Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

***SPOILERS*** Second of the Paula the "Jungle or Ape Women" trio has Paula ,Acquanetta, fall in love with wild animal trainer the handsome Fred Mason,Milburn Stone, who's life she saved when the lions and tigers he was handling under the big top turned on him almost mauling Fred to death. That's when Paula was in her other incarnation as Cheela the friendly lady gorilla sprung to his rescue. After Cheela's death Dr. Carl Fletcher, J. Carroll Nash,who witness this amazing event had the lady ape's body brought back to life in human form christening her Paula Dupree. As we all saw at the beginning of the flick Dr. Fletcher killed in self defense Paula when she attacked him trying to prevent him form putting her to sleep with a strong animal sedative.Now on trial for murder Dr. Fletcher is to tell the court the reason for his actions that in fact had to do with a love triangle between Paula the ape woman and her former trainer Mason as well as his wife Beth, Evelyn Anker, that a love sick Pula had it in for and tried to murder. There's also Paula secret lover the mentally challenged sanitarium orderly Willie,Eddie Hyans, who tried to make it with her by giving her extra ham and cheese sandwiches, that he stole from the commissary, who ended up getting his neck broken by Paula's super human gorilla strength.***SPOILERS*** Second of the three "Paula the Lady Gorilla or Ape Woman" movies that has Paula killed in the end where she's discovered after death to be an ape not human being! Thus exonerating the guilt ridden Dr. Fletcher of murdering her or it. But in it also being just too good of a thing-A sexy lady ape-to let go. Paula was to be reincarnated and return for a third time at bat in 1945's "Jungle Captive" with Vicky Lane not the exotic and sexy looking Acquanetta in the leading role.

Acquanetta pretty much just stands around, looking like a zombie, recites a few lines then stares back into space again. This follow-up to "Captive Wild Woman" has her as a transformed ape who falls in love with hero Milburne Stone, hating his fiancée Evelyn Ankers, aka "the scream queen" and obviously out to kill her. Shadowy photography is more interesting than Acquanetta's lack of a performance, added onto with a mentally retarded man who appears to be imitating Lon Chaney Jr's brilliant performance in "Of Mice and Men". There really aren't any chills because it all seems so phony, told in flashback and poorly written. Even attempts to give it a psychological background comes up empty. This is one that ranks among the worst of the dogs of cinema and nothing other than two robots and an unseen man making wisecracks while it is playing could make this any more watchable.

1944's "Jungle Woman" was the first of two sequels to "Captive Wild Woman," to be quickly followed by a second, "The Jungle Captive," which ended the trilogy (producer Ben Pivar went on to do The Creeper series with Rondo Hatton). Unlike the other two, this title was never included in the SON OF SHOCK television package, receiving relatively little airplay over the years (Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater showed it only once, following 1952's "Mesa of Lost Women" on Sept 24 1977). Acquanetta may be back, but saddled with dialogue this time, gives a lackluster performance not helped by her risible lines (nowhere near as good as Kathleen Burke's Panther Woman from "Island of Lost Souls"). The entire film consists of wall to wall talk, awkwardly structured as a courtroom drama featuring a pointless love triangle and a couple murders. The opening 20 minutes (out of 60) are just a recap of "Captive Wild Woman," made up of footage shot for three different films; by the time the story proper begins, we're saddled with a simpleton character (Edward M. Hyans Jr.) who doesn't get bumped off soon enough (expediency appears to have been the studio's only motivation). The few attack scenes take place off screen, and Paula Dupree's fate is depicted in shadows. J. Carrol Naish, between Oscar-nominated roles in 1943's "Sahara" and 1945's "A Medal for Benny," is clearly marking time, following a similar turn in PRC's "The Monster Maker" ("House of Frankenstein" was just around the corner). "The Jungle Captive" could only have been better, even without Acquanetta, whose career quickly petered out after leaving Universal (following "Dead Man's Eyes").

A sequel can sometimes be either a virtual remake of the original film, it can devote some of the running-time to re-telling the first film's plot in compressed form (via scenes lifted directly from that one) and, other times, the second entry could cheat by borrowing action scenes from the preceding effort and pass them off as its own. However, this is the only case I know of where a film is all three at once (though, technically, the animal footage here is part of the flashback framework, they were still ripped off from an earlier non-related picture)! Universal's three-movie "Ape Woman" franchise is surely among the most maligned to emerge during the vintage horror era (even by hardened buffs) but, maybe because I was in a receptive frame-of-mind, I recall enjoying CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943; directed by, of all people, Edward Dmytryk!) back when I had watched it and certainly did not mind catching up with the two sequels now i.e. the film under review and THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE (1945), which followed on the very next day! To get to the matter at hand: this, then, follows the pattern of THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942), Universal's third movie in the Egyptology stakes but actually the second 'episode' in their "Kharis" saga. Anyway, the film has a complex structure in that we begin with the titular figure's demise, of whose murder the 'mad doctor' (who is not really) of this one, J. Carroll Naish, is accused, then we go into a flashback to learn how we got there but, corroborating his evidence, as it were, are the hero and heroine of the first film who relate their own experiences by recounting the events of CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN! Amusingly, Universal 'scream queen' Evelyn Ankers receives top billing here but she only appears during these basically expository scenes and, of course, the 'stock footage' though not in JUNGLE WOMAN's narrative proper (that is to say, Naish's recollections)! Incidentally, I wonder what John Carradine, star of CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943), made of the fact that, unofficially, he also had this on his resume'! When I said that this was more a remake than a sequel was due to its having the 'monster' (once again played by Acquanetta but, unwisely taking a leaf from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN {1935}, she is made to speak – except that we are never told in this instance just who taught her – and, boy, is she wooden!) once more instantly fall for the doctor's daughter's fiancé and grows insanely jealous of the girl. By the way, in a reversal of "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde", here the monster turns human without the use of drugs, so that the girl is found prowling the grounds of Naish's sanatorium by a simple-minded patient (who, subsequently doting excessively on Acquanetta, unsurprisingly becomes one of her victims). At one point, the Ape Woman swims underwater and capsizes the lovers' canoe, an act which is actually blamed on the oafish orderly who is currently missing – even if the former makes no secret of her impulsive affections for the impossibly bland leading man (unfortunately, a constant thorn in the side of the Golden Age of Horror!).Curiously, the film naively (since the original film had already established the transformation as a fact!) attempts to follow the psychological Val Lewton route by never showing the monster (except once amidst the flashback footage and again in the very last shot – even her death is played out in the shadows, though the images of a female figure leaping on the doctor only to be injected with an overdose belies the animal noises on the soundtrack!) but, for all that, the film remains mildly enjoyable – certainly eminently watchable – along its trim 60-minute duration, largely owing to Naish's grey-haired presence (though he is not quite running on full cylinders here, as in the same year's THE MONSTER MAKER) and the unmistakable Universal Studios atmosphere.