Bela Lugosi made more than his share of low-budget stinkers during World War II, but "Return of the Ape Man" might be the worst. In fact, it might be the worst film he made prior to his teaming up with Ed Wood, Jr. Lugosi plays an amoral scientist with a special interest in cryogenics (though that word is never actually used). After abducting, freezing and reviving a bum, with the help of fellow scientist John Carradine, he ups the ante by sponsoring an expedition to find a frozen prehistoric man, which he does find, in about three minutes, thanks to dynamite. He revives the "ape man," who of course is a murderous brute, controlled only by waving fire in his face, but wants to go further by implanting part of a modern brain in him, allowing him to remember what it was like living in Bedrock. When Carradine objects, HE becomes the unwitting brain donor, and further chaos ensues. This is one of those films that is so cheap you can see the sets wobble. Carradine somehow manages to retain his dignity (more than he would in many other trash films), and Lugosi is...well, Lugosi. The scene in which Lugosi traps Carradine on an electrified plate in his lab, and then lassos him and ties him up, while the two are holding a philosophical conversation, has to rank high in the annals of bad cinema. George Zucco was supposed to play the ape man, and he's there literally for a couple seconds, but he took ill and was replaced by an actor named Frank Moran, who's actually not bad. But the script is awful, the direction non-existent, the prolonged ending involves the ape man carrying the heroine around, and around, and AROUND, in what at one point looks like a parody of Universal's "The Mummy's Tomb," and the canned musical score is ludicrously inappropriate to the action in just about every scene. The musical highlight comes early on during a stock footage sequence of the ship carrying the expedition, which is accompanied by a sprightly "Rosie O'Grady"-style waltz tempo. Sometimes these Monogram epics are so bad they're enjoyable, but the enjoyment wears out quickly in this one, leaving nothing but people running back-and-forth on cardboard sets to ridiculous music.
Review of Return of the Ape Man
