Product Description

Deep in the South American jungle plantation manager Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) kills his elderly employer in order to get to his beautiful wife (Barbara Payton). However, an old native witch witnesses the crime and puts a curse on Barney, who soon after finds himself turning nightly into a rampaging gorilla. But is his transformation real or is it all in his head? Written by Jeremy Lunt {durlinlunt@acadia.net}

In the Amazonian jungle, Barney Chavez manages a plantation for Klaas Van Gelder. He's also in love with the man's beautiful wife, Dina. Soon after killing Van Gelder so he and Dina an marry, he also spurns the native girl with whom he had been having an affair. To exact revenge, the Van Gelder's old housekeeper drugs Chavez to ensure that the new marriage will be a short one. Written by garykmcd

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174343 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-03
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, HiFi Sound, Surround Sound, THX, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 70 minutes

From the Actor
Life took Curt Siodmak on an amazingly varied trip, from a film extra in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in 1926 to newspaper reporter to screenwriter to film director. After some success with German feature films such as Menschen am Sonntag and F.P.1 Antwortet Nicht, he finally came into Hollywood’s limelight with such horror classics as The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Son of Dracula (1942) and I Stalked with a Zombie (1944). He continued to write successful screenplays, of which Black Friday is amongst the most well known. With Bride of the Gorilla (1951) he was clearly in his element, as evidenced by its enthusiastic box-office reaction.

THE PLOT: Police Commissioner Taro (Lon Chaney) tells a nightmarish tale that unfolds at a rubber plantation on the banks of the Amazon River. Klaas Van Gelder (Paul Cavanagh) is murdered by his wife Dina’s (Barbara Payton) handsome lover Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) . Dr. Viet (Tom Conway) , Van Gelder’s physician and also secret admirer of the ravishingly beautiful Dina, cannot prove foul play. But the heinous deed is witnessed by the witch Al Long (Gisela Werbiseck) who puts a jungle hex on Barney that begins to turn him into a monstrous, rampaging gorilla on the night of his wedding to Dina. Soon, Taro receives news from Mr. Van Heussen (Paul Maxey) that a murderous beast is on the loose on his plantation, approximately 40 kilometers away from the Van Gelder spread. Haunted by his dark secret, Barney first decides to sell the plantation to Van Heussen and leave the jungle with Dina, then changes his mind as the insidious curse takes a stronger hold on him - now the jungle is home and hunting ground. Dr. Viet’s warnings to Dina that her new husband has been poisoned in some way cause her great alarm, as do the inexplicable changes of character she observes in Barney. He is like an animal now...

About the Actor
One of the saddest tales ever to come out of Hollywood has to be that of Barbara Payton. A blue-eyed, peroxide blonde sexpot who had a lot going for her, her life eventually disintegrated, mostly by her own doing. Things started out well enough for Barbara Lee Redfield, born on November 26, 1927, in Cloquet, Minnesota. From a modest, blue-collar background, she grew up to be a drop-dead gorgeous young woman and, following a quickie marriage at age 19, decided to leave home for good to try to capitalize on her good looks in Tinseltown. She headed for Hollywood in 1948 and, within a short time, was placed under contract by Universal, where she began the typical starlet route of bit parts. She reached her peak with routine but promising co-star work opposite James Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), Gary Cooper in Dallas (1950) and Gregory Peck in Only the Valiant (1951). Although her talent (5) was overshadowed by her brassiness (10) and looks (10), her slightly lurid appeal seemed to be enough to carry her through. Caught up in the glitz and glamor, however, her career started taking second place to a reckless life full of capricious romances involving a number of top stars and producers, many of them married. One of her more famous trysts ended up making headlines for her, and none of them favorable. She was juggling two boyfriends at the same time, classy "A" actor Franchot Tone and muscular "B" actor Tom Neal, and they fought almost to the death for Barbara's affections. On September 13, 1951, the men engaged in a deadly brawl and when it was over, Tone was in the hospital with broken bones and a brain concussion. Barbara ended up with both a black eye and a tarnished reputation. She married Tone after he recovered, but left him after only seven weeks and returned to the violence-prone Neal. That abusive relationship lasted four years, though they never married. During that time Barbara's career had plummeted to the point where she was making such dismal features as Bride of the Gorilla (1951). She went to England to try to rejuvenate her career, but no dice; it was over and her life was skidding out of control. Her once beautiful face now blotchy and her once spectacular figure now bloated, Barbara sank deeper into the bottle. From 1955 to 1963 there were various brushes with the law - among them passing bad checks, public drunkenness and, ultimately, prostitution. She was forced to sleep on bus benches, was beaten and bruised by her tricks, and lost teeth in the process. In 1967, after failed efforts to curb her drinking, she finally moved in with her parents in San Diego to try to dry out. It was too late. On May 8, 1967, the 39-year-old former starlet was found on the bathroom floor - dead of heart and liver failure. Somehow through all this misery she managed a tell-all book ironically entitled "I Am Not Ashamed" (1963). IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

About the Director
Born in Dresden, Germany, in 1902, Curt Siodmak worked as an engineer and a newspaper reporter before entering the literary and movie fields. It was as a reporter that he got his first break (of sorts) in films: in 1926 he and his reporter-wife hired on as extras on Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) in order to get a story on the director and his film. One of Siodmak's first film-writing assignments was the screenplay for the German sci-fi picture F.P.1 antwortet nicht (1932) (US title: "Floating Platform 1 Does Not Answer"), based on his own novel. Compelled to leave Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took power, Siodmak went to work as a screenwriter in England and then moved to Hollywood in 1937. He got a job at Universal through his director-friend Joe May, helping write the script for May's The Invisible Man Returns (1940). Because the film went over well, Siodmak says, he fell into the horror/science-fiction "groove." IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom Weaver

Customer Reviews

Campy Funny Silly Fun!!!!
Dude, I love my 1950s bad horror films. The worse they are the more I can laugh a them.

I was freaking rolling on the floor laughing at this. It's the most fun I've had with my DVD player in years. I've seen it about 10 times now and it just gets better and better.

This is exactly what you would expect from a "Bride of Anything" movie. Silly cosutumes, a ridiculous plot and the diologue of the doomed.

Just try to not have fun with this puppy! I bet you can't do it!

Cute Guy Turned Into A Gorilla
First off, the guy who becomes the gorilla is hot. Very, very hot. Yummy hot. Second off, this film is really, really funny. The plot is that the cute boy kills a guy and then is cursed so he slowly turns into a monkey and ends up a beast of the jungle. This is so not King Kong. I love the fact that it's a comedy and I've watched it three times and still laugh. He's still cute as the gorilla, by the way.