3/10
Bored of the gorilla
23 September 2014
Great title, eh? Kind of conjures up rampaging Gorrilas protecting blonde dames from nasty explorers, thinly veiled bestiality, and a great jungle adventure for all, eh? Eh? Well, prepare to be disappointed.

Perry Mason plays a guy called Bonny Chevez, manager of a warehouse at a plantation in some jungle, and Bonny's a bit of a fanny rat. He's already dumped the servant girl after sweet talking her into the sack, and now he's set his sights on seemingly brain dead and despondent plantation owner wife Dinah. Now, Dinah's much older husband isn't daft. He's got an old lady (who's a witch and mother of the servant girl) keeping an eye on things, and once he gets wind of Bonny putting the moves on his wife, he fires him during dinner.

However, Bonny's done enough ground work to woo Dinah, so she's all prepared to run off with him. That night, Bonny gets a hold of the plantation owner and manages to get him killed by snake bite (He punches the guy in the stomach and the guy just lies there until the snake bites him). Soon enough, Bonny's now running the plantation and married to Dinah. Bonny doesn't realise it, but the witch is just about to put a curse on Bonny that's cause him to think (or turn into, I'm not really sure) a gorilla and run off into the jungle.

Here's where the film throws an torrent of missed opportunities at you. We've got Bonny either turning into or thinking he's a gorilla, which includes his hands turning from white to black before getting all hairy (what are they implying?), but no real gorilla action at all! I mean, you've got Lon Chaney Jr in here as a cop after Bonny for the murder of the old guy, but nothing really happens until the last couple of minutes, and even then you don't get to see much. Put it this way, Bonny kills more people when he's not a gorilla, and that's one person.

Woody Strode's only in this for about three minutes, then completely disappears.

If you really have to see all these gorilla/ape based films, which is a bit of a minefield to be honest to begin with, I'd put this one at the bottom of your list. For a good (hilarious) ape film, watch Bela Lugosi's The Ape Man. That's a good un.
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