Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Horror icon Boris Karloff heads this picture, the last in a six picture contract with the bargain basement company Monogram. He plays one of those standard-issue well-intentioned mad scientist parts that he often played during this period. Bernard Adrian is absolutely hellbent on helping the lovely young Frances Clifford (the appealing Maris Wrixon) to walk again; for ten years she's been confined to a wheelchair. His experimental process involves healthy doses of human spinal fluid. Since there's only one way for him to get it, he goes out and does it, using the aspect of an escaped circus ape as his cover.There are some well defined characters in this routine, preposterous tale, from our bent antagonist who believes that the ends will justify his means, to Frances' jealous boyfriend Danny (Gene O'Donnell), to local rotter Henry Mason (Philo McCullough), to a weary sheriff (Henry Hall) who has just enough brains to connect the dots in the puzzle lying before him. Mason in particular is just loathsome, saying to his pathetic wife (Mary Field) that "there's always the river" when she asks him where else she could possibly go. Ray Corrigan plays the ape; I. Stanford Jolley plays his despicable trainer. The acting in this sort of low, low budget genre fare may never win awards, but it's serviceable enough. Karloff, as could be expected, stands tall above everybody else, giving an A+ plus performance in a B movie.As for overall presentation, the movie runs through its paces adequately, complete with okay direction by William Nigh and a respectable amount of humour as citizens needle each other. To a modern audience, it wouldn't be scary at all, and in fact would be pretty damn laughable, but it entertains capably. A fair amount of the credit would have to go to adapter / co-scripter Curt Siodmak, who hit pay dirt the following year with the legendary "The Wolf Man".Six out of 10.

Boris Karloff has promised his niece he will cure her paralysis at all costs, despite his research making him a bit of a pariah in his home town (doesn't help that he experiments on dogs that he kidnaps). When an Ape escapes from a local circus and mauls its keeper, who had it coming, Boris extracts spinal fluid from the guy and creates a formula that seems to work. Problem is – he needs more spinal fluid. Solution is – the Ape is going around killing people and Boris has just murdered the Ape in his kitchen (in a hilarious scene), so now Boris can disguise himself as the Ape and get more spinal fluid. It's simple as well as completely daft.Dressing up as an Ape and wandering about while there's an armed posse looking for a gorilla is as crazy as dressing up as Hitler and walking down a street in Stalingrad during World War 2, but that's what Boris does. He's determined to help his niece walk and nothing's going to stop him, dammit! Mad scientists are ten a penny, but Karloff's mad scientist has a heart, and even though his method is slightly off, he's trying to help folks, so you end up rooting for him to finish his research before the posse riddle him with bullets. Besides, his victims are all sort of hick bad guys, so you can't feel too sorry for them when Boris leaps on them with his Ape suit. The film itself isn't too eventful, but the bittersweet edge to it was more than welcome.

Another decent movie by the famous Boris Karloff. It starts off with a bit of semi-action. The story starts out with a father, who turns out to be a scientist seeks a way to cure his daughter who his dead from the waist down. The circus also happens to be in town, and an ape who is unusually large turns out to be one of the inhabitants. It then takes a turn for the worse when a fire breaks out and the ape escapes. The story is interesting and deals with a scientist seeking a miracle cure through incredible means. The plot is a little hard to follow towards the end, but as always Karloff plays an incredible role and pulls off his title as a great actor. If you like Old-School thriller movies such as this, then I recommend this for you. If your not a fan of Karloff or even a fan of decent Old-School thrillers such as this one, then its best to just avoid this film.

The Ape (1940) ** (out of 4)Boris Karloff plays a kind-hearted doctor trying to cure a woman who is paralyzed from her waist down. When a giant ape escapes from a local circus the doctor sees a woman to continue his experiments but this leads to murder. THE APE comes from Monogram and I think it's the perfect example to use if one wanted to compare the "straight" Boris Karloff to the more "over-the-top" Bela Lugosi. Lugosi would appear in Monogram's THE APE MAN, which is a very silly film that has several silly moments but it's actually entertaining thanks to the campy stuff. This film here is just incredibly stiff, lacks any real entertainment and really comes across as boring. The film seems constantly worried that they're going to hurt Karloff's good guy image and no matter what happens through his character, the screenplay is always quick to give some sort of excuse to make him look good. The character is basically a murderer but instead of just being a bad guy, the screenplay is constantly making him look better and all the excuses just leads to a rather boring story. Karloff offers up a good performance but it's certainly not enough to liven up the film or make it more interesting. The supporting cast is mostly forgettable but I'm sure some of this is due to the screenplay simply not giving them much to work with. THE APE has a pretty forgettable story and there's just no life, energy or passion to be seen anywhere. The film is certainly better made than most Monogram movies but that doesn't lead to any sort of entertainment value.