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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: June 16th, 2020.
Director: Stuart Heisler/Edward Dmytryk/Reginald Le Borg/Harold Young
Cast: Ellen Drew, Robert Paige, Paul Lukas, George Zucco, John Carradine, Eveyln Ankers Milburn Stone, Acquanetta, J. Carrol Naish, Samuel S. Hinds, Otto Kruger, Vicky Lane, Amelita Ward, Rondo Hatton
Year: 1941/1943/1944/1945
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The Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 - Movie Review:
Shout Factory brings to high definition another four classics of vintage horror from the Universal vaults with their fifth entry in their (thankfully - hip-hip hooray!) ongoing Universal Horror Collection series. While these might not carry the same clout as the Frankenstein or Dracula pictures, they still have their place and so far, these sets have proven to be a lot of fun.
The Monster And The Girl:
First up, directed by Stuart Heisler in 1941, The Monster And The Girl was actually distributed by Paramount, not Universal. The story is pretty thin overall, but it has its moments. We meet up with a man named Scot Webster (Philip Terry) whose sister, Susan (Ellen Drew), has fallen in with some gangsters led by W. S. Bruhl (Paul Lukas), who have moved in on their small town.
Things get complicated when one of Bruhl's men winds up on the wrong side of a bullet, found dead in a hotel room. Scot is accused and convicted of the killing, and executed himself for a crime that he did not commit. After Scot's been put down, Dr. Parry (George Zucco) takes his brain out of his corpse and puts it into the body of a large gorilla. Cognizant of his past and hungry for revenge, ape-Scott starts skulking about the town and taking out those who did him wrong.
This one takes a third of its running time explaining the setup via some court room scenes that just aren't all that exciting. Once it gets to the angry, vengeful ape, however, things definitely pick up and the movie proves to be pretty entertaining. The dialogue is fast and quick-witted, snappy at times even, and once the setup is out of the way with, Heisler picks up the pace and gets the film moving quite nicely. The 'man in a suit' effects are fun to see here, if not completely convincing they're not bottom of the barrel either, and the film mixes some interesting film noir elements into its proceedings to give it a bit of a different flavor.
Terry is decent enough as the wronged man, while the always fun to watch Zucco is great as what is essentially a mad scientist character. Lukas isn't half bad at all as the film's heavy and lovely Ellen Drew is very well cast as the film's female lead.
Captive Wild Woman:
The second film in the set, which Edward Dmytryk directed in 1943, begins when an animal trainer named Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) returns from safari with a host of new additions for the collection of his boss, John Whipple (Lloyd Corrigan). These new recruits are to be trained and used in The Whipple Circus and the best of the new additions to the circus' lineup is a gorilla named Cheela (Ray Corrigan) who is so close to human in his ways that it's uncanny.
Mason is happy to be reunited with his fiancée, Beth Colman (Evelyn Ankers), but not so happy to learn that her sister, Dorothy (Martha MacVicar), has had to see an endocrinologist named Dr. Sigmund Walters (John Carradine) for some health issues.
Fred and Beth go to visit Dorothy at the hospital and meet Walters who expresses interest in buying Cheela to use in his latest experiments. Fred says she's not for sale so Walters arranges to have her stolen and soon enough transforms the female ape into a beautiful woman (Acquanetta), even going so far as to transplant the brain of his assistant, Miss Strand (Fay Helm), into the new form, eventually renaming her Paula Dupree. When Walters brings Paula out into public, to the circus where Fred works, all Hell breaks loose...
Politically correct this may not be, but it's wacky enough to work. A big part of the film's entertainment value stems from the casting of David Carradine, perfect here as the mad doctor and clearly quite invested in the character, chewing just the right amount of scenery. Of course, adding the presence of the truly beautiful Acquanetta doesn't hurt either, her exotic good looks and inspired performance are just as much the main attraction here as Carradine's presence. The rest of the cast are fine, not amazing but fine, but Carradine and Acquanetta really do steal the scenes they get in the picture.
Dmytryk paces the picture well, it never feels longer than it needs to be, and again we get some decent 'guy in a suit' monkey action in addition to plenty of stock footage inserts to give the circus scenes involving exotic wild animals some excitement. The picture was clearly made on a modest budget but the filmmakers get every penny up on the screen and the cinematography is quite good here as well.
Jungle Woman:
Up next is the second Paula Dupree film, directed by Reginald Le Borg a year later in 1944. More or less picking up where the last movie left off, we learn that Dr. Carl Fletcher (J. Carrol Naish) has admitted he murdered Paula Dupree (Acquanetta again). During the related court proceedings, we flashback to see what exactly happened there, which is an excuse to recycle some of the footage from Captive Wild Woman.
When Fletcher buys up Dr. Walters' estate and gets ahold of Cheela's corpse, he's able to bring her back to human form again and while it takes some time, soon enough she identifies as Paula again. The doctor's daughter and her fiancé, Joan (Lois Collier) and Bob Whitney (Richard Davis), arrive on the scene and Paula takes a liking to Bob right away, which makes a late night attack on the couple rather suspicious, though it's assumed that another of Fletcher's patients, Willie (Eddie Hyans), was responsible.
When Paula tells Bob that she's been abused by Dr. Fletcher, he starts to sympathize with her but the strange attacks continue and when Fletcher tries to get dominant with Paula, she attacks him next. Bob sees what happened and after having her looked at by a third party, he learns that Paula and Cheela are one and the same...
A very entertaining follow up film, Jungle Woman may recycle a bit more footage from the earlier film than it needs to but is otherwise a solid thriller with a few fun twists and turns. Again, Acquanetta steals the show and while the movie does suffer from 'lack of John Carradine' syndrome, J. Carrol Naish doesn't do a bad job at all as the doctor with questionable motives. Again, the movie recycles some 'wild animal' footage from other films but it works in the context of the story being told here.
Jungle Captive:
Last but not least, directed by Harold Young in 1945, Jungle Captive is the third and final Paula Dupree picture. The story begins with a scientist named Stendahl (Otto Kruger) and his two assistants, Ann Forester (Amelita Ward) and her fiancé Don Young (Phil Brown), bring a dead rabbit back to life. At the morgue in town, Moloch (Rondo Hatton) shows up to get his hands on the corpse of the infamous Ape Woman (now played by Vicky Lane), killing a clerk and running off with the body and a carjacked ambulance, which he then ditches to make the final trip up to a big old house.
Inspector Harrigan (Jerome Cowan) and his team of top cops look into the event and manage to trace a smock found near the ambulance which they find belongs to Stendhal or someone in his employ. When they look into things, they presume the smock to belong specifically to Don, but when questioned, Ann lies to cover for him.
Before long, Stendahl kidnaps Ann and brings her to his secret lab, located in the same old house that Moloch and the Ape Woman's body are currently hiding out in. Stendahl's plan is to use Ann's blood to bring Paula Dupree back to life, but things get tricky when Moloch falls in love with Ann. Stendahl's work is a success but in order to bring Paula back to her human form, he needs get his hands on Dr. Walters' notes. As Stendahl continues his work, he realizes Paula's brain was damaged and that he'll need a new brain if he really wants this to work - and so he figures he'll use poor Ann for that as well. When Paula is fully resurrected she makes a break for it, all while Don starts putting together the pieces of the puzzle in regards to what's happened to his fiancée.
Not quite as fun as the first two movies in the series, this is still wacky enough to work. Otto Kruger does a decent enough job as this entries' mad scientist, he's a lot of fun to watch in his role. Of course, Rondo Hatton makes for a great villain, his instantly identifiable visage lending the movie some eerie vibes. Amelita Ward and Phil Brown are okay in their parts, if not all that memorable. Vicky Lane isn't a bad replacement for Acquanetta but she doesn't have quite the same level of intensity to her gaze.
Young keeps things moving at a decent pace but there's a bit too much filler here, which isn't great if your movie runs just over an hour as this one does. Still, it's entertaining and worth seeing.
The Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 - Blu-ray Review:
Each of the four films is presented on its own separate Blu-ray disc in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed in their original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratios, each film on their own 25GB Blu-ray disc, which gives them plenty of breathing room given their short running time. The Monster And The Girl, Jungle Women and Jungle Captive are taken from a new 2k scan of a 'fine grain film elements,' while Captive Wild Women is presumably taken from an existing HD master. All four of the movies look quite nice here, very film-like with no noticeable problems with any digital noise reduction or edge enhancement issues at all. The elements used were clearly in pretty decent shape. We get some minor print damage here and there and some more cleanup work would have been welcome, but it's almost always just small specks and the like rather than anything stronger or more distracting than that. Black levels are solid and we get nice, clean whites with a good grey scale filling in everything in between. There aren't really any problems with contrast blooming and the transfers are free of any noticeable compression artifacts. All in all, the four films in this set look quite good!
The 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono tracks supplied for each film are fine. Optional subtitles are provided for each of the four features in English only. While range is understandably limited throughout the four films, there aren't really any problems here. Dialogue stays clean, clear and easy to follow. You'll hear a little bit of hiss here and there if you listen for it but there's nothing really distracting about it. No problems were noticed during playback.
Extras are spread across the four discs in the set as follows:
The Monster And The Girl:
The main extra on disc one is a new commentary track from film historians Tom Weaver And Steve Kronenberg (recorded separately and edited together from the sounds of things), who speak about how the Paramount logo that opens the film conjures up memories of the studio's directors and stars rather than their horror movies before then going on to give an overview of Paramount's track record in the era of golden age horror. They cover how the film works as a 'memory play,' the detail the biographies and careers of the cast and crew involved in the picture, point out little details like how gun smoke hangs in the air after the opening shooting, the film's connection to a bunch of Three Stooges shorts, script to screen changes that were made during the production, the importance of the success of Dr. Cyclops to Paramount's genre film run, how the film's genre conventions evolve over its running time, the film's influence on pictures like The Mad Monster (also starring Zucco) and the three other movies included in this set and lots more.
Menus and chapter selection are also included.
Captive Wild Woman:
Again, the main extra is a new commentary, this time from Tom Weaver flying solo. He starts by talking about the Universal Horror franchise characters and the different spinoffs that were created by the studio to capitalize on them, including the Paula Dupree character, who debuts in this film. He covers how the movie shifts back and forth between circus drama and horror, where a lot of the tiger and ship footage was lifted from before it appeared here, who played who and why they should be of interest to listeners, how John Carradine's hemorrhoids wreaked havoc on his pants, some of the logic gaps evident in the production, the unusual history of Acquanetta and her career, Universal's attempts to convince audiences that all of the animal scenes in the film were 'all new,' how the movie ties into Jungle Woman and a lot of additional bits and pieces that relate to the picture.
We also get a still gallery, theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection.
Jungle Woman:
The new commentary on this film comes courtesy of Gregory William Mank. He starts by considering the melodrama of both the film and it's leading lady, discussing the 'anti-black' propaganda that certain critics read into the film when it was released, how it serves as a competing studio's answer to Cat People, Universal's attempts to capitalize on the 'ape woman' idea, J. Carrol Naish's life and times, Acquanetta's controversial life and times, the film's use of recycled animal footage from earlier Universal productions, the studio's secrecy surrounding the controversy around Captive Wild Woman and Jungle Woman and why Acquanetta is barely in the film. He also talks about the contributions of the cast and crew, how an unusual shoe theft ties into the film's odd history, how Acquanetta told him in an interview that she 'became' her character Paula, the depiction of the mentally feeble character in this picture played by Eddie Hyans, how the movie connects to Disney's Pinocchio, how Acquanetta was treated by the press and the effect it had on her career and her relationship with Jack Ross and how the ending of the film ties into the beginning.
Additionally, the disc includes a still gallery, theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection.
Jungle Captive:
Scott Gallinghouse supplies a commentary for the forth film in the set. He talks about the film's connections to Captive Wild Woman and Jungle Woman, the qualities of the script and the quality of the credits that the writers and director had before the picture was made, who was originally supposed to direct the film and various credits for the different cast members that appear in the picture, including Otto Kruger and especially Rondo Hatton to name only two. He covers the film's shooting schedule, how Vicky Lane wound up playing the Paula Dupree character in this picture as well as what her life was like both on and off the silver screen (including her relationship to Tom Neal), some of the interesting details of the Stendahl character in the film, where some of the props showcased in the film were recycled from, who handled the stuntwork for Lane's character, where some of the stock footage used in the picture originated from and more.
A theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection are also included.
All four discs fit inside a flipper case. This case, in turn, fits inside a nice cardboard slipcover that also contains an insert booklet containing credits for the four features and a nice selection of vintage promotional art and images for the films included in the set.
The Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 - The Final Word:
The Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 is another solid set of films from the studio's vault. If this set isn't as horror-centric as some of the other ones it's still got enough monkey-related mayhem to entertain, and the fun cast of classic horror stars that appear throughout the four pictures adds to the appeal. The presentations are quite good here and the commentary tracks full of great information. Recommended!
Click on the images below for full sized The Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 Blu-ray screen caps!
