is thawed out and now living. Prof. John Gilmore (John Carradine) is right beside Dexter but Dexter has plans of his own! Everything becomes a fun romp as we usually expect from these films.

Really a good way to enjoy and hour three classic horror favorites .

7.5/10

John Carradine completed "The Mummy's Ghost" at Universal on Sept 9 1943; by the 27th his long planned Shakespeare company debuted doing boffo box office at the Pasadena Playhouse, with the actor playing the title role in OTHELLO, then by Oct 5 as Shylock in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, and finally as HAMLET (Oct 12-17). This was the short-lived period when Monogram offered him the princely sum of $3000 a week as part of a trio of horror players to star in two Sam Katzman potboilers, along with Bela Lugosi and George Zucco; from Oct 1 Carradine was billed under Lugosi in "Return of the Ape Man," with Zucco's disastrous casting in the bearded, prehistoric title role quickly rectified by replacing him with former pugilist Frank Moran (both actors listed on screen), previously seen opposite Bela in both "The Corpse Vanishes" and "Ghosts on the Loose." Scripted in typical hurry-up-and-shoot-it mode, loaded with reams of ludicrous dialogue, Lugosi's dynamism largely held in check by the sadly one dimensional Prof. Dexter. Carradine, like Zucco clearly miscast, plays Dexter's assistant, Prof. John Gilmore, as straight laced and naive as Dexter is hard boiled and obstinate, an all too trusting associate easily duped by his partner's machinations. Distressingly tacky, confined to one simple basement set, yet still fun to some extent, the actors all hamstrung with little to work with. Zucco wisely bailed out after appearing comatose in the Ape Man's initial sequence, while Carradine braved his insipid lines with a small measure of conviction: "Dexter you're a dangerous man, I believe you're quite mad!" Helpless to prevent sacrificing his own brain to Dexter's mad experiment, Gilmore essentially shrugs, deserving of his fate; after the operation, the creature is able to speak (a little) and reason (not much), leading the hapless authorities on a madcap chase across the city before meeting his demise right back in Dexter's lab. It remains Bela Lugosi's show all the way (or at least 49 minutes), Carradine's screen time at 18 1/2 minutes, for once playing a rational, if spineless, scientist rather than a crazed one. One has to wonder if the role of halfwit Toby in the next Monogram feature "Voodoo Man" shows us what's left of Gilmore? It could very well be!

While on an Arctic expedition, two scientists find the frozen body of a prehistoric caveman. They bring him home to their laboratory, but decide that in order to fully utilize (and control) him, they must transplant a more developed brain into the caveman.

I love Bela Lugosi. Not sure if I can say that enough. I have watched five or six films with him in it over the past ten days, and I would gladly watch five or six more. Oh, and I cannot complain about John Carradine either...

What I can complain about is the inclusion of "Moonlight Sonata", but that is just a personal bias. That song has always given me the creeps. There used to be a game called "Alone in the Dark" (a predecessor of Resident Evil) and that song was featured. It has given me the willies ever since.

I should probably write something about the ape man or the actual merits of this film. Let us just say it is pretty much standard. Without Lugosi and Carradine, it would be completely forgettable. But with them, you will enjoy seeing a hairy guy bust out of his cell and have a little prehistoric fun!

Return Of The Ape Man which has nothing to do with the original Ape Man which was no Oscar winner either boasts in its cast three players who apparently had no standards by which they chose projects. Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, and to a lesser extent George Zucco probably in the aggregate can count on more dreadful films than any other three players you can name.

Starting off with the fact that a product from Monogram Pictures ought to carry a warning label, Return Of The Ape Man is one horrid ripoff from the Frankenstein story. Lugosi and Carradine are a pair of scientists experimenting in cryogenics before its time and travel on an Arctic expedition to find hopefully a frozen caveman from prehistoric times to experiment on.

What Carradine doesn't know is that eventually he winds up part of the experiment as a bit of his brain winds up in the caveman's body. After that it's George Zucco who takes over the caveman part from former boxer Frank Moran. Zucco gets to talk guttural monster talk like both Lugosi and Boris Karloff did playing the Frankenstein monster.

Biggest hoot in the film is when the caveman with new enhanced intelligence breaks into Carradine's house plays Moonlight Sonata on the piano and then strangles Mary Currier who is Carradine's wife. I split a gut with that one.

For a few laughs check out Return Of The Ape Man.

'Return of the Ape Man' teams up two horror stars to appear in a mess that hardly merits their efforts; in fact they don't seem to be making very great efforts. The remaining cast is so saddled with unworkable dialogue and directions that they barely give an impression on the screen. The acting is necessarily awful.

The story starts quite marvellously, and for the first quarter hour it's crash bang wallop; jumping from scene to scene and madcap ideas to bonkers situations.

Also Lugosi and Carradine have the most screen time together in this first part of the film, with very few other speaking parts to share with, so the actors portrayals are most clear whilst the plot is at it's most hyperactive.

By the midway point the characters blur out and the narrative loses pace, the plot becomes a back and forth and the tone becomes actually comedic.

To compound this by the latter stages of 'Return of the Ape Man' both Lugosi and Carradine have 'exited stage left' and George Zucco never gets past the opening credits so there is no further interest in what is being put up on screen.

The main laboratory set appears to be a redress of that from 'The Ape Man' which is probably appropriate considering.

Apart from a mad first 15 minutes and a couple of joke throw away lines for Lugosi there is little other interest.

I rate 3.5/10 and, frankly, if poverty row b-movie Bela is what a viewer fancies try 'Voodoo Man' from the same year; or 'Invisible Ghost' or the utterly screwy 'The Devil Bat' from a couple of years earlier.

Bela Lugosi once Again is Paid to Play a Mad-Scientist in a Formulaic Film that Never seems to Wear Out its Welcome but the Story at this Point is Worn Out.

Lugosi's Roles in these Things are Interchangeably Wooden and Dull.

So Interchangeable, in Fact, that this "Return" has Nothing to do with the Original "The Ape Man" (1943) made by Monogram just a Year Earlier.

But it Hardly Mattered Anymore because these Things were "Dime a Dozen" Poverty Row Mainstays and All were Equally Unremarkable and Fillers at Best.

The Prolific John Carradine Shows Up in this one as the "Voice of Reason" and for His Straight-Role Trouble Lugosi Rips Out His Brain and Transplants it to the "Ape Man"

The Third-Act has the Titular Creature Walking Here and Walking There, sometimes Carrying a Damsel Over His Shoulder and sometimes a Female Dummy.

Speaking of Dummies...Let's Not Go There.

The Stock-Canned Music is Laughably Ludicrous.

Worth a Watch for Lugosi Fans and Lovers of Low-Budget Movies. Others are Likely to be Bored to Death.

Note...George Zucco was hired to play the "Ape Man", but after initial make-up and costuming, took ill and was replaced. Scuttlebutt says he faked the illness and bailed.

Professor Dexter and his assistant Professor Gilmore (Bela Lugosi and John Carradine) are busy experimenting on homeless winos, freezing them solid for months at a time in order to defrost them later.

Next, they're off to the arctic to find a frozen caveman. Once one is located and chipped out of the ice, they haul him back to their laboratory and bring the troglodyte back to life.

Naturally, Dexter and Gilmore plan to transplant a normal human brain into the caveman's noggin. A subject is found, drugged, frozen, and prepped for the implantation process.

What could possibly go wrong?

RETURN OF THE APE MAN is every bit as ridiculous as the original film, perhaps more so. Lugosi and Carradine are in rare form, as is George Zucco. Everyone takes turns devouring the scenery, making this a wonderment to behold!...