'Never get that close to him again he could have killed you.'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘You try and get away’
1958’s The Bride and the Beast has at least one thing to recommend it.
We’re in safe hands.
‘You can stop worrying.’
Direction is handled by Adrian Weiss but Wood’s screenplay still features to some of his personal obsessions.
‘Angora sweater was such a beautiful thing’
and there’s a certain quality to the dialogue.
‘I still shudder at the strange sensation I had when the gorilla was trying to be tender’
There’s a line that tells a story.
Dan and Laura are newly-weds, as you can tell from their romantic biplay.
‘That wedding licence cost 6 bucks, you know I can buy 6 wives for that in the middle of Africa’
and from how well they know each other.
‘That sounds like Spanky, a gorilla I brought back.’
‘Gorilla?’
Did I not mention I have a gorilla?
Gee you’d think that would have come up during the engagement or that you might have visited my home at some point.
‘A mansion in the middle of nowhere.’
More importantly, when you make an ape movie, and we’ve reviewed a few – please subscribe to check them out –
the name of your ape is important.
Kong is good.
'Spanky!'
Spanky makes every line sound like a euphemism.
‘I told him to feed Spanky and take the night off.’
Seriously.
‘Spanky sounds like he’s mad about something’
Probably the fact you named him Spanky.
It being their wedding night, Dan is keen to introduce Laura to the beast in his basement,
but first she wants to meet Spanky.
‘He’s beautiful’
You’re lucky I didn’t meet him first.
And this impression seems to be mutual.
Laura and Spanky have chemistry which Dan is keen to put behind them and get the wedding night back on track.
‘Let’s forget about Spanky.’
and soon they are fast asleep in their twin beds, because this is the 50s,
but…
Laura and Spanky have some kind of mental connection and he escapes to visit her by night.
Get your stinking paws off my wife you damn dirty ape!
Ah. Now I know how this looks but…
So perishes Spanky the wife-stealing gorilla.
‘Good night darling’
Sleep well. I’ll clean up the dead gorilla in the morning.
But, for some reason, Laura struggles to sleep.
‘Such a weird incident’
Yeah, now you mention it, it was a bit odd, but something else is bugging Laura.
‘Almost as if it had happened before, a long time ago’
Dan, I’ve been with other gorillas. And one orangutan – it was college, I was experimenting.
‘Do you think that perhaps we’ve lived before...’
Dan is happy to write this off.
‘After that Spanky affair you’re entitled to one bad dream’
So we’re definitely calling it an affair.
A doctor now hypnotises Laura to regress to a past life...
'I see animals...'
in which she was surrounded by stock footage, and…
‘I’m… I’m a gorilla’
There’s only one explanation.
‘Come on, you don’t believe she was a gorilla?’
‘All the evidence points to that’
Playing fast and loose with the word ‘evidence’ there, but even so, I agree with the doctor on one point.
‘However, if I were you I wouldn’t take her into the jungle so soon’
‘We’ve made plans, it’s our honeymoon and we’re going’
So far this has been easily my favourite Ed Wood film we’ve reviewed –
please subscribe to-oh I did that already.
‘You ever get tired of it?’
It’s hilarious and the fact that the gorilla-fixated girl,
‘Spanky didn’t hurt me’
is now being taken to Africa promises equal hilarity in the second half.
‘This is exciting’
But it’s not.
And I can’t tell you the disappointment as we watch scene after scene of Dan and Laura pointing at stuff that’s just off screen.
‘Look over there’
before getting involved in a tiger hunt largely based around footage from 1948’s Man-Eater of Kumaon.
Footage was also taken from cult favourite Bride of the Gorilla, which we reviewed way back.
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#gun shot#
For the middle 35 minutes of the film the word gorilla is only mentioned three times,
none of them relating to the opening.
‘Tonight we’ll be in gorilla country’
How can she not react to that?!
Finally, seven minutes from the end...
Following a bump to the head, Laura’s mental connection returns
‘Laura!’
This again! I offered to dress up.
The ‘friendly’ gorilla carries the extremely willing Laura all the way from Africa...
to everyone’s favourite B movie location, Bronson Caves.
Dan follows.
More of them?! What the hell’s she doing in there?
#Sexy gorilla grunts#
Oh, we are going to need counselling.
Who da man!
#Gorrila roar of sexual dominance over puny human#
Dan rushes in to save Laura.
'Comeon!'
That’ll learn you for sleeping with other primates. But…
So what happens next?
‘I haven’t seen her from that day to this’
‘Weird’
Weird? That’s your takeaway?!
The man’s wife has run off with gorillas and it’s weird?
The fact that he gave up looking for her given that all this happened while she had concussion, that’s weird.
‘Incredible’ ‘But true’
I don’t know what to say about this; the start and end are so funny they almost forgive the interminable mid-section.
It’s awful, but I kind of love it.
‘How was I?’ ‘Marvolous.’
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This is my favourite film written or directed by Ed Wood, what’s yours?
Let us know in the comments below.
'It's all over now, by the looks of it so is the storm.'