User Reviews

There are sincere, if mediocre performances, by Charlotte Austin and Lance Fuller in this Allied Artists science fiction film that is better than expected. As an engaged couple on the verge of heading to Africa on an animal hunting expedition, Austin and Fuller are about to face something far more mysterious than the ways of the world outside their realm. Fuller, the owner of a gorilla he had captured on a previous exposition, has no idea that his bride shares something in common with the caged beast. In a prior life, Austin rules as queen of the gorillas, a revelation she learns through a series of dreams, shown to the audience through film negatives rather than the positive shown for the current day sequences.

This certainly could have been a piece of schlock, but it is far closer to the Bomba and Jungle Jim films then to the earlier Bride of the Gorilla. In that sense, it is more adventure than science fiction, although with the credit of Edward D Wood Jr. as script writer, the element of science fiction is certainly prevalent. Of course, there are the obligatory jungle sequences filmed at stock footage, and they are pleasantly mixed with the newly shot film. there are of course stereotypical African characters, including a wise Old Woman Who seems to be a combination of Maria Ouspenskaya in "The Wolf Man" and the variety of parts played by Madame Sul-Te-Wan (including the original "Mighty Joe Young"). The lack of camp might be disappointing, but I had to admit that this was a decent, if standard, jungle tale.

If bestiality is your bag (like e.g. A la Borowczyk's 'La Bete') this is unmissable; if it's not, this is probably UNWATCHABLE! (Well, except for some great eye emoting from sultry Charlotte Autry rare appearance*.)

Ok, so, if you've not seen the film, below is a synopsis of thrill you could be in for if you choose to (still) watch; if you have (already seen the film), then you know that yes, this is (well?) known as an utter clunker, being it's out of the notorious poor filmaker reputation Ed D Wood oeuvre - although here only written by him (plus with the director, A. Weiss: you can try guess which bits when you watch); but that's where the rub - (of an angora sweater? Which, in Ed Wood fetish fame, the heroine herein shall de rigueur sport) - comes in; for it's surely a borderline bestiality disgraceful inference, preceding by some 20 years that which would be more salaciously put up on the screen by Walerian Borowczyk in his seventies 'La Bete / The Beast'!

Really; you have to watch patiently right through to the end to be affronted by this, which means you must go through what drags this tale down to complete dross clunker, in the mid section, when the 'main' character newly-weds go off to Africa for their honeymoon, so becomes a mostly stock footage wild animals romp: although even half of that (so now quarter of a short run film, anyway) becomes a tiger hunt: yes, in Africa - no, NOT India (despite the appalling white, black faced 'native''s (Johnny Roth as 'Taro'!) accent character .. hmm.) Oh and plus non native to pumas, too, and .. well whatever bits of wild animal film stock the director Weiss could pilfer, presumably .. But note that: it's the couple's honeymoon jaunt which takes us back to the all essential to setting the plot scenes outset: the splendidly authoritative looking Charlotte Autry* as Laura, is 'just married' (it's stated on their open top sports car!) to 'hairy' - (wait, this aspect of his character IS important) - Dan (Lance Fuller), and smoulders delightfully as taken to new hubby's abode on her wedding day, wherein he just oh so routinely invites her down to the basement where he just happens to have a gorilla caged (as you do, as a great white hunter?). But no matter, for intrepid Laura (Charlotte), is not in the least phased, rather, indeed, ah, 'affected' because she becomes somewhat entranced (check those emoting eyes of hers!) by 'the beast' (geddit? It's in the title init, oh, and well, she's a new 'bride', isn't she: ah hah ..!)

But this becomes NOT surprising because it transpires, she seems to feel an affinity with gorillas, which latterly hubby's easily and conveniently on hand regression hypnotist chum (William Justine as Dr. Reiner) uncovers that she was - get ready for this leap o faith - a gorilla in a previous life (read that again: Wood wrote it.) So, back to the all important honeymoon setting night scene, in which - being an Ed wood script - of course, comely Charlotte is attired in an angora top in her betrothal night's - separate .. - bed and so, decorumly, hands off one another, off to slumbering they soon go:

but, downstairs, caged gorilla has been so, ah aroused, it (he) finds it (he!) can break free from - (well, clamber through) - the at least all the while having been erstwhile effective enough, before comely 'bride', ah, well, yes, came by, solidly confining bars: (amazing what overwhelming lust can do, huh?) to enter the marital chamber; so, yup, you've seen that before as somewhat akin to the original Mary Shelly Frankenstein plotline (tut tut, rip off plagiarism, Ed!); but, astonishingly, dear Charlotte remains resolutely unphased, as no doubt flattered by the escapee's appearance / determination, so stands in front of it, so to give us viewers the gorilla - (er, actually it's a guy in a costume: Crash Corrigan apparently) - back on to camera so to lead to - now get ready, famed shock scene - he rips off her virginal white nighty!

S'truth: oh, you 'beast', why would it do THAT (what is it's 'intentions'?!) Ah, but fortunately, hero hubby is up (from bed; keep ya mind on the plot development, please) and rightly protective, not of the beast he's just happened to have down in his home basement for however long, but, and in making an instant no doubt most difficult instant choice, which to 'save', rightly, preferably so, of his new 'bride's safety, decorum: after all, think: no doubt from his point of view he now sees his, no doubt, blushing bride, completely STARKERS - (although, all inferred; we the (lustful 'male gaze') viewers see NOTHING! Boo!) Oh and incidentally, the angora sweater presumably already discarded for the night, too ..

Ok, ok, so, well of course, hubby Dan so shoots the beastly blighter: crashing through the upstairs landing railings, he / it's left for dead: literally so for the rest of the evening, presumably, whilst newly betrothed now 'beastily' aroused couple, er, settle back down for ... bed = sleep, well, of course, this is a nineteen-fifties film.

Ok, so now warning: you've soon got to sit tight through the interminable wild animals stock footage, before returning to the shockingly transgressive theme set up here, when in the last nail biting reel of the shortish film run, shock (disgusting!) horror, ANOTHER gorilla (remember, the first was SHOT STONE DEAD) now turns up to, what, 'kidnap' Charlotte: - or rather offer a supporting hairy armed lift up as actually, as when confronted with this new 'beast' she's shown (directed?) to first cast an eye over to hairy bare chested hubby washing up in the jungle camp, and then back to (guy in) gorilla (suit!) and .. chooses to preferably clamber into its (his?) strong hairy arms; oh and significant, essential plot costuming note to foreshadow the upcoming stunningly shocking end INFERENCE (only! It was 1950's!) is that she is conveniently back in another 'virginal' white nighty (well, see the poster!): and all good in continuity because she has indeed only just awoken from a campbed primordial jungle dream in which Weiss surely directed her to imagine, emote, her bridal night deflowering - (or I just desperately read far too much into these dross offerings!): well, so's anyway, point is, so attired and held, off they go, her clinging demurely to his strong hairy arms, gazing - expectantly? (Ah, perish the thought ..., Ed!) - into its eyes, nary a terrified - so, as would usually par for the abducted by beast trope - scream to her predicament, to gorilla cave 'home'; and surely NOT just incidentally, thus in effect carrying Charlotte over the cave entrance threshold a la standard tried and tested expectation of any new hubby expected to do with his new bride, over their new home threshold (ok, have I laboured that metaphor enough?); but ah hah, now well, dear viewer, do recall since human hubby Dan did NOT do at his home at the outset ... (rather, recall, t'was straight to 'come see my caged gorilla, my dear' ...**)

Then, oh my good grief orgy word, what's this?

We get to be shown, TWO other gorillas enter the 'home' cave!!! (What?!)

Wherein Charlotte has been 'laid' (gently, reverentially) onto a flat, er, well, bed-(like!) rock ... soon after, cut scene back to cave entrance exterior where OUT, both those new - just visiting? - gorillas now soon exit (stage right!), one jumping and thumping his chest as gorillas are wont to do to demonstrate, I believe, er, triumph over .... (ah, gonna leave that INFERENCE), but in any case, more like how teenage lads might whoop it up having just, ah, 'scored' in you surely know what stakes. (IN THE CAVE? Good Grief almighty, Ed!) Ok, you may reason I accept, this is pure salaciousness on my ('male gaze'!) watching behalf, but my shout out question would then be: so why did the two gorillas come over to 'visit' then? (Why put them in Ed? Damsel in distress trope de extremis!!)

Ah, but never fear though, coz white hunter hubby, duty bound - eventually (!) - bounds (!) to the rescue of his NEW wife (reminder, HIS 'The Bride' of the title, right?) in distress: ah, but is she?

For the lady ('bride'!) doth protest and thus needeth a strong fifties manly 'come to your senses, wench'** slap across her, Charlotte's, face - and so male assertively so, she's left out cold on the, ah, bed(!)rock: thus, 'protectively', male rival like, now comes a human vs primate, er, 'beast' tangle for rights to 'Bride' (look, it's in the title, innit?!) but this 'beast' also knows how to attempt to strangle its opponent, so ..

well, hey, come on, if you decide to watch through this, I'm not then gonna spoil the end for you; you'll have to watch it through to find out is sultry Charlotte (it's alliteration, innit?!) rescued and returned to newly wedded domestic bliss, or .. well, surely it could not be any other .. INFERENCE ... could there be, really, as ....?! Well, NO! Coz that would be ILLEGAL (Ed!)

Dreadful clunker, but with a bookended 'I can't believe it' set up and resolution storyline INFERENCE (only).

(So, extant the central stock footage bit; I loved it!)

* for if you do watch, in an alluring performance by early singing cowboy cinema star, Gene Autry's daughter (Charlotte) in her penultimate film appearance, which was a pity because she had the stature and appearance to make a stunningly wonderful sultry - tough dealing, film noir casting like - dame look to wallow in / die by.

** And, no, that's not the literal dialogue given; it's mine; coz to get another fun (point to watch) aspect out of it, is to shout out at the screen all your own preferable lines (that's how I got through it!)

I guess some people will disagree, but there can't be any others that'll rival the title, with this story of a newlywed who gets horny for a gorilla, then discovers she used to be one in a previous life! While I enjoy reincarnation stories, that doesn't extend to ones where they person was a once a different species. This takes Darwinism to a whole new level, and not a very appealing one at that.

It turns out she wasn't just an ape min her former existence, but the Gorilla Queen! Can you get anymore cheesy??? It makes you wonder what the writers were drinking (or smoking or snorting or injecting) when they thought this one up.

The rejected bridegroom should consider himself lucky. He was a good-looking guy, and if his woman preferred a hairy ape's body to his, then he was well rid of her.

This is not exactly an Ed Wood movie, though when I got it from Netflix his name was plastered on it--not the director and co-writer's, Adrian Weiss. Wood co-wrote this low-budget and creepy film but it lacks the tackiness and cheapness of his own directorial efforts--though it is pretty close. The use of lots of stock footage, while boring, wasn't as ineptly handled and the acting isn't quite as bad as you'd expect in a true Ed Wood picture. In addition, while this is a bad film, so much of it is rather dull and had NOTHING to do with the plot, so it really failed to excite the bad movie buff within me as well.

The film starts off very well for a tacky 50s monster film and I wish they'd have stuck with this story idea throughout the film. However, the beginning and ending are all about a lady who is strangely attracted to gorillas but the middle is just some knucklehead shooting at stock footage of animals and wrestling with stuffed tigers. It's too bad because the plot about a woman who was a gorilla in a previous life is so goofy I wanted to see more. But, after about 20 minutes of this non-sense where she is hypnotized and talks about this past life--nothing else is said about this until about two minutes until the end of the film!! It's like they either forgot or they pieced two different stories together. Either way, when the film finally ends, it gets REALLY creepy, as the male gorilla doesn't exactly kidnap the lady but she goes off with him willingly--supposedly to become his lover. It's never exactly said, but it's strongly implied and you know that's what they were getting at in the final scene with her and her simian lover. Her expression is even happier than Ed Wood's in GLEN OR GLENDA when he first tries on an angora sweater! Talk about kinky!

So is it worth seeing? Well, if you have any taste, definitely not. If you are a bad movie buff, by all means see it. However, if you get bored, fast-forward through the middle--you aren't missing anything you haven't already seen in a Tarzan film! Stupid, but not exactly classic Ed Wood stupid.

Typical cheap and cheerful cheesiness from the pen of the one and only Ed Wood, delivering a typically nonsensical and unbelievable story. This one's about a wife who finds herself attracted to a caged gorilla - that's right - and soon discovers that in a past life she was none other than the 'Queen of the Gorillas'. Cue lots of stock jungle adventure type scenes, a dearth of sense, and a general 'anything goes' type air. I was hoping for horror but it's in short supply here apart from a few scenes featuring a guy in a gorilla suit prowling around a house. Pretty bad.

Here's a good concept wasted. It's a mixture of Ed Wood's bizarre writing talents and a text book example of bad movie making.

On their honeymoon at his mountain home, Dan Fuller's wife, Laura, (played by Charlotte Austin) encounter his gorilla, Spanky, which he keeps in the basement-- Dan is apparently a big game hunter. In one of the several high points of the film, she shows an almost animal attraction for the gorilla, and vice versa. Later that night in the bridal chamber, the gorilla sneaks in and they again have another smoldering staring session, climaxed by Spanky pulling off her nightgown. (Is Ed Wood trying to tell us something?) Naturally, the husband shoots and kills the gorilla.

Dan then has a psychiatrist conduct hypnotic regression sessions on Laura, as she had been previously talking to him about the possibility of having had past lives. We then discover that in her past life, she had been a gorilla! Of course, the 'hypnotic regression' theme was obviously drawn from the number one best selling book of 1956, 'The Search for Bridey Murphy,' in which a doctor regressed an American housewife who spoke in an Irish brogue and recounted in great detail her previous life as Bridey Murphy in Cork County, Ireland in the 18th century. We also can't help catching a little spin here on 'King Kong' (1933), for in this case the girl has a thing for the gorilla too!

Dan then decides to take Laura with him to 'Africa' on safari for new animals. Here the film takes a sharp turn into obvious bad movie making with a Must To Avoid in capital letters: the dual personality theme is abruptly dropped and forgotten for the next 30 minutes or so. Instead we are subjected to pointless sequences of a tiger running through the jungle, fighting what appears to be a crocodile, and finally attacking Dan, who had been cluelessly stalking towards the camera seemingly oblivious to Laura's screams or the roars of the tiger, in non tension building shots.

Finally, in the last five or six minutes of the film, Wood's ambivalent identity theme returns, as does a gorilla, who sweeps a sexually hungry looking Laura off her feet and takes her to the Bronson caves where she becomes queen of the gorillas. The end.

As others have noted, Charlotte Austin's sexual stares are the high point of the film, and the low point is the needless and extended middle section that could have been totally dropped. If only the tightly done and well scripted first fifteen minutes could have continued with the development of Laura's sexual 'awakening!' We keep waiting to see her turn into a gorilla, as was done by Raymond Burr in the much better 'Bride of the Gorilla' (1951), but it never happens; we get the tedious tiger segments instead. A good concept has been disappointingly wasted here.

Charlotte Austin's sexual stares linger in the mind, but not the rest of the film. I'll have to give it a two and half.

Rugged big game hunter Dan Fuller (a solid and likable performance by Lance Fuller) discovers much to his dismay that his lovely new bride Laura (a nicely sexy portrayal by fetching brunette Charlotte Austin) has a most troubling and peculiar affinity for gorillas. Dan is forced to shoot his pet ape Spanky (Steve Calvert in a funky suit) dead after the big brute breaks free from his basement cage and goes after Laura. Dan takes Laura with him on a safari to Africa. The expedition not only runs afoul of two lethal tigers, but also a couple of hulking gorillas who abduct Laura. Director Adrian Weiss milks plenty of compellingly aberrant thrills from the typically outlandish script by the notorious Ed Wood, Jr.: Weiss treats the weird and perverse premise with admirable seriousness, relates the gloriously wacky story at a steady pace, and concludes things on a bravely downbeat note. Naturally, Wood's script features the inevitable reference to angora sweaters and incorporates a pretty far-fetched reincarnation theme into the already heady mix (Laura was a gorilla in a previous life!). Kudos are in order for the surprisingly sound and sincere acting by sterling leads Fuller and Austin; they receive sturdy support from Johnny Roth as loyal native houseboy Taro and William Justine as helpful psychiatrist Dr. Carl Reiner. The scenes with the savage tigers attacking people are staged with rousing aplomb. Roland Price's sharp black and white cinematography and Les Baxter's sweeping orchestral score are both up to par. A pleasingly offbeat and unusual little oddity.

Just one of a slew of "girl and gorilla" films from the 1950s, The Bride And The Beast is from Ed Wood's script originally called "Queen Of The Gorillas". Bankrolled by Allied Artists and directed by a "professional" Adrian Weiss, it means a much slicker film, with important things like continuity and production values, but there's no mistaking the demented voice of Ed-baby and the weird undertow of aberrant sexuality all the way through the film.

The Bride And The Beast opens with Laura and Dan, just married and already planning a honeymoon safari to Africa. Dan, the quintessential Great White Hunter, has decked out his pad with hundreds of trophies, has a native servant Taro (played by an American actor in black-face) who calls his master "Bawana", and keeps a huge gorilla named "Spanky" (that's actually Ray "Crash" Corrigan under all that fur) in a cage in his basement. Laura, who admits she's had a strange psychic connection with man's hairy cousins her entire life, presses up against Spanky's cage – and the sexual tension is electric! Later on their honeymoon evening while the couple are sleeping in separate beds – and there's a clear signpost – Spanky escapes from his cage, and starts to get overly amorous with Laura. Dan shoots the monkey dead, and they return to their separate beds. Happy Honeymoon.

Laura is clearly shaken by her hairy ordeal, and the family doctor, who just happens to be an expert in hypnotism, is intrigued by her fetish for angoras and dreams in which she's covered in "kitten's fur". Regressing further under hypnosis, she discovers she was a gorilla in a previous life, and re-experiences her death at the hands of native hunters. Here's two of Ed's peccadilloes springing to life from the script's page: his transvestitism, and his keen interest in reincarnation and hypnotism. The doctor's character was directly inspired by his chiropractor Tom Mason, Bela Lugosi's body double in Plan 9, who's credited here as "script consultant".

Things get bogged down when the Great White Hunter takes his bride to Africa. Ah, Africa… stock footage capital of the world! I suspect the two never leave the studio – none of the shots of wild animals match the action, and when driving a truck, they drive past the same clump of trees seven or eight times – in the middle of the savanna! The last half is essentially a lame chase between Bawana and a couple of renegade tigers – that is, until Laura cracks her skull and regresses even further. She's now in "Gorilla country" – hmm, I wonder how things will end? It's Beauty And The Beast if Walt Disney wore fur bikinis, and imagined being fondled by gorillas named Spanky. It's time to unleash the Beast in all of us – happy honeymoon as we marry up The Bride And The Beast.