Return of the Ape Man (1944)

Despite the title, the fact that it stars Bela Lugosi and is produced by Monogram, this is not actually a sequel to Lugosi's previous Monogram hit, The Ape Man (1943), despite the fact that it was attempting to lure in fans of the earlier film by implying that it might be a follow-up.  In fact, this 'shock sequel', as Monogram's publicity described it, is what would nowadays be known as a 'thematic sequel', exploring similar subject matter, but with an entirely original story and characters.  Whereas, in the original, Lugosi had been a mad scientist who succeeds in turning himself into an ape man, who commits all the usual low budget depravities expected of B-movie monsters, here he is a mad scientist who is intent upon thawing out and reviving a prehistoric ape man found frozen in arctic ice. Inevitably, the unfrozen ape man turns out to be a brutal beast, reacting to the modern world with violence.  Lugosi's fellow scientist, played by John Carradine, wants to destroy the creature, believing it to be an uncontrollable menace, while Lugosi himself favours transplanting part of a modern man's brain into the ape man, in the belief that its superior intellect will render the beast susceptible to reason.  Inevitably, it is Carradine who reluctantly donates part of his brain to the ape man, which is where the film starts to - almost - get interesting.  

The resulting hybrid, as well as being able to speak, also seems to retain some of Carradine's memories and personality.  Now, this development offers the possibility of exploring the nature of personality and identity - is the creature now the scientist in a new body, or are these memories and and personality traits merely a veneer, an 'add-on' to use modern terminology, to the ape man's existing persona?  But this is a B-movie, so we never really go down this route.  Instead we have a now more articulate ape man, whose violent urges seem to be being filtered through the memories of his brain donor, with him escaping and instinctively going to Carradine's house, scaring his widow, who he then inadvertently kills and later kidnapping his daughter.  The whole thing ends predictably, with the ape man holing up in a tall building with the kidnapped daughter in a sort of ultra low budget version of the climax of  King Kong.  Even cheaper looking that its predecessor, made with Monogram's typically low production values, including scuzzy looking sets and murky photography, Return of the Ape Man at least saves Bela Lugosi the indignity of having to wear hairy make-up as the title creature.  Instead, he wanders through the film disinterestedly, having done this sort of thing a thousand times before for poverty row studios.

This time around, the 'honour' of donning the ape man make up supposedly goes to two billed actors: George Zucco and Frank Moran.  This strange quirk is probably the most interesting thing about the movie.  Zucco was, apparently signed to play the role and even started filming (he can be briefly seen as the frozen ape man in a lab scene), but fell ill.  Monogram, of course, were too cheap to either halt production or reshoot his scenes, instead casting Frank Moran in the role.  The original casting raises some questions, though.  Zucco was known for playing smooth and sophisticated villains, (he was the first Professor Moriarty to cross wits with Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), for instance), making it hard to imagine him spending the film in animal furs and hairy make-up, breaking up furniture and beating people to death.  Which leaves one to wonder whether the original intent was for the brain transplant bit to come earlier in the film and for the ape man to become an apparently normal human being - until he inevitably reverts and starts killing people again.  In the event, the role was taken over by Moran, who tended to play heavies and lacked Zucco's range as an actor, necessitating a quick rewrite and scaling back of the brain transplant sub-plot.  But we'll never know for sure and this has to remain mere speculation.  

As it stands, Return of the Ape Man is a typically unsophisticated, but fun, piece of Monogram output.  Tatty and cheap looking, with a top-billed star who looks to simply be going through the motions, the plot is at least less tangled than those of many other Monogram Lugosi vehicles and does feature a decent enough performance from Carradine.  Veteran B-movie director Phil Rosen keeps it all moving at a reasonable pace, wrapping everything up in just over an hour, making it all relatively painless to sit through.