alexanderdavies-99382 "Jungle Woman" is an unnecessary sequel to the superior "Captive Wild Woman" but it's not a bad film in its own right.J. Carrol Naish - a fine character actor - is one of the leading characters as a scientist who attempts to steady the ape woman, Paula.The flashback part of the film is confusing and should have been removed from the screenplay.Evelyn Ankers is given top billing but is only involved in the beginning and end of the film and her screen time is very limited. There is a fair bit of incident but it beggars belief how a further "Ape Woman" film was commissioned.

dougdoepke No need to waste time on this sequel mess. Apparently, Universal needed to meet product demand for wartime audiences. So they took a hunk of 1943's Captive Wild Woman and cobbled together some surrounding footage to make something of a story. The result comes across like Val Lewton on a really bad day. The supposedly scary scenes are done in Lewtonesque shadow, but come across as more clumsily cost-cutting than artful. Too bad so many distinguished players (Hinds, Dumbrille, Naish) are wasted in what must have been an embarrassment. I just hope Ankers & Carradine got compensated for the reuse of their earlier footage. But I doubt it given studio dominance of the period. No need to go on. Suffice that this is about the nadir of human-into-animals that were so popular at the time. As Lewton knew, horror needs more than shadow; it needs concept, dread, and mood, elements in short supply here.

bkoganbing Universal Pictures must have had some contract commitments they were trying to fill or the budget was real tight. What I can't believe is that there was much of a demand for a sequel to Captive Wild Women which introduced us to Paula the Ape woman who went from beautiful Acquanetta to a guy in a gorilla suit.We thought she was done for at the end of Captive Wild Women, but she's back now and living at J. Carrol Naish's asylum. She doesn't revert to being an ape any more, but Acquanetta is still a Jungle Woman and reverts to animal behavior when someone poaches on what she stakes out.A lot of the same cast members of the previous film testify at a coroner's inquest presided over by a most embarrassed Samuel S. Hinds and Douglass Dumbrille. Now Acquanetta sets her jealous eyes once all the flashbacks are over which account for about half the film on poor Lois Collier who has a man the Jungle Woman wants. Thank God Universal didn't inflict a third film on the movie-going public.

Chris Gaskin Jungle Woman is one of several ape woman movies made by Universal in the 1940's.In this one, the ape woman, Paula is living in a sanatorium but the people there don't realise she is going out at night to kill people in her ape form. Her victims include a resident of the sanatorium, who first gets the blame for her previous victim.This movie is creepy in parts and despite this, it is not the best of Universal's horrors made at this time.The cast includes J Carrol Naish (The Monster Maker), Evelyn Ankers (The Ghost of Frankenstein), Acquanetta (The Lost Continant) and Milburn Stone (Invaders From Mars).Though not brilliant, Jungle Woman is worth a look at.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.