WasAnnon
Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Abbigail Bush
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Clarissa Mora
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
bkoganbing
Universal Pictures did the third and last of its Ape Woman series with Vicky Lane taking the place of Acquanetta as the woman turned into a primeval ape woman. She was killed in the last film, but another one of those crazy scientists has brought her back to life and even more he's brought her back to a human condition.But poor Vicky, she may look like a swimsuit model, but she has no human brain. Never mind we've got Amelita Ward to keep her supplied with human blood and maybe a human brain if Otto Kruger can complete his experiment.Poor Otto has a problem. His assistant Rondo Hatton killed a morgue attendant getting the Ape Woman's body so the cops in the person of Jerome Cowan are investigating. And Ward has a boyfriend Phil Brown also a scientist and also inquiring.So those are the elements of the plot of this Universal horror flick which made a whole lot of good actors like Kruger and Cowan look embarrassed. Still they were professional enough to give credible if not decent performances in this Thanksgiving feast of a movie.Why didn't these scientists just ship her to a zoo to find a horny gorilla?
poe-48833
For fans of Rondo Hatton, this's the one. He has more lines in THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE than in all the other films I've seen him in, combined. He handles what dialogue he's given well enough, and the fact that he falls for the heroine and eventually sacrifices himself to save her makes for an overall very satisfying performance. The writer(s?), however, could've done a bit better by Hatton by leaving out the put-downs leveled at him by his boss: "No offense, but, with a face like that..." or "You're better suited to be the suitor of the Ape Woman than the heroine..."- that kind of s---. Hatton would've made an interesting Hero, if you ask me. (The makeup for the title Captive is outstanding, by the way.)
FieCrier
As in the first movie in this series, Captive Wild Woman, we're introduced to an apparently kind man who is apparently pursuing beneficial medical research. As in that movie, we just as quickly find out he is a mad genius, with little regard for human life.The movie quickly picks up where the second on the series left off, where Paula, the Ape Woman was in a morgue. Mr. Stendahl (the end credits in the copy I viewed named him Dr. Stendahl, but he is usually called Mister) has developed a process for bringing back life to the dead through blood transfusions and electricity. Supposedly, he wants to bring back life to Paula because she's a step up from the rabbits he had been using, but avoids the ethical problems of using a human subject. Since he doesn't care, however, if people die (his servant Moloch kills a man while stealing Paula), it's unclear why he doesn't simply revive a dead human body, or kill a human, and then revive them.After he brings Paula back to life, she is still in her ape-woman form. Unlike in the second film Jungle Woman, where she could change back and forth between ape-woman and woman, in this film (as in the 1st) she requires human blood and hormones to appear as a woman. To become more human, she would require a transplanted cerebrum from a human, again as in the first. In order to learn how to turn Paula into a human, Stendahl had to have Moloch steal the files of Dr. Walters (from the 1st film) from the office of Dr. Fletcher (from the 2nd film). Apart from these references to the earlier films, no one from those films returns to this one; the only recurring character is Paula herself, and she is played by a different actress. There does not seem to be any footage used from the previous films, except perhaps a short close-up of Paula's hand transforming while she is strapped to a table. There was a shot like that in the first film, but they may have just re-created it.Stendahl's reasoning for wanting to turn Paula into a human after reviving her is just as questionable as his reasoning for wanting to revive her. He thinks turning her into a woman would prove he could bring a human back to life. It would seem to me that it would only prove he could turn an ape-woman into a human, or at any rate, something like a human.People seem divided as to whether the second or third film is the worst of the three, and I'm not sure myself. They're all decent, at least, but there is no question the first was the best of them.
jim riecken (youroldpaljim)
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** JUNGLE CAPTIVE is the third installment of Universals "Paula the Ape Women" series. In terms of over all entertainment quality, JUNGLE CAPTIVE falls somewhere in between the three, with CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN at a high and JUNGLE WOMEN at a low. Although this film is slightly better the previous JUNGLE WOMAN, the gulf in quality is not that wide between the two.Otto Kruger plays Mr. Stendahl, a brilliant doctor (although no one in the film ever calls him doctor) and medical researcher. Stendahl has been researching ways to bring the dead back to life, and has succeeded with animals. However, Stendahl feels the only way to really convince the medical community is to prove his technique can be used on humans. So Stendahl sends his ugly henchman Moloch to steal the body of Paula Dupree the ape women, from the morgue. In the process, his henchman kills a morgue attendant and steals a hearse. Stendahl then lures his nurse out to his secret country house and laboratory out in the boondocks somewhere, in order to use her blood in his experiments to bring life to the dead ape women. The ape is revived and turns back from a hideous creature into a beautiful women again. However, Paula"s brain is damaged and decides she needs a new one. So Stendal sends Moloch to the home of Doctor Fletcher (from the series previous film JUNGLE WOMEN) to steal his records and those of DR. Walters (whose records Fletcher had in his files) the scientist who created Paula.In order to learn how to transplant a brain. Fletcher is killed by Moloch off screen. Stendahl decides to use the brain of his captive nurse.
Now shall we begin? I have gone this much into the plot because this film has such a bizarre far fetched plot. Stendahl is obviously a scientific genius, but when comes to real world smarts, he is really a few cards short of a full deck. In order to prove his life restoring technique to the scientific community, why does Stendahl use the body of a hideous mutation? Why not say, the body of some recently deceased father of five whose widow and children would happy to have their father back. Presenting the revived ape women to the public would implement him in the murder of the morgue attendant and Dr. Fletcher. Then their is actual theft of the body and the hearse. Not to mention removing the brain of his nurse and placing it in the body of the ape women he could be charged with a whole host of charges on that alone.In most of the film, the ape women spends most of her time on the lab table. The ape women this time around is played by Vicki Lane, but there is little here for her to do but lie on a lab table. When she is transformed into a beautiful women, she does little more than roam around zombie like. Vicki Lane is pretty, but she does not have the raw animal sensuality of Acqanetta from the previous films. Also, Paula's hypnotic control over animals is ignored here. When Paula escapes from Stendahl"s house, she trapped by Stendahl's dogs. Otto Kruger isn't bad as the evil Stendahl, he gives a very good low key performance. However, he has to recite so many clunker lines that his efforts are hampered. Rondo Hatton is Moloch. This was his second time in a Universal horror film. He was quite effectively used in his horror star debut, the Sherlock Holmes thriller, PEARL OF DEATH. However, in PEARL he was mute, here Hatton has lines. This time around he is more funny than scary. Hatton from here on was not an actor, but a human prop.
Universal should have left Paula Dupree the ape dead for good in the first film. The ape women was only good for one film, and JUNGLE CAPTIVE confirms this.