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19 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Odd, almost surreal, jungle madness, 20 July 2001
Author: cinema_universe from NYC & Cherry Grove

O.K., so this is not a critical classic. In fact, it's oddball, low-budget nonsense. But you have to admit, it's great fun to watch. It's so strange that it forces you to watch it to the very end, just so you can be sure you are not making an error about the preposterous plot you're seeing. It's campy madness and I'de recommend it to anyone interested in the obscure. You will find yourself wondering: How did they ever get Raymond Burr to take such a role?

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16 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Simian Soap Opera, 20 November 2004
Author: BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC

Beautiful Barbara Payton is married to a much older man who has little time for her. What is a blonde, buxom girl to do? Well, no secret here that she has an affair with the foreman of her husband's plantation, Raymond Burr, who gives a performance worthwhile yet plays a guy with which you will have virtually no sympathy. Things get nasty in the jungle: Barb's husband is killed and Ray marries her. Yet, a native old woman seeks revenge on Burr by poisoning him so that he will turn into some jungle demon...a big gorilla. On his track is none other than Commissioner Tarro - Lon Chaney Jr. playing a native-turned-educated policeman from the jungle land. Chaney isn't really bad, just unbelievable in his role. Curt Siodmak directed this film and wrote the script. Siodmak was the writer of Universal's classic The Wolfman. In both pictures we have an average man turn into a beast at night. In both pictures we have transformation scenes - grand ones in The Wolfman and pitifully cheap ones in this production. Chaney also is in both films. Siodmak really does a less-than-average job behind the camera. My guess is budgetary constraints really held his hand in check. This is a very cheaply made film. The jungle house looks fine, but jungle scenes look less than real. Siodmak does have a few nicely shot scenes, particularly as the lens becomes a character walking into the jungle. What about the gorilla? No Jack Pierce here. In fact the gorilla maybe makes three appearances and none of them very substantial. The film has a lot of talking, Raymond Burr brooding a lot, and Chaney lecturing us on the "laws of the jungle." Payton does a decent job, but let's face it. She is there for one reason only. And Evelyn Ankers she is not! Character actor Tom Conway rounds out the leads, giving another one of his wooden but amiable performances.

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12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Far more "Bride" than "Gorilla", 19 October 2006

Author: JohnHowardReid

Don't be deceived by the prominent billing of Lon Chaney Jr or the advertising that stresses all the horror in this little yarn. In point of fact, Mr Chaney is confined to a rather small role. He's neither our heroine's husband nor lover. He's not even the gorilla! Mr Chaney stays firmly on the right side of the law for once, while Raymond Burr in his usual confidently cool, surly, self-assured manner enacts the title role opposite the legendary Barbara Payton (here looking extremely attractive, thanks to flattering photography and most seductive—if rather inappropriate by jungle standards—costumes. She speaks her lines with more than adequate conviction too).

Tom Conway walks through his part with his usual, blandly smooth impeccability, whilst Carol Varga's eye-catching native girl gives Barbara a fair run in the beauty stakes. Woody Strode is also on hand as a policeman who has a key scene with a black-robed, rather sinister servant-lady.

As a director, Mr Siodmak takes great care that every word of the marking-time hokey dialogue he has contrived for his script, be clearly and distinctly heard. His actors are coached to speak carefully and to enunciate with great deliberation so that not one time- consuming cliché be lost. In other respects too, Siodmak's handling has not a great deal to recommend it. Even at 65 minutes, the pacing appears remarkably slow, even tired, listless, dull. Except for a few shots of the camera tracking subjectively through the undergrowth and the jaws of the gorilla flashing momentarily right in front of the lens, Siodmak does little to capture audience interest in his tale. He focuses more of his attention on the bride than the gorilla—which is fine for us Barbara Payton fans, but may leave horror and fantasy devotees feeling rather short-changed.

All told, from a horror perspective Bride of the Gorilla turns out as a tame and tedious affair that signally fails to deliver the frights and the terror promised by its script and its advertising. We see only a few flashes of the gorilla (an obvious impersonation by a stuntman in the same well-used monkey suit the costume company has been renting out for twenty years) and there's no impressive special effects work either. Most of the movie perambulates around three or four sets and was obviously lensed on an extremely tight budget. (In fact, it was reportedly shot in ten days).

Bride does have one other important factor (aside from Miss Payton), in its favor, however. It was superbly photographed by Charles Van Enger. If you love glossy photography, Bride of the Gorilla is your meat.

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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Medieval legend and Heart of Darkness rolled into B picture, 21 March 2003
Author: manuel-pestalozzi from Zurich, Switzerland

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is a classic cheap B movie all right. It was done hastily and apparently with little money - and it shows. Bride of the Gorilla is also uncommonly short for a big screen movie (60 minutes). However, even if it might remind one of an Ed Wood type picture at first sight, there is some food for thought in it. The silly title is misleading: No one ever speaks about gorillas here, there is no King Kong to be seen - only fleeting glimpses at parts of a simian costume are possible. The general storyline is interesting and leads me to suspect that initially something bigger and more ambitious was planned with the material.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The somewhat sketchy story reads like a medieval legend, the stuff Shakespeare plays like Macbeth were made of. The bored, worldly wife of the owner of an isolated rubber plantation deep in the jungle starts amorous games with the plant's overseer, a rather unsavoury character with ambitions who is sort of engaged to a local beauty, the daughter of a indigenous domestic on the plantation. During a confrontation with his boss, the overseer finds an opportunity to kill his adversary: He pushes him to the ground in front of an approaching poisonous snake that obligingly bites the poor man to death. It is murder, and the domestic who by chance crouched nearby in the foliage saw it. The overseer quickly marries his former boss's wife and takes charge of the plantation. The domestic puts a curse on him by pouring a magic potion into his aperitif. For ever more frequent spells the overseer is transformed into a legendary beast (not a gorilla!) that the indigenous believe has been roaming about in the jungle for ages. His wife becomes aware of his transformation but promises to fulfill her marital vows (for good, for worse, as she repeatedly assures him). To no avail: the jungle finally claims him and he has to be shot because he is a menace.

No one cared to create authentic settings for this movie. Everything must have been shot on a sound stage (with a few documentary scenes of jungle wildlife interspersed). The scenery looks like the conservatory of some botanical gardens in a big town in Europe or in Northern America. The characters do not make any attempt to represent a specific ethnic group. The witchlike domestic speaks with a distinct German accent similar to that of Peter Lorre's, at one time the lady of the house wears a dress that resembles a Bavarian "dirndl". It is truly weird - and somehow you get the impression there is a scheme behind it. As a matter of fact, the strangeness of the set and the seemingly deliberate evasion of authenticity heighten the symbolic significance of the story in an odd sort of way. On the set there is a strong separation between the inside and the outside. Inside, people move about in the usual Hollywood parlour surroundings you can see in numerous movies of that period. Outside, right in front of the parlour window, there is the vicious jungle with its exotic fleshy greenery. Inside, there is civilization, or at least a civilized facade. Outside men become beasts.

The main character is strongly attracted to the beauty of the inexplicable, animalic wilderness of the jungle, although he knows that it will ultimately destroy him. On this level the use of jungle scenery reminds me of the metaphors and symbolic settings that can be found in Joseph Conrad's novels. Initially the overseer plans to sell the rubber plantation and move to Paris with his new wife. She begs him to start packing, but unexpectedly he refuses, telling her that he can't leave the jungle. He confesses to her that he feels good and strong roaming through it and that he sees everything with a new, beautiful clarity there - the description is very close to people who describe their experiences while under the influence of strong drugs. Although his wife tries to hold him back, he breaks loose, runs off into the jungle, the heart of darkness, and into his doom.

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10 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Lon Chaney dances a mediocre jungle-boogie!, 12 June 2006

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

Certainly not a bad little low budget film, this "Bride of the Gorilla", but nothing special, neither, and not memorable enough to be ranked among the meaningful Sci-Fi efforts of its time. Director Curt Siodmak was an eminent scriptwriter during the 1930's and 1940's and delivered stories for some true genre classics ("I walked with a Zombie", "The Wolf Man") but, as a director, he obviously lacked the required competences. "Bride of the Gorilla" is similar to the aforementioned "The Wolf Man" in story and atmosphere, but the film looks a lot more amateurish and pitiful. Both handle about cursed men that turn into large animals at night, but the titular gorilla doesn't look half as threatening as the werewolf, even though the film got released a whole decade later. During a cheesy opening speech, actor Lon Chaney tries to convince us that the jungle is an ominous place and hiding many mysteries, but actually there's no real mystery in the plot. It's just handles about a plantation manager who's jealous at his older colleague for having such a beautiful young wife and he kills him. A native woman witnesses his crime and puts a spell on Barney that causes him to transform into a hideously big gorilla at night... Or maybe she just wants him to believe he's turning into a hideously big gorilla…Lon Chaney himself plays the police commissioner charged with the murder investigation while Raymond Burr (who starred in about a thousand Perry Mason TV-movies) portrays the greedy plantation manager/nightly gorilla. Siodmak attempts to make the film look like a supernatural thriller – is it or is it not all just happening in Barney's head? – fail miserably and it causes way too much talking and too few jungle-action. Several of the jungle-settings are nicely pictured but the rest of the "special" effects are tacky and poorly done. Still the acting is pretty good, Barbara Payton is looking beautiful and – although very predictable – the story is strangely compelling until the very end. Weird movie, it probably voodoo-cursed me…

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
"The jungle's my house, it belongs to me.", 18 March 2006

Author: classicsoncall from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I can't bring myself to call this a bad film. Going by the title of course, I was expecting a huge helping of cheese to go with the story, but there was something intriguing to this tale of black magic and mystical animals. You'll have to get past the casting of Raymond Burr as a Spanish plantation worker, but that's really no worse than Warner Oland or Boris Karloff playing Chinese detectives. Lon Chaney, who's had his share of physical transformations is on hand as Police Commissioner Taro, investigating the death of the plantation owner, Klaas Van Gelder (Paul Cavanagh). Brought down by the timely coincidence of Barney Chavez' infatuation with Dina Van Gelder (Barbara Payton) and the appearance of a poisonous snake, Taro believes there's more here than meets the eye.

The Van Gelder's servant Al-long (Gisela Werbisek) doesn't go for Barney's indiscretions, and puts her mystical talents to work casting a spell on him. Now here's what makes the film interesting for me. Instead of turning Barney into an ape, her voodoo curse makes him think he's turning into one. That psychological angle is played out throughout the film. As Barney begins to find himself at home in the jungle, his perceptions become ever sharper as he finds other jungle inhabitants afraid of him. The other workers on the Van Gelder plantation fear a "succarat", a legendary demon at work.

The one time the film breaks continuity comes near the end when Barney is shown picking up the body of the fainted Dina. It's done in full ape guise, whereas most other scenes referencing his gorilla delusion show him seeing himself as an ape or turning into one. Interestingly, no other person ever saw Barney as a monkey man.

Barney manages to leave two damsels in distress by the end of the story. Right up until he marries Dina, he's been having a fling with Mrs. Van Gelder's personal servant Larina (Carol Varga); this guy gets around. I was waiting for Larina to follow up her little temper tantrum when Dina was getting ready to leave the plantation, but nothing ever came of that. For her part, Barbara Payton's talents were accentuated with very close fitting blouses and numerous shots in profile.

If you take a minute to watch the opening scene again after viewing the movie, you'll wonder why it was handled that way. With the voice over narration of Lon Chaney, the screen scans the remains of the Van Gelder home in utter destruction, as if it was hit by a bomb. There's really no reason why the demise of Chavez would have resulted in that chaos, especially since the Van Gelder home had a willing buyer when the newlyweds first decided to head to Paris. Perhaps it was the jungle's way of bringing Barney Chavez to justice.

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7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Jungle Justice: Favors None But Equals All, 20 March 2004

Author: sol1218 from brooklyn NY

******SPOILERS****** Interesting little movie about crime and justice, despite it's misleading title, that plays like a morality play about how one can't escape his crimes even in the dark and uncivilized jungle. The jungle where justice seems at first non-existent is in reality more prevalent there then in a big modern city courthouse where it can be twisted and manipulated by both the power and money of the person who stands accused.

Van Gelder Manor deep in the Amazon jungle is a rubber plantation run by the ruthless and scheming Barney Chavez, Raymond Burr. Barney feels that he can get away with anything because he's above the laws of man that he has nothing but contempt for. Smart and conniving Barney gets the owners Klass Van Gelder's, Paul Cavanagh, beautiful wife Dina, Barbara Payton, to fall in love with him thus breaking the heart of his native girlfriend Larina, Carol Varga, who Barney was stringing along until he found someone better, Dina. Knowing that Klass had a weak heart Barney provoked him into a fight one evening in the garden outside the plantation. Barney belted Klass knocking him to the ground as he let him get bitten by a poisonous snake which killed him.

Breaking Larina's heart and taking Klass Van Gelder's life, as well as his wife Dina, Barney seems to have gotten away with his crimes. Feeling he can now sell the plantation and move with Diana back to civilization and live the good and rich life which he worked so hard to get, or so Barney thought. Unknown to Barney's his crimes did not go unnoticed. The old woman who lived at the plantation Al-Long, Gisela Werbisek, saw what Barney did to both Klass and Larina and invoked, through her knowledge of the Black Arts, the jungle to bring him to justice.

Obscure little movie that has a lot more to it then you would think at first about crime justice and revenge and makes you think about it too. More penetrating and thought-provoking then many of the big budgeted films about courts and law that in many cases the criminal gets away with his or her crimes due to a technicality or a smart and skillful lawyer. There are no technicalities or lawyers in the jungle.

Good script and acting especially by Lon Cheney Jr. in a supporting role as the native police commissioner Taro. Taro's education in schooling and law books in the outside world was nothing compared to his education in what he learned from living in the jungle during the first 20 or so years of his life; the jungle that in the end did his work for him.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
BRIDE OF THE GORILLA (Curt Siodmak, 1951) {Edited Version} **, 23 January 2010

Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta

The cast and crew of this cheap horror potboiler are more interesting than anything that occurs throughout the movie itself; we have Barbara Payton, Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney Jr., Tom Conway, Paul Cavanaugh and Woody Strode in front of the camera and writer-director Curt Siodmak, cinematographer Charles Van Enger, editorial supervisor Francis D. Lyon and production assistant Herman Cohen behind it. The ill-fated Payton turns the head of virtually every male she comes in contact with deep in the African jungle where she lives on husband Cavanaugh's plantation: doctor Conway secretly desires her while hot-headed foreman Burr's approach is, quite literally, more hands-on. On the other hand, Chaney is (surprisingly enough) the laid-back but knowing authoritarian figure and Strode is a native police official. The plot is very simple but, frankly, does not make a whole lot of sense: after a particularly agitated dinner complete with thunderstorm, Burr and Cavanaugh (art imitating life – more on that later) come to blows in the garden over their affection for Payton and, conveniently for Burr, a large snake just happens to be crawling near where Cavanaugh hits the ground! Witnessing the event from behind the bushes, Payton's enigmatic maid (a native witch, no less), for some inexplicable reason, puts a curse on Burr (who has in the meantime married Payton) that periodically turns him into a gorilla...starting from his very wedding day (when his hand briefly turns hirsute)! Consequently, Burr takes to losing himself in the jungle for days on end – even if the ape creature itself is barely glimpsed throughout the film. It must be said, however, that the version that I watched ran for just 56 minutes when the 'official' length is elsewhere given as either 66, 70 or 76!! Therefore, the film feels understandably rushed and disjointed if never less than campily enjoyable as it culminates in the gorilla's subjectively-shot chasing of Payton in the jungle, with the former being itself pursued by the gun-toting Chaney and Conway. To get back to the film's tragic blonde leading lady for a minute: after a promising start in movies next to such Hollywood legends as James Cagney and Gary Cooper – in, respectively, KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE and DALLAS (both 1950) – her career soon nose-dived into B (and lesser) grade territory thanks to her own 'colorful' off-screen antics: her most notorious misdemeanor was being the cause of a much-publicized bar-room brawl between suave husband Franchot Tone and brutish former lover Tom Neal which ended with the former in a coma and Payton actually deserting him for the latter shortly thereafter!! But that was not all: nymphomaniac Payton also boasted that Woody Strode was among her conquests (a controversial issue at the time); short-lived husband Tone, having caught Payton's infidelities on camera, spread the damning photographic evidence around Hollywood and this virtually served to end her days as a starlet – her last film appearance being Edgar G. Ulmer's MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955) which I happen to have in my "Unwatched Movies" pile. The last 12 years of her tumultuous life were spent on Skid Row in the throes of booze, drugs, prostitution, beatings, arrests and even a stabbing – before, eventually, dying in 1967 in her parents' home at the young age of 39!

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Fairly entertaining nonsense, that's quite bizarre but fairly entertaining just the same, with a decent story and fun campy performances, 28 March 2006

Author: callanvass

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is fairly entertaining nonsense ,that's quite bizarre but fairly entertaining just the same, with a decent story and fun campy performances. All the characters are alright, and Raymond Burr is fun in his campy role, however I wish they gave Lon Chaney Jr. more screen time because he was pretty wasted in my opinion. It's rather well made and written for this kind of film, and while I can see why the rating is as low as it is, it's still a film that can be enjoyed, just put your brain at the door, plus I think the title of this film is awesome!. I got this in a DVD Horror set called A Taste Of Evil, along with a bunch of other horror films, and it has many unintentionally funny moments as well, plus the dialog was quite amusing. The setting was really cool (set in a Jungle), and the gorilla effects were amusing, plus it was much better then I thought it was going to be. Bad movie fans will love this, and Barbara Payton plays a decent love interest, plus The ending was pretty well done, if predictable. This is fairly entertaining nonsense, that's quite bizarre but fairly entertaining just the same, with a decent story and fun campy performances, worth the watch. The Direction is decent for this type of film. Curt Siodmak does a decent job here for this type of film, with OK camera work and keeping the film at a solid pace. The Acting while not great is kind of fun. Raymond Burr gives a campy but a highly enjoyable enjoyable OTT performance, he was funny, rather likable, had decent chemistry with Barbara Payton, and played it straight, how they got him to sign onto this is beyond me he was fun!. Barbara Payton is beautiful and is decent as the love interest, she had some bad dialog here and there, but had presence, and was quite charming, I rather liked her actually. Lon Chaney Jr. does what he has to do well, here as the commissioner, not really much of a part as he was sadly wasted (Chaney Rules!!). Tom Conway is OK as the Doc and did what he had to do adequately. Rest of the cast are OK as well. Overall worth the watch. **1/2 out of 5

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Oh So Hokey And Campy. Very Hokey And Campy Indeed., 17 March 2012

Author: Humphrey Fish from United States

Bride Of The Gorilla is not a good movie, it is hokey, cheesy, and campy, and has sub-average acting from most of the people starring in it. I watched this movie today, and boy I certainly thought that it was campy, but for some reason, I kinda liked it. Want to see a movie that is hokey, cheesy, and filled with quite a few things to laugh at? Then Bride Of The Gorilla works well, extremely well. The title alone should tell you something, when I first heard that title, I thought: "What the heck?" But when I watched the movie, I also said: "What the heck?" This movie isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it still wasn't very good, it was still a bad movie, though not a terrible one.

I am not saying that this is one of the worst movies that I have ever seen, it isn't, but nevertheless, it is a movie that isn't good, it narrowly misses the level of so bad it's good. It's a movie that's not as bad as you thought it would be but it is not as good as you thought it would be when you watched it. The film also looks rather cheap, that's really not surprising considering that it only took ten days to film. As it took only a mere ten days to film this movie, it really isn't surprising that it looked cheap and un-Oscar worthy. But don't get me wrong, this movie is not one of the worst movies of all time, but it is too cheap-looking and cheesy to be effective.

Sadly, Raymond Burr (who would later star in movies like Rear Window, as well as the classic TV series, Perry Mason) plays the main character. It is a shame that a man with such talent had to appear in this movie. Lon Chaney Jr. also appears in this film. The only thing I can say about that is that I guess it's hard to live up to your father's reputation. And Tom Conway (from the Sherlock Holmes radio show) is in this movie as well. Although we've got a promising line up with the cast, it all falls flat, very flat, very very flat. These men seemed to be the only ones who were trying to act, unlike some of the other cast. Many of the others acted like that got their talents from five year olds, they couldn't act good.

So all in all, while this isn't a movie that is so bad that it is unwatchable, it narrowly falls short of being a movie that is so bad it's good. Bride Of The Gorilla isn't unwatchable, sure it watchable, as there are many scenes that you will be laughing at because of the hammy acting, the corny script, and the ridiculous production values. Sure, this movie was bad, but it definitely was not boring, it was watchable, but bad at the same time. Watch this movie if you please, because of the cheesiness and low-budget production scales, as well as for a few laughs. In short, if you are looking for a good way to kill an hour and ten minutes, then watch this movie, it will certainly do the trick, no doubt about that.

4/10

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