Oh, right, like I'm going to ignore a movie called The Gorilla Man. This movie is tough to track down, as it is often confused with Bela Lugosi's The Ape Man, also released in '43--but sure enough, I found it. Let's just say there are some substantial differences between this film and the similarly-named account of Professor James Brewster's misadventures in gorilla-human hybridization.
Captain Craig Killian is coming back from a raid with vital intelligence on the next big Nazi push. He is intercepted by an outfit led by Nazi agent Dr. Dorn, and his psychopathic surgeon Dr. Ferris, who make him their prisoner in an attempt to find out what he's learned. The whole time they pose as British doctors, and keep on giving him too much morphine. Doesn't help that our introduction to Dr. Ferris is him experimenting on a dude's brain without anesthetic... Then the gaslighting begins. After learning the intel, the Nazis work to frame Killian for murder and convince his superiors that his information is the product of a disturbed brain. Fortunately, Killian has a stouthearted love of England, and he's a legendary climber, which saved his life on the front more than once--it's for that climbing skill that they call him "the Gorilla Man." All's well that ends well, but you'll be on the edge of your seat until then.
A lot of the suspense of this movie arises from the horrifying character of Dr. Ferris. Seriously, the makers of this film didn't want to fuck around when it came to showing off the sort of sick fucks the Nazi echelons attracted (and continue to attract, unfortunately). Again, his first appearance is him operating on someone's brain with no anesthesia...and then it's mentioned that several of his other patients have died of "heart failure" after visiting his operating theater. He also wears these glasses that quadruple the size of his eyes and make him look like some sort of fucking fish monster. He's specifically mentioned to be a "psychopathic killer" and when Dorn slaps around Nurse Kruger (whose family he's holding hostage, by the way), those freaky eyes glaze over and he has to be restrained before he can kill her. And yes, he does get to murder at least one person in the movie...and he sends a child to be the first to find the body. Brrrr.
Oh, did I mention that Ferris is played by John Abbott? Yeah, Mowgli's Wolf dad from The Jungle Book. Have fun recognizing his voice and seeing your childhood crash and burn before your very eyes.
There's also an interesting twist of sorts, where Killian's excuse to escape the hospital, that he needs to deliver a message from one of his dead men to said man's widow, turns out to actually be true. This is where we need to consider this as a propaganda film, as many of these wartime thrillers were. The focus on the actual war effort arguably makes it a war film that strays deep in mystery territory, rather than the usual reverse; consider films like Black Dragons, which clearly began life as horror or mystery films until war references were inserted by mandate by studio heads. By choosing to pursue an actual narrative outside of just shouting at the viewer that the Nazis are bad, we get to see how bad the Nazis are in person. The movie never gets much further thematically than "Nazis are devious," but it's still a comparatively complicated story that's well-written, well-shot, and well-acted.
Of course, there's another message, too: Nazis are stupid. (They are.) In attempting to get Killian back into their clutches, Dr. Ferris poses as a cab driver, but does nothing to disguise himself save for a shitty Cockney accent. He deserves to get ambushed and decked in the face by Killian. A single glance in the rearview mirror would find him out at once and I assume that's how Killian spotted him.
But there's also the fact that Killian's ex-girlfriend gets killed...that's a little brutal for a '40s movie, and, again, unexpected. Man, this movie has some tone issues. Thankfully, there is not a trace of comic relief, showing that at least someone in this era of movies had a brain in their head for once.
I think it's great that they named this movie The Gorilla Man so that they could convince people it was a monster movie--there's even a poster that shows a gorilla-like monster hand reaching for a screaming woman. Yeah, that never happens in this. Frankly, throwing in a monster or, Gods forbid, a man in a gorilla suit, would slaughter this movie. And because there's a good head at the wheel it never comes to that. I found out that the director, D. Ross Lederman, also made Find the Blackmailer, a surprisingly well-made mystery caper released the same year--expect that up here sooner or later. If you can find yourself a copy of The Gorilla Man you'll be in good hands, if you like mysteries, horror, war movies, or any combination of the above. Check it out!
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