Film / Captive Wild Woman

Woman hath no fury like a gorilla scorned.

"You are Paula Dupree. Do you remember what happened? Do you remember anything from your past life? Your mind is my mind. Your every thought is my thought. What I tell you to do, you will do. What I tell you not to do, you will not do. Do you understand that, Paula Dupree?"

—Dr. Sigmund Walters

Captive Wild Woman is a Universal Horror B-Movie about a Mad Scientist whose research into designing life reaches the point where he remodels a gorilla into a woman. Filming began on December 10, 1942 and the premiere followed on June 4, 1943. Although the Ape Woman has predecessors in the Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula's Daughter, and The Invisible Woman in terms of Universal's female monster offering, she is the first one not to rely on a preceding male monster's fame and the only one to have a film series to her name. The sequels to Captive Wild Woman are Jungle Woman in 1944 and Jungle Captive in 1945.

On June 29, 1941, Universal placed a teaser ad for Captive Wild Woman in The Hollywood Reporter. The ad is silent on both the film's genre and any notabilities regarding the "Wild Woman", which makes it a possibility that the original plans weren't for a horror movie. George Waggner was to be the director and November 7, 1941 was the intended release date, neither of which came to pass. Whatever the reasons behind the delay, three horror films released between the teaser and the actual film are assumed to have influenced the final direction of Captive Wild Woman: Universal's own The Wolf Man, which revived the studio's reputation for horror, 20th Century Studios's Dr. Renault's Secret, in which a gorilla is turned into a human, and RKO Pictures's Cat People. Cat People is the werecat answer to The Wolf Man and was a huge success, but also premiered mere days before filming started for Captive Wild Woman. Therefore, its influence lies mostly in the editing and marketing.

Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) returns to America with new animals for the Whipple Circus. Among them is the intelligent gorilla Cheela (Ray Corrigan), whom Fred and John Whipple (Lloyd Corrigan) have high hopes for. Fred is welcomed home by his fiancée Beth Colman (Evelyn Ankers), whose sister Dorothy (Martha Vickers) has been recently checked in at Crestview Sanatorium to be treated by Dr. Sigmund Walters (John Carradine). Walters visits the Whipple Circus and sets his sights on Cheela as the subject of his next experiment: to turn an animal into a human. For that, he needs Cheela, whom he steals, hormones, which Dorothy produces aplenty, and a human cerebrum, for which he murders his assistant Miss Strand (Fay Helm). He gives the gorilla-turned-woman the name Paula Dupree (Acquanetta) and takes her to the Whipple Circus, where it's discovered she's good at staring down animals when she saves Fred from a lion. Fred hires her to assist him in his lion taming act, which Paula devotedly does until she learns that Fred's affection is for Beth. Her raging emotions restore her gorilla form and after a failed attempt to kill Beth, she returns to Walters. Beth too goes to Crestview Sanatorium to save Dorothy after a worrying phone call and Dr. Walters decides to take Beth's cerebrum to recreate Paula. Beth makes a guess that Cheela is done with Walters' painful treatments and frees her. Cheela, indeed, kills the doctor and spares Beth, opting instead to rush to the Whipple Circus where Fred performs his lion taming act without her protection. She is just in time to save him once more, but is gunned down by the police.

The B-plot concerning Fred and his wish to become a lion tamer is the film's big cost-saving measure. The pre-movie credits praise "Mr. Clyde Beatty for his cooperation and inimitable talent in staging the thrilling animal sequences in this picture." How this is to be understood is that over 15 minutes of footage has been lifted from the 1933 film The Big Cage and inserted into Captive Wild Woman, which effectively renders Beatty into Mason's stunt double. It also means the animal cruelty on screen is real. Captive Wild Woman even includes footage of the infamous tiger-lion fight that ended in the tiger's death.

For some final credits of note, editing, which includes the merging of the The Big Cage footage with the new footage, was done by Milton Carruth. The film's director is Edward Dmytryk, for whom Captive Wild Woman was the last time he did horror. On the other end, Captive Wild Woman marks the first time John Carradine has a key role in a horror movie. Make-up artist Jack Pierce was responsible for the Ape Woman's look, which is reminiscent of his work on the Wolf Man's appearance.

In 2023, the novel The Devil’s League was written as an homage to the classic Universal Monsters, with the character Paula being loosely inspired by the Ape Woman from the three movies.

As one of Universal's lesser known movies, Captive Wild Woman has not much of a legacy. Nonetheless, it's been theorized that the Ape Woman is the inspiration behind Giganta, one of Wonder Woman's primary villains. She debuted in June of 1944 and too is a gorilla-turned-woman.

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Tropes:

• Above Good and Evil: Dr. Sigmund Walters considers himself above moral considerations as long as his research into designable life continues and produces results. Miss Strand calls him out on his egocentric pursuit, noting that he wasn't like this when they started out thirteen years ago. Dr. Walters hears none of it, busy as he is envisioning how his research would benefit if he'd purloined Strand's cerebrum.
• And Starring: The acting credits end with "And Introducing Acquanetta" in a different font for each word.
• Amateur Sleuth: Beth vaguely recognizes Paula when the Ape Woman attempts to murder her. From there, she notices the similarities between the causes of death of her fellow boarding house guest, murdered by Beth's would-be killer, and Gruen, murdered by Cheela. As such, Beth alone deduces that the gorilla Cheela and the woman Paula are the same entity. Shortly after, a desperate phone call from Dorothy moves her into action and by cooperating with Cheela Beth manages to save the both of them and her sister.
• Anthropomorphic Transformation: The gorilla Cheela is changed into the human Paula Dupree by means of one woman's hormones and another woman's cerebrum. The cerebrum is merely a component to assure mental stability and does not affect the Ape Woman's personality or intelligence, as she already was intelligent as a gorilla. There's also a transitional form, the true Ape Woman, she acquires when her human tissue gets damaged and loses its effect.
• Apocalyptic Log: Dr. Walters keeps a journal of his research and the crimes he commits for it. He sits down to write in two scenes, which also show that he keeps the journal locked away in his desk.
• Artifact Title: Captive Wild Woman was announced one-and-a-half years before its production and two years before its release. Nothing about the announcement suggests that the film is a horror title or that the "Wild Woman" is a gorilla, making it likely the original idea for the film was something different. As is, the title reflects little of and nothing of importance to the film.
• Artificial Animal People: The gorilla Cheela is changed into the human Paula Dupree by means of one woman's hormones to facilitate the transformation and another woman's cerebrum to stabilize her mentally. Cheela was intelligent to begin with, but the cerebrum keeps her instinctual behavior in check. This is necessary because strong emotions, and presumably the hormones that come with them, damage the human tissue. This causes her to revert to Cheela, but in-between lies a transitional form, the true Ape Woman, that is a humanlike gorilla.
• Artistic License – Biology: An article about Dr. Sigmund Walters states that he discovered Vitamin E2 and that E2 "determines the physical characteristics of all forms of animal life, the 48 chromosomes which pattern heredity, and numerous hormones." In 1943, the Vitamin E family was only known to be necessary for successful pregnancies, so this is a very liberal interpretation of the uses for E2.
• As You Know: After Cheela murders the woman at the boarding house, the scene skips to when the police have arrived and the coroner sums up his initial findings. This prompts the commissioner to ask Beth for what else she knows and, knowing nothing else, Beth repeats what she's already told him during the skip.
• Baddie Flattery: Dr. Walters speaks with respect and a hint of admiration to both Miss Strand and Beth when he informs them that their cerebrums will do nicely to stabilize Paula Dupree's mental state.
• Benevolent Boss: John Whipple cares for every animal and employee of the Whipple Circus. This is why he does not want to give Fred the lion taming act, because he knows that Fred is too inexperienced and will at best get hurt. It's only because Fred keeps insisting and because the other lion tamer walks out on the circus that Whipple, with equal amounts of hope and reluctance, gives him a chance. In fact, the only employee to dislike Whipple is Gruen, who gets fired after repeatedly showing up drunk and harassing Cheela.
• Blood Transfusion Plot: Dr. Walters's surgeries to change one lifeform into another rely on hormone transplants. Normally, he transplants entire glands, but for his plan to change a gorilla into a human he has the boon that one of his sanatorium patients at the time produces excess hormones. With her as donor, he doesn't have to do any gland grafting and can rely on mere blood transfusions.
• Brain Transplant: Human sex hormones are enough to turn a gorilla into a human, but as Miss Strand points out, the resulting creature still has the psychological drive of an animal. Dr. Walters solves that issue by killing Strand for her cerebrum and grafting it into Cheela's skull. The brain tissue only stabilizes Cheela and does not affect her identity. When she experiences jealous rage over Fred's love for Beth, she burns through the hormones and cerebrum and reverts to her gorilla self. Walters plans to take Beth's cerebrum to redo the operation, but Cheela kills him before it gets to that.
• Contemplative Boss: When Beth and Dorothy enter Dr. Walters's office to get Dorothy checked in, he greets them while staring out of the window. He doesn't bother to turn around until lightning has flashed all dramatically.
• Covers Always Lie: The posters for Captive Wild Woman takes design cues from those for Cat People', but fail to duplicate the latters' synchronicity of animal and woman. Instead, the posters for Captive Wild Woman repeat the generic pose of the villain holding the helpless woman, which incorrectly makes it seem that, for one, Cheela and Paula are different beings and that, for two, Cheela is male.
• Cute Mute: Paula doesn't speak and most likely is incapable of human speech, which is implied to be understood by everyone else as being related as to why she's one of Dr. Walters's patients. It isn't much of a hindrance either, because she's pretty and has a way with animals and initially is happy if she just gets to stare adoringly at Fred.
• Distressed Dude: Fred badly wants to be a lion tamer and while he has the bravery and skill to handle one beast at a time, he only has the bravery to deal with a group. This does not stop him and the first time it goes wrong, he's lucky Paula is present to save him. He hires her as his assistant on the spot and it's only because of her that no further dangerous incidents happen. When Paula can't make it to his first real performance, inevitably the show goes awry. She returns just in time to save him a final time.
• Double Take: Upon his return from a two-year expedition, Fred sneaks into John Whipple's office while he's busy with paperwork. He remarks that it can't be that bad, causing the somewhat scatterbrained Whipple to look up and reply that it is as he looks back down at the papers. It takes a good second before he realizes that it's Fred talking to him and happily greets him.
• Dramatic Thunder: Two events are marked by a heavy thunder storm. The first is the evening that Beth and Dorothy visit Crestview Sanatorium to get Dorothy checked in, which, unbeknownst to either, puts her as much in the care of a renowned doctor as in the grasp of a mad scientist. The second is the Whipple Circus's opening night. This time, the storm plays a role in the trouble, because it puts the animals on edge, which results in the lions and tigers escaping their cage.
• Enter Stage Window: Paula realizes that as long as Beth's around, Fred won't return her feelings. So the logical solution is to kill Beth. To this end, she goes to the boarding house Beth stays at, climbs up to the first floor, and enters Beth's room through the open window. The noise wakes Beth and she screams upon seeing the Ape Woman. The scream draws another boarder's attention, which startles the Ape Woman. She kills the screamer, then makes a run for it back out the window without laying a finger on Beth.
• Escaped Animal Rampage: A heavy storm rages, marring the Whipple Circus's opening night as it unnerves the animals. During the lion taming act, the lions and tigers break through the wooden tunnels connecting their cages to the ring and do as panicking apex predators do amidst even more panicking humans.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Dr. Walters' end goal with his glandular research is to create a race of super men with the principles of racial improvement taken into account.
• Fire Hose Cannon: A fight breaks out between a lion and tiger, which the circus crew breaks up with a fire hose.
• Flashback: In the cab ride from the harbor to the Whipple Circus, Beth tells Fred about Dororthy's bad health, their visit to Crestview Sanatorium, their meeting with Dr. Walters, Dororthy's current stay at the sanatorium, and Beth's good acquaintance with the doctor. All of this occurs in the one flashback the film contains.
• The Ghost: Clyde Beatty is supposed to head the lion taming act at the Whipple Circus, but ultimately has to resign before he even arrives at the circus.
• Heel–Face Turn: The Ape Woman attempts to murder Beth, but only succeeds in killing a bystander. Despite being a witness, Beth opts to free Cheela from her cage when the both of them are trapped in Walters' laboratory, hoping that the gorilla's hatred for the endocrinologist outweighs her hatred for Beth. The gamble pays off: Cheela kills Walters and after a moment of contemplation leaves Beth alone.
• Herr Doktor: Dr. Sigmund Walters is a man with an intense disposition and a mild sadistic streak. His first name hints at a Germanic origin, his published research concerns racial improvement, and his more hidden research's aim is to create a race of super men. Given that Captive Wild Woman premiered during World War II, Dr. Walters is to be understood as a Nazi scientist.
• Homage Shot: Paula awakens with bandage all around her head after she received a human cerebrum. Only her eyes are visible and that combined with her stiff stature recalls the awakening of the Bride in Bride of Frankenstein.
• Hope Spot: Miss Strand holds a grand speech imploring Dr. Walters to cease his experiments before they lead to the death of Dorothy like it did to all the animals he extracted glands from prior. One of her final arguments is that even if he succeeds and turns the gorilla into a human physically, it will still have the erratic behavior of an animal. Hearing this, Dr. Walters tells her that she's right. However, he's not talking about the ethics of his experiment. Rather, he acknowledges the behavioral issue, to which he adds that this can be dealt with by grafting a human cerebrum onto the gorilla's brain. And by his reckoning, Miss Strand will make for an excellent donor to be dearly remembered.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Fred is not thoroughly worthless as a lion tamer, but he wouldn't have lasted a day without Paula's help. It is she who controls the animals that Fred performs with. No one really acknowledges that Paula is the real lion tamer between the two, though Whipple does say that she has a bright future as a lion tamer herself if she chooses that kind of career.
• I Have Many Names: The central monster of the Ape Woman trilogy goes by three different names tied to her three different forms. Cheela is the name of the gorilla. Paula Dupree is the name of the human. And the transitional form between them is the Ape Woman proper.
• Jungle Princess: The Ape Woman started life as an exceptionally intelligent gorilla, Cheela, from the Belgian Congo. Brought over to the United States, she is turned into a human, Paula Dupree, by means of human hormone and cerebrum transplants. While she doesn't ever return home, she has an approximation of the jungle in the Whipple Circus, where she gets employed for the lion taming act once it's discovered that she has an eerie control over animals, whom she can gaze into submission. As a gorilla with no human past or education, she is incapable of human speech, but she does understand it. Her love interest is the American Fred Mason, for whose safety she ends up sacrificing herself.
• Killer Gorilla: Cheela is an exceptionally intelligent gorilla, which draws the attention of Dr. Walters. He steals her to be the subject of his next grand experiment: to turn an animal into a human by means of human hormones backed up by a human cerebrum for stability. It all goes according to plan and Walters gives the gorilla-turned-human the name Paula Dupree. The new form's flaw is that strong emotions and the ape hormones released with them wreak havoc on the human tissue, causing the Ape Woman to reach a transitional state between gorilla and human or become Cheela fully again. As events unfold, Cheela ends up strangling and crushing the necks of three people: her abusers Gruen and Walters as well as one innocent woman when Cheela attempts to kill her romantic rival. Ultimately not evil, just an animal, Cheela dies while saving the life of Fred Mason, a man she was close with as gorilla and became infatuated with as woman.
• Lightning Reveal: Dr. Sigmund Walters is heard before he comes into view and when he comes into view, it's right when lightning strikes and illuminates his form.
• Lovely Assistant: After she rescues him from a lion and shows off her influence on animals, Fred hires Paula as the assistant to his lion taming act. Her job is to stand outside the cage in a glittering short dress and stare down the lions and tigers so that they won't attack Fred.
• Love Triangle: Fred and Beth are the main couple, but they like to tease each other. During his expedition, Fred acquires and forms a close bond with the gorilla Cheela. When he returns home, he jokingly introduces Cheela to Beth as if he's brought home a new fiancée. Not to be outdone, Beth teases him with Walters, her sister's charming doctor with whom Beth's already been on a few dates. Walters' interest in Beth is left ambiguous, as he's a man of science foremost. For his latest experiment, he steals Cheela and turns her into the woman Paula. Paula has feelings for Fred that make her protective of him and murderously jealous of Beth, although in the end they find a common enemy in Walters. Cheela kills him and is killed herself while saving Fred.
• Mad Doctor: Dr. Walters is a brilliant endocrinologist who has improved the lives of many by ridding them of their deformities. His know-how, however, is the result of much animal suffering and that's only because animals are more readily available than humans. Once in the later stages of his research, human material becomes essential, which he gets to acquiring with not a moment of contemplation.
• Mad Scientist Laboratory: Dr. Walters has an underground laboratory accessible only through a hidden elevator in his office. He uses his laboratory to experiment with gland transplantations between animals to further his knowledge on how to reshape life to his design. It is the place where Cheela is given her human form.
• Maker of Monsters: Dr. Walters ultimately wants to perfect human life, but until he has that ability he experiments with hormones to tinker with animal bodies. His ultimate masterpiece is Paula Dupree, a woman he created by inserting human sex hormones and a human cerebrum into a gorilla.
• Morton's Fork: After a disastrous lion taming practice run that almost resulted in Fred's death, Whipple refuses to let him continue. Fred argues that with Paula, who saved him and has an odd power over animals, as his assistant the act is safe. Whipple is even more reluctant to risk a young woman getting mauled. Then Fred forces his hand by declaring that he will hire Paula as his assistant and that he will be a lion tamer and if it won't be at the Whipple Circus, then there are still plenty of others to work for. Whipple unhappily gives in to Fred's demands.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Paula realizes that Fred's romantic feelings are wholly and solely for Beth and her mental breakdown over this causes her to revert to her gorilla self, though not before leaving her stuck as the Ape Woman for about a day. During this time, she stalks Beth and tries to kill her in her room at a boarding house, but Beth wakes before the Ape Woman strikes. The Ape Woman flees and no other opportunity presents itself before she owes Beth a favor, which she repays by sparing the woman and her sister.
• Mysterious Animal Senses: The moment Paula sets foot inside the Whipple Circus, the animals go ape. While Paula appears perfectly human to humans, the animals know she's very much not human or anything natural at all.
• Never Trust a Title: "Captive Wild Woman" is a shamelessly lurid title for a film in which the female characters are written pretty respectfully and affect the plot more than all but one of the male characters. There also isn't really any wild woman and as far as there is one she's treated as sub-human but only spends time in a cage when she's a gorilla.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Being a gorilla, Paula does not act on malice, but on immediate emotions. She goes on to kill three people, two of which tormented her while the third startled her when her actual goal was to eliminate her romantic rival. Even so, she is a particularly affectionate gorilla and ultimately dies saving Fred.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: The Ape Woman is a reverse were-gorilla: a gorilla turned into a human by science. It starts out with Cheela's permanent change to Paula due to a surgery, but as the transplanted human tissue settles she becomes able to change freely. There are three states between which she flows: the gorilla Cheela, the human Paula, and a transitional state, the Ape Woman proper, in which her silhouette is like a human but her appearance is like a gorilla.
• Partial Transformation: Technically, "Ape Woman" does not refer to the whole creature, but specifically the transitional state that is neither the gorilla Cheela nor the human Paula. She was never supposed to have this form as it is one that emerges when her body gets damaged and the human tissue of the initial surgery that turned her from Cheela to Paula loses its effectiveness. That said, for a time she is able to freely change between forms.
• People in Rubber Suits: The gorilla Cheela is played by Ray Corrigan in one of his gorilla suits.
• Plucky Comic Relief: There's not much comedy in Captive Wild Woman, but what there is occurs around 90% courtesy of John Whipple and around 10% courtesy of Curley; the latter having far less screentime than the former. They're both good-natured and well-intentioned men, but klutzy and clumsy.
• Post-Victory Collapse: Cheela is shot when the police think she's a danger to Fred. In truth, she's in the middle of saving him. She ignores the lethal injury and keeps walking steadily, collapsing only when she's laid down Fred away from harm.
• Redemption Equals Death: The Ape Woman has only one real injustice to answer for: the attempted murder of Beth that ended in the real murder of another woman in the boarding house. She is effectively forgiven when she is gunned down giving it her last to save Fred.
• Scream Discretion Shot: Dr. Walters pushes Gruen into Cheela's reach when he's served his purpose. Gruen has never done anything but antagonize her, so she makes short work of him by strangling him with such power that his spinal cord gets severed. None of this is shown. Rather, the camera focuses on Walters's unhinged glee as he watches Gruen beg for mercy. The moment Gruen's corpse drops to the floor, Walter's countenance calms as his eyes follow the drop.
• Secret Room: Dr. Walters's laboratory is a secret area in Crestview Sanatorium consisting of at least two rooms. Its one entrance is an elevator hidden behind a wall in Walters's office. Only he and his assistant, Miss Strand, know about the laboratory.
• Spinning Paper: The scene following on Gruen's death-by-gorilla is a shot of the front page of the Daily Star with the headline "Circus Handler Murdered By Ape!" The sub-headlines read "Man Killed by Strangulation" and "Nails of Beast Press Through Back of Neck Severing Spinal Cord". It's placed amidst peer articles about death: "2-Year Old Girl Killed by Auto in Crossing Street", "Five Persons Burn to Death in Clubhouse", and "Three Persons Die in Crash".
• Staring Down Cthulhu: To everyone who works at the circus, Paula appears tough as nails when she effortlessly makes lions and tigers cower under her intense gaze. In truth, Paula is a gorilla and the other animals fear her either because a gorilla is dangerous or because her unnatural existence in human form unnerves them.
• Stock Footage: Over fifteen minutes of the sixty minutes Captive Wild Woman lasts is footage recycled from the 1933 film The Big Cage. It's spliced through the new footage so that Milburn Stone and Clyde Beatty take turns playing Fred Mason.
• Super-Strength: Paula Dupree is a gorilla in human form and at least as the Ape Woman is as strong as her gorilla self. The sequel Jungle Woman confirms that her human form also holds the strength of a gorilla.
• Wakeup Makeup: The Ape Woman awakens as the human Paula Dupree after being given donor hormones. Her as-is post-gorilla look consists of a simple but combed haircut and nude makeup.

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