Captive Wild Woman
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''Captive Wild Woman'' is a 1943 American
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
directed by
Edward Dmytryk Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was a Canadian-born American film director and editor. He was known for his 1940s films noir, noir films and received an Academy Award for Best Director, Oscar nomination for Best Director for ...
. The film stars
Evelyn Ankers Evelyn Felisa Ankers (August 17, 1918 – August 29, 1985) was a British-American actress who often played variations on the role of the cultured young leading lady in many American horror films during the 1940s, most notably '' The Wolf Man'' ( ...
,
John Carradine John Carradine ( ; born Richmond Reed Carradine; February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American actor, considered one of the greatest character actors in American cinema. He was a member of Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and later J ...
,
Milburn Stone Hugh Milburn Stone (July 5, 1904 – June 12, 1980) was an American actor, best known for his role as "Doc" (Dr. Galen Adams) on the Western (genre), Western series ''Gunsmoke''. Early life Stone was born in Burrton, Kansas, to Herbert Stone an ...
, and features
Acquanetta Acquanetta (born July 17, 1921 – August 16, 2004), nicknamed "The Venezuelan Volcano", was an American B-movie actress during the 1940s and 1950s. Acquanetta was most known for her "exotic" beauty. Early years The facts of Acquanetta's orig ...
as Paula, the Ape Woman. The film involves a scientist, Dr. Sigmund Walters, whose experiments turn a female gorilla named Cheela into a human by injecting the ape with sex hormones and via brain transplants. ''Captive Wild Woman'' was initially announced by Universal Pictures in 1940 with several promotional campaigns that did not reflect what ended up in the film. The film was intended to start filming in 1941 and January 1942, but only began filming in December 1942, ending in production the following year. The film received lukewarm reviews from ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', ''
The New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in tabloid format, and rea ...
'' and ''
Harrison's Reports ''Harrison's Reports'' was a New York City–based motion picture trade journal published weekly from 1919 to 1962. The typical issue was four letter-size pages sent to subscribers under a second-class mail permit. Its founder, editor and publish ...
'' who only recommended the film to horror fans. It was followed by two sequels in the 1940s: '' Jungle Woman'' and '' The Jungle Captive''.


Plot

An
animal trainer Animal training is the act of teaching animals specific responses to specific conditions or stimuli. Training may be for purposes such as companionship, detection, protection, and entertainment. The type of training an animal receives will vary ...
, Fred Mason, returns from his latest safari with a horde of animals for his employer John Whipple, owner of the Whipple Circus. Among them is Cheela, a gorilla with remarkably human characteristics. Mason relates that she is the most affectionate jungle animal he has ever encountered. Mason's fiancée Beth Colman is present at the dock for his return. She tells him of the recent health problems encountered by her sister Dorothy. Beth reflects on taking her sibling to see Dr. Sigmund Walters, an
endocrinologist Endocrinology (from ''endocrine'' + '' -ology'') is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events ...
of some standing. Dorothy is staying at Walters’ Crestview Sanatorium for treatment. Fred and Beth arrive at the winter quarters, and Dr. Walters pays a visit. He is extremely interested in Cheela, and inquires about purchasing her. Whipple tells him that she is not for sale. Upon returning to his lab, Walters finds that his latest experiment has resulted in the lab animal's death. He becomes convinced he needs larger animals that possess the "will to live". Walters enlists the aid of a disgruntled former circus employee to steal Cheela. After the ape is loaded onto his truck, the scientist callously pushes the man into the gorilla's grasp and stolidly watches as the beast wrings his neck. Back at his lab, Walters and his assistant Miss Strand transplant glandular material from Dorothy into Cheela. There was discussion by Miss Strand that Walters has previously grafted the glands of different animals like placing a guinea pig's glands into a rabbit and a frog's glands into a
mouse A mouse (: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus'' ...
. To the horror of the nurse, the ape transforms into human form. Telling the doctor that she cannot allow him to continue, Miss Strand informs him that at best he will have "a human form, with animal instincts". Dr. Walters reaches the conclusion that he will need to place a human brain into his creation to successfully complete his experiment. He sacrifices Miss Strand for this purpose. The brain transplant is a success, and the result is a sultry and exotic young woman who remembers nothing of her previous existence. Walters names her Paula Dupree, and takes his creation to the winter quarters for her first public outing. While watching Mason practice his animal act, an accident occurs. Paula rushes into the cage and saves him from the ferocious felines, who display an unnatural fear of her and retreat from her presence. Mason is dumbfounded and offers the girl a job in his act. After the final dress rehearsal, Paula becomes jealous of Mason's fiancée. She goes to her dressing room and while having a tantrum, begins converting to animal form. Later that night, she climbs through Beth's window planning to kill her, but attacks and brutally murders another woman instead. The beast returns to Walters, and the doctor realizes that another operation is necessary to return her to human form. He can continue to use Dorothy for the glandular material, but will need yet another subject to replace Paula's damaged cerebrum. Beth receives a frantic telephone call from her sister who expresses her fear of Dr. Walters and the forthcoming operation. Arriving at the Sanatorium to aid her sister, Beth is pegged by the good doctor as the next brain donor for Cheela. However, she proves resourceful in a pinch, releasing the ape from its cage. Cheela does Walters in and departs the lab, leaving Beth and Dorothy unharmed. Performing his animal act solo, Mason finds himself trapped inside the cage with his unruly subjects. A powerful storm interrupts the performance and the beasts attack the trainer. Cheela comes to his rescue once again and carries him to safety, but a nearby
police officer A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a Warrant (law), warranted law employee of a police, police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. ...
mistakes her intentions and kills Cheela.


Cast


Production

''Captive Wild Woman'' was announced as a film more than two years before its release with an initial starting date to be on August 8, 1941. Preview advertisements for the film in the trade newspapers reveal that the concept of the character was not yet fixed. One from July 29 featured a grimacing woman while a second showed a more exotic woman brandishing a knife in a jungle setting, but neither ad showcased the hybrid ape-woman concept of the final script. A second starting date with George Waggner producing was set for January 2, 1942, which also did not come to pass. When the original script of the proposed film, which included the transplant of a living brain into an ape, was submitted for review under the
Motion Picture Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the Cinema of the United States, United States from 1934 to 1968. It ...
, the
Production Code Administration The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, the mini-major Amazon MGM Studios, as well as the video streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Fo ...
suggested several changes so that only a partial brain transplant would occur. The reason for the change, to which the studio did not object, was apparently to eliminate any possible implication that a human soul might transfer into an animal and violate religious doctrine. Among the cast was
John Carradine John Carradine ( ; born Richmond Reed Carradine; February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American actor, considered one of the greatest character actors in American cinema. He was a member of Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and later J ...
as Dr. Sigmund Walters. Director Edward Dmytryk referred to Carradine as having always been "kind of a ham" but that he "had a little talk with him and I think we got a very controlled performance out of him for a mad scientist!" The ape in the film was played by
Ray "Crash" Corrigan Ray "Crash" Corrigan (born Raymond Benitz; February 14, 1902 – August 10, 1976) was an American actor most famous for appearing in many B-Western movies (among these the '' Three Mesquiteers'' and ''The Range Busters'' film series). He ...
who began his career as a stuntman with a few starring roles in serials like '' Undersea Kingdom'' and B-Westerns. Corrigan had several gorilla costumes created for him personally, as he had previously played apes in ''
Murder in the Private Car ''Murder in the Private Car'' is a 1934 American pre-Code mystery romance film starring Mary Carlisle, Charles Ruggles and Una Merkel. Directed by Harry Beaumont, the production is based on the play ''The Rear Car'' by Edward E. Rose. David ...
'', '' The Ape'' and would go on to do several other Ape-roles in the 1940s.
Acquanetta Acquanetta (born July 17, 1921 – August 16, 2004), nicknamed "The Venezuelan Volcano", was an American B-movie actress during the 1940s and 1950s. Acquanetta was most known for her "exotic" beauty. Early years The facts of Acquanetta's orig ...
who plays Paula Dupree was previously a model in New York after graduating high school and had a story fabricated that she was from Venezuela to hide her
Arapaho The Arapaho ( ; , ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed t ...
background. On her way to perform in South America, she stopped over in Hollywood meeting the head of
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
and Universal, Dan Kelley and
Walter Wanger Walter Wanger (born Walter Feuchtwanger; July 11, 1894 – November 18, 1968) was an American film producer active from the 1910s, his career concluding with the turbulent production of ''Cleopatra,'' his last film, in 1963. He began at Paramo ...
respectively. She was cast in small roles in ''
Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition () ...
'' and '' Rhythm of the Islands'', while Universal presented themselves as "introducing" her in ''Captive Wild Woman''. Acquanetta recalled that there was no preparation for her part but got along with the rest of the cast and crew, even dating director Dmytryk briefly. The film went into production on December 10, 1942, with production halting during the December holiday season and continuing again in January. It was directed by the Canadian-born
film editor Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...
turned director Edward Dmytryk. Prior to directing the film, Dmytryk worked on several B-films such as the
Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), known professionally as Boris Karloff () and occasionally billed as Karloff the Uncanny, was a British actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstei ...
film '' The Devil Commands'' for
Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...
. Dmytryk made ''Captive Wild Woman'' while being on loan from
RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Kei ...
to Universal Pictures Company, Inc.


Release

''Captive Wild Woman'' was released on June 4, 1943. ''Captive Wild Woman'' was part of Universal's series of three films featuring Cheena, the Ape Woman. Despite being named Cheela in ''Captive Wild Woman'', she is renamed Cheena in the subsequent films. The sequels included '' Jungle Woman'' and '' The Jungle Captive''. The film was released for the first time on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
by
Universal Studios Universal Studios may refer to: * Universal Studios, Inc., an American media and entertainment conglomerate ** Universal Pictures, an American film studio ** Universal Studios Lot, a film and television studio complex * Various theme parks operat ...
on September 13, 2009, as a part of its two-disk ''Universal Horror: Classic Movie Archive''. It was later released by Willette Acquisition Corp. on March 17, 2015. ''Captive Wild Woman'' was released on Blu-ray by Scream Factory on June 16, 2020, as the fifth volume in their ''Universal Horror Collection'', along with ''Jungle Woman'', ''
The Monster and the Girl ''The Monster and the Girl'' is a 1941 American black-and-white horror film directed by Stuart Heisler and released by Paramount Pictures. Plot The film revolves around a small-town church organist named Scott Webster ( Philip Terry) attemptin ...
'' and ''The Jungle Captive''. It features an informative audio commentary by Tom Weaver and animal trainer Dave Hodge.


Reception

From contemporary reviews, Thomas M. Pryor of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' wrote the film " ould not let thrill-seekers down" while "there is nothing to recommend in the story or the performances....The picture as a whole is in decidedly bad taste". Wanda Hale of ''
The New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in tabloid format, and rea ...
'' declared the film as a "thing of horror... Unless you like pictures of this type we won't recommend ''Captive Wild Woman''. If you do, you'll get your money's worth in thrills". A reviewer in ''
Harrison's Reports ''Harrison's Reports'' was a New York City–based motion picture trade journal published weekly from 1919 to 1962. The typical issue was four letter-size pages sent to subscribers under a second-class mail permit. Its founder, editor and publish ...
'' described as "another one of those implausible horror melodramas, suitable as a supporting feature in situations where this type of entertainment is acceptable" noting that "Acquanetta, a new screen personality is effective as the ape woman. The action provides plenty of thrills and suspense". From retrospective reviews, Dennis Schwartz from ''Ozus' World Movie Reviews'' rated the film a grade B, writing "though it clearly defies reason, the lively thriller has a fine sinister performance by Carradine and a crazy tale to spin that is strangely palpable".


References


Footnotes


Sources

* *


External links

* * * {{Edward Dmytryk Cheela, the Ape Woman 1943 films 1943 horror films 1940s science fiction horror films American black-and-white films American science fiction horror films Films about brain transplantation Circus films Films about gorillas Films directed by Edward Dmytryk American mad scientist films Universal Pictures films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films English-language science fiction horror films