THE BRIDE OF THE GORILLA

US, 1951, 70 minutes, Black and white.
Barbara Payton, Lon Chaney Jr, Raymond Burr, Tom Conway, Paul Cavanagh.
Directed by Curt Siodmak.

The Bride of the Gorilla has a strong reputation because of writer-director Curt Siodmak. Brother of director Robert Siodmak, he came to Hollywood from Germany in the 1930s and was responsible for a number of stories and screenplays, especially of horror films like Son of Dracula and The Wolf Man, The Beast With Five Fingers. He also wrote the novel Donovan’s Brain which had many screen versions. He wrote and directed this film, one of the few that he directed.

The film echoes the Val Lewton horror films at RKO of the 1940s. It sounds more intense than it actually is, visually. The film is set in the Amazon jungle, Paul Cavanagh plays a Dutch landowner who is dying. Barbara Payton is glamorous as his younger wife. Raymond Burr, in his sinister mode, plays Barney Chavez, the manager of the plantation, in love with the wife as well as carrying on with a native girl. Lon Chaney Jr is not in a horror role but is the police commissioner. Tom Conway is his usual smooth and suave self as the doctor.

The film is one of jealousies but brings in local Amazonian customs with an old crone putting a curse on Barney Chavez so that he becomes the equivalent of a gorilla. There is much talk about the law of the jungle – and there are several deaths. The film is not particularly horrific in the traditional sense.

1.The work of Curt Siodmak? Writer and director? His interest in horror?

2.The studio sets for the Amazon, the mansion, the jungle? The musical score?

3.The title, more intense than the reality of the film? The relation to Dinah and her relationship to Barney Chavez?

4.The situation in the Amazon, Van Gelder and his mansion, his younger wife, his illness, the advice from his doctor? The clashes with Chavez? His dismissing him? Their confrontation, Chavez hitting him, his fall, being poisoned by the snakes? Chavez and his dominance in the household?

5.Dinah, glamour, love for her husband? Her attraction towards Barney? Preparing to go away with him? The conflicts with him? The police interrogations? Her reliance on the doctor? Going into the jungle, the pursuit, her fears?

6.Barney Chavez, sullen, surly, the conflict with Van Gelder? His relationship with the local girl? His attraction towards Dinah? His being dismissed, the meal, confrontation with Van Gelder, killing him with the snakes? His being cursed by Al-Long? The device of his looking into a mirror or water to see that he was a gorilla? In the jungle, his attack on the local girl? With Dinah, the chases in the jungle? The shootings? The cross-examination by the commissioner?

7.The commissioner, his knowing the jungle, the explanation of the laws of the jungle?

8.The suggestions of horror – but the film as less dramatic than its kind, more talkative?