Review of The Monster and the Girl

This nifty little 1941 Paramount programmer runs about 65 minutes and is an even mixture of crime drama and science fiction feature. The fun with this movie - a revenge thriller about a wrongly convicted man framed for murder whose brain is transplanted into an ape - is its cast. George Zucco plays the scientist who transfers the brain of the executed innocent man, played by Phillip Terry, into the primate's head. The swarthy gangsters are led by a debonair Paul Lukas, whose mob includes a crooked district attorney, played by Onslow Stevens, and mobsters Joseph Calleia, Marc Lawrence, Gerald Mohr and Robert Paige. Ellen Drew plays Terry's sister who is coerced into prostitution after a phony marriage to Paige. About a month after the brain transplant, the ape's new brain starts to remember who was responsible for the death that led to his predicament. The ape breaks out of his cage and goes on a killing spree. As I said, the movie's cast is a who's who of B-movie and serial familiar faces. Mohr was the villain in Republic's "Jungle Girl" as well as the voice of the mysterious Scorpion in "Adventures of Captain Marvel." Cameron, who plays a crime reporter here, starred as the stalwart Rex Bennett in Republic's "G-Men vs. the Black Dragon" and "Secret Service in Darkest Africa." Paige was one of the FBI agents in Columbia's "Flying G-Men," while Stevens starred as the electrical genius in the 1934 Universal serial "The Vanishing Shadow." Lawrence played henchmen in a few serials, most notably in Columbia's "The Spider's Web." Zucco, of course, was known for his mad doctor roles in films at Universal and other B-movie studios. The cast also included an uncredited Abner Biberman, who was in such A-flicks as "Gunga Din" and "The Roaring Twenties" as well as the evil Japanese admiral in Republic's wartime serial, "King of the Mounties"; and Edward Van Sloane, best known for his roles in "Dracula" and "Dracula's Daughter" in an uncredited bit as the prison warden. The movie actually starts off rather slow with too much time spent of the trial of Terry's character and the flashbacks told by Drew of how she wound up in her situation. But once the ape comes into the picture, the pace picks up and the carnage begins. I do not remember seeing this film before, but I have to admit, it was a entertaining jaunt abetted by a wonderful cast of very familiar faces.