Retrospektive 2018

Captive Wild Woman

Edward Dmytryk
USA 1943
60 min
V'18

Vor seinen Noir-Filmen und einem kontroversen Blacklist-Kurzauftritt als einer der „Hollywood Ten“ arbeitete Edward Dmytryk als Cutter und Regisseur bei B-Produktionen. In diesen Gesellenjahren war Dmytryk auch bei Universal tätig, wo er diesen exzentrischen Sci-Fi-Horrorfilm mit John Carradine in der Rolle eines unethischen Endokrinologen inszenierte. Für obskure Experimente an einem aus dem Zirkus gestohlenen Gorilla verwendet er lebenswichtige Organe weiblicher Patienten, um den Primaten in eine attraktive Frau zu verwandeln, deren seltsame Affinität zu wilden Tieren letztlich ihre wahre Identität offenbart.

Mit WEIRD WOMAN

 

Before his best known film noir and his controversially brief turn as one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, Edward Dmytryk was an editor turned director steadily working his way across different studios’ B-units. Dmytryk’s journeyman years included a stint at Universal where he helmed this eccentric sci-fi horror starring John Carradine as an unethical endocrinologist performing dangerous experiments upon a gorilla stolen from the circus, using vital organs removed from female patients to transform the beast into a beautiful woman whose strange predilection towards wild animals ultimately reveals her true identity. Played by a Native American or African-American born actress whose origins remain uncertain but who was claimed in studio ballyhoo to be “The Venezuelan Volcano” best known by the stage name of Acquanetta, the gorilla-woman is as uncomfortably blatant an emblem of racist fears as King Kong years earlier. Intertwining the doctor’s increasingly dangerous experiments with the perilous work of the animal trainer taming vicious lions (reusing footage from Universal’s 1933 circus picture THE BIG TENT), CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN channeled the fad for sexualized jungle exotica into a surprise box-office hit. (Haden Guest)

With WEIRD WOMAN

Credits
  • John Carradine - Hatfield
  • Lloyd Corrigan
  • Martha Vickers - Carmen Sternwood
  • Evelyn Ankers
  • Acquanetta
  • Milburn Stone
  • Fay Helm
  • Vince Barnett
  • Griffin Jay
  • Henry Sucher
  • Ted Fithian
  • Neil P. Varnick
  • George Robinson
Universal Pictures
35 mm
bw
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