bensonmum2
The Jungle Captive is the third (and thankfully final) installment in Universal's Ape Woman trilogy. In most trilogies, the third movie is usually the worst. I actually found The Jungle Captive to be the most entertaining of the bunch (although that's not saying much). In this one, a scientist named Stendahl (Otto Kruger) uses his hired muscle, Moloch (Rondo Hatton), to steal the Ape Woman's body from the morgue (she was killed at the end of part 2). He has been working with reanimating the dead bodies of small animals and wants to take his experiments to the next level with a larger subject. Unfortunately, during the heist of the body, Moloch killed a morgue worker – meaning the police are investigating. The police seem to suspect Stendahl's lab assistants, but they're completely innocent and unaware of Stendahl's new experiments. That all changes, though, once Stendahl kidnaps his female assistant, Ann. He needs her blood to help resurrect the Ape Woman. If you've seen the other two films in the series, you won't be surprised by much of what happens in The Jungle Captive. But there is more action in this one and the flow (for lack of a better word) of the movie is better. Kruger makes a great mad scientist – the best in series. The look on his face when he reveals his plan is fantastic. It's also nice to see Rondo Hatton in a speaking role. In the end, Rondo gets to play the hero. Finally, the movie focuses less on Paula the Ape Woman which turns out to be a positive. In the previous movies, she too often just stood and stared at nothing. Here, she's almost an afterthought to Stendahl and his crazy plans for Ann.Those are the positives. How about the negatives? Well, it's easy to see that Universal slashed the budget big time on The Jungle Captive. This one barely looks better than a Poverty Row programmer. In fact, most of the cast seems straight off the PRC lot – not the usual standard for Universal. Also, as I indicated, it's all horribly predictable. You know what's going to happen to the Ape Woman and that somehow Ann will be saved. In the end, I sort of felt sorry for Paula. As with the other two movies, this one ends with her being killed.
Michael_Elliott
The Jungle Captive (1946)** (out of 4)A mad doctor (Otto Kruger) has his assistant (Rondo Hatton) steal the body of Paula the Ape Woman (Vicky Lane) so that he can do experiments on her. This includes stealing another woman (Amelita Ward) for a blood transfusion to see if the ape woman can be cured.THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE is the third and final film of Universal's trilogy dealing with Paula the Ape Woman. You have to think that the studio had rather low expectations going into the series and I'm going to guess that CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN didn't do a well at the box office, which caused the studio to really cut back on the second film, JUNGLE WOMAN, which was perhaps the studio's laziest movie. THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE is certainly a step up from that picture but it's still not all that good.The best thing going for this film is the fact that they've actually got the ape woman running around quite a bit of the running time. It was great getting to see her since the make-up on her is actually excellent and having her appear in the film is reason enough alone to enjoy this more than the second film. Another plus is the fact that Hatton is so watchable here. I can't help but feel sorry for him and the fact that Universal was pretty much exploiting his disease but at the same time he has become a cult favorite over the years.As far as the film's issues go, well, there are quite a few but the biggest is the simple fact that the story itself really isn't all that original and it's certainly something we've seen countless times before. Still, if you're a fan of the studio then there's enough good things here to make this worth watching.
JoeKarlosi
Pretty good and under-appreciated finale to Universal's "Ape Woman Trilogy". Otto Kruger plays an older and grandfatherly doctor who appears kind and respectable but has sinister plans up his sleeve to revive Paula the Ape Woman and transform her into Vicky Lane (since Acquanetta left the series). His perfect assistant is none other than Rondo Hatton, the actor who in real life suffered from the disease Acromegaly, which enlarged his face and hands. Rondo was never an actor, but he's better here than in any of his other films, with a generous helping of dialogue and emotions on display. We also get a little more time with the actual Ape Woman than usual and this is a short 60 minutes of typical mad doctor/assistant/monster nonsense that's fun, if not anything exceptional. A favorite line is when the doc looks at the deformed Rondo Hatton who's admiring the human female patient on the table and says to him: "No offense, but with that face you're not exactly a Casanova, you know". And then, pointing at the beastly Ape Woman on the next table: "This is more in your line". I wonder how Otto Kruger felt delivering an insult like that to the unfortunate Rondo? **1/2 out of ****
mlraymond
This final installment in the short-lived Universal series about Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman, has some fairly creepy moments, and a good monster. Unfortunately, the Ape Woman doesn't have much to do here, unlike her two earlier appearances. She spends most of her time in the secluded laboratory of Stendhal, the mad doctor who hopes to achieve some kind of scientific goal by reviving the deceased creature.Rondo Hatton turns in his most multi-faceted performance as Moloch, the assistant to Stendhal. Unlike most of his other movie roles, where he just stalks around and kills people, here he acts friendly toward the beleaguered heroine, even smiles and makes a joke at one point, and is about as normal and likable as he would ever be shown in his Forties horror pictures. He becomes a sort of human King Kong, whose sympathy for the captive girl finally causes him to turn on his master to save her from further cruel experiments. It shows possibilities unhinted at in his other roles and is quite unexpected.Jerome Cowan is good as a breezy police detective investigating the various murders and disappearances, but Otto Kruger is so menacing as the crazy scientist that he all but steals the picture. His low key portrayal of the cold blooded experimenter is actually quite unnerving in its realism. He refuses to play the part in an eye-rolling, hammy clichéd way, and is thus frighteningly believable.Not a great movie by any means, but worth seeing for fans of low budget Forties horror movies.
AD
