Martha Vickers is in a sanitarium, put there by sister Evelyn Ankers because of an alleged glandular issue.  From where I’m sitting, the woman who will be the oversexed younger sister of Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep doesn’t have anything wrong with her.  This facility is ran by mad scientist John Carradine, who intends to secretly graft glands from an ape into Vickers’s body.  This will supposedly give her “a human form with animal instincts”.  If this means Vickers will have an insatiable, sexual appetite, then so be it.  It is all for the benefit of science, after all.

This happens in 1943’s Captive Wild Woman.  This is a very confused movie, starting with that title and the oxymoron of a woman who is both captive and wild. 

Carradine had stolen the ape from the circus where it was supposed to be a star attraction.  I have no idea what kind of act the circus had in mind.  The general consensus is “We’re going to make circus history!”, a phrase I’m pretty sure has never meant something good is going to happen.

All the animals were brought from Africa by Milburn Stone, a character who apparently became the lead of this just by bearing a strong resemblance to Clyde Beatty, the star of 1933’s The Big Cage.  And that’s because the real footage of circus animals and acts from that movie are repurposed extensive for this one.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn at least half of this movie is that one.  I doubt this ruse even fooled anybody at the time, as the image changes drastically between the two.  Even the extras in the older footage look like they are from an earlier time, and I mean much earlier than a decade prior.  I would have thought they were using footage from a picture made in the silent era.

It is likely neither picture was made in an era when the big studios were concerned about the health of lives of animals on screen, hence a fight we see between a lion and a tiger.  That is eventually broken up by a blast from a firehose.  I wouldn’t have minded seeing the same done to those who made the 1933 film that footage was from.

Anywho, back to the mad scientist element, Carradine won’t rest until he transplants a cerebrum, though I was increasingly uncertain as to whether it was the ape’s to the head of Vickers, or hers to somebody else.  Carradine’s geeen-yus surgeon declares “transplanting the cerebrum with result in certain death”.  Yeah, I don’t think I need a medical degree to state with certainty the removal of the largest part of the brain will kill the subject.

He says this to his assistant, played by Fay Helm, who is determined to shorten her life span by objecting to his experiments.  She didn’t seem to have problems with his previous work, where he changed the breed and sex of animals.  I honestly do not know what happens to this character, except Carradine obviously killed her offscreen at some point.

After performing an operation, he unwraps the bandages from the head of a woman I assumed to be Vickers but turns out be Acquanetta, an actress I assume took her stage name as a product placement for Aqua Net hairspray.  Also, do not confuse her for Awkwafina. I now wonder if she receives promotional money from the bottled water brand Aquafina.

Whatever this thing is that Carradine has made, she seems to intimidate the other animals.  This will be helpful to Stone, who will be the animals’ new handler after Carradine had the previous one killed while abducting the ape.  Despite the protestations of circus owner Lloyd Corrigan, Stone is insistent on taking over the act, saying, “We’ll start with one lion and one tiger…”  But what about a bear, Stone? What about a bear?!

Anywho, Stone is shit at actually controlling the animals, and every bit of those scenes are actually from The Big Cage.  He may be doing his thing with a chair, a whip and a gun, but the animals are submitting to Acquanetta and her psychic powers.  This is conveyed in the most ridiculous manner possible, with her flaring her eyes in shots where she in superimposed over the beasts.  The power of superimposition compels you! Also, way to go, Stone, basically taking credit for a woman doing the real work.

All the roles here are thankless, and there isn’t much for anybody to do.  The leads largely stand around in pathetic sets and pretend they’re looking at animals that are actually in footage a decade old.  Ankers looks vaguely embarrassed to be in this, and it would be understandable if she was.  Stone looks grateful to have graduated briefly to the big time.  His time there, as we all as Ankers’s, would be largely limited to Jungle Woman, a sequel to this that surely nobody was demanding.  After that, it would be back to supporting roles.  Acquanetta would also return for that sequel.  I don’t yet know whether she will have any lines in that picture, because she didn’t have any in this one.  Lastly, Carradine seems to be having the most fun of the cast in what was his first major role.

I usually like seeing recurring actors across b-movies such as this, and one of those is Corrigan, as the kind of vaguely incompetent but jovial buffoon he specialized in playing.  One welcome face I rarely see is Vince Barnett, though he dropped the thick Italian accent from the last picture I saw him in, when he was Paul Muni’s comically useless secretary in Scarface.

The blu-ray has a commentary by the always-knowledgeable Tom Weaver.  His insight into a particular special effect had me intrigued.  In an unbroken shot, Acquanetta’s skin goes from light to dark.  Turns out that was a technique going back to the years of silent cinema.  Dark makeup is applied and lit bright enough to look lighter, then that light is dimmed.  I thought that was pretty clever, and more effective than anything else in the runtime.  And that includes the ape costume, which is a horrible and tatty looking thing I suspect smelled of mothballs.

I almost forgot: when I said I wasn’t sure who was operated upon to be transformed into Acquanetta, Vickers suddenly turns up again near conclusion, so it couldn’t have been her.  Process of elimination leaves on Helm as the woman who was transformed.  But, if that’s the case, what kind of surgery was Carradine doing to Vickers?  Was she harmed in any way?  The film is too lazy to answer these questions.

I was exhausted at the end of Captive Wild Woman, but not because it was such an exciting experience.  The extensive reuse of footage from an older movie left me bored, then the newly filmed parts were largely so confusing and muddled as to wear me down by how difficult it was to follow.  I don’t think Carradine’s mad doctor could come up with anything as diabolical as this mess of a film, and that is man so evil he has medical journals as the reading material in his waiting room.  And here I thought the ancient issues of People Magazine in most waiting rooms was the worst torture one could experience in such a place.

Dir: Edward Dmytryk

Starring John Carradine, Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone

Watched as part of Shout Factory’s blu-ray box set Universal Horror Volume 5