Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

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

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

Back in its salad days Paramount was a studio that did not go in much for the horror genre. So this film The Monster And The Girl is something of an anomaly for them. I'm sure Cecil B. DeMille, Preston Sturges, or Mitchell Leisen never had this script on their desks.Philip Terry gets framed by Paul Lukas and his mob for murder and despite the earnest pleas of girl friend Ellen Drew gets sentenced to die. Dr. George Zucco in one of his patented mad scientist roles asks Terry for the use of his brain after he's deceased and Terry agrees to it.After Dr. Zucco transplants Terry's brain, strange things are happening. Like the gorilla with the Terry brain inside and that brain has some scores to settle. Settle them the Terry gorilla does and in a most gruesome manner.Perhaps had Universal done this one it might rate as a classic as they knew how to serve these up. Still despite some mediocre production values The Monster And The Girl should satisfy the die-hard fans of the horror genre.

This one's weird in the best way. Starts off like some kind of urban drama about a small town girl (Ellen Drew) who comes to the big city and, as often happens in films, finds herself forced into prostitution. Her brother (Phillip Terry) comes to the city to rescue her and winds up framed for murder. This was all interesting enough but the movie really kicks into high gear when it becomes a horror movie as "mad" scientist George Zucco transplants Drew's brother's brain into the body of an ape. The ape brother then seeks revenge against the men who turned his sister into a hooker and framed him for murder.Really good cast for this little B gem. George Zucco is always worth the price of admission but you also have Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Robert Paige, Onslow Stevens, Marc Lawrence, and Gerald Mohr! Also Edward Van Sloan in an uncredited part as the warden. This is a pretty amazing lineup for a little-known B horror flick. The bad guys are so completely rotten you can't wait to see them get theirs from the killer ape. Speaking of killer apes, that's often a particularly anemic subgenre of horror. This one's exceptional of its kind. The ape suit is really good. Just compare it to "The Ape" or "The Ape Man," made from around the same time, and you'll see what I mean.Seedy subject matter mixed with fun horror staples -- the mad scientist and the guy in an ape suit. Very cool stuff. If you're a fan of old school B horror and gangster pictures you should like this one a lot.

Stuart Heisler's THE MONSTER & THE GIRL begins with a prostitute (Ellen Drew) coming out of the fog to tell her tale in flashback; she had come to the big city to follow her dreams and fell for a homme fatale (Robert Paige) who tricked her into gangland prostitution but when her brother (Phillip Terry) comes looking for her, he's framed for murder. There's a trial, of course, and her brother's sentenced to death -but before he's taken away, he vows that the gangsters who destroyed his family will get theirs one by one. Now this is where it gets really weird -a mad scientist (George Zucco) comes to see him on Death Row wanting his brain for science (!) and after the execution it's transplanted into a gorilla who proceeds to carry out the kid's threats. Whew! The cast is a classic movie lover's dream -the gangsters on the receiving end of the mayhem are Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Onslow Stevens, Marc Lawrence, and Gerald Mohr while the reporter-cum-love interest (!) is a young and handsome Rod Cameron. The flashbacks, courtroom scenes, gangsters and atmosphere almost (but not quite) make it a proto-noir but it isn't exactly a horror movie, either since the audience is on the gorilla's side all the way. Besides, the kid's faithful pooch from his previous life recognizes him and tags along on the ape's vendetta making this a real tear-jerker at times. I have no idea what target audience Paramount had in mind when Heisler was assigned to THE MONSTER & THE GIRL -the first half was way too "adult" for the Saturday matinée crowd and the second half was far too far-fetched for mature audiences. I was also a bit surprised at the frank depiction of prostitution. Gangsters perform a fake wedding ceremony for Ellen Drew and her slimy beau before the scene cuts to Drew stretching in bed with a sublimely satisfied smile on her face (copied from the one in GWTW where Scarlett purrs like a cat the morning after Rhett carried her up the stairs) when a thug strolls in and informs Drew she'll be working in a clip joint being nice to men from now on. Wow. It was also strange seeing Universal's future singing star Robert Paige as a bad guy. Heisler made AMONG THE LIVING starring Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward & Frances Farmer the same year and in that one I spotted Rod Cameron as an extra in a bar room. His rugged good looks were hard to miss and they must have impressed someone at Paramount when they viewed the rushes because he's 7th billed in THE MONSTER & THE GIRL with a fair amount of screen time. It was released in February, 1941 and AMONG THE LIVING was released 10 months later but because of Rod it looks to me like the last one was lensed first.A one-of-a-kind cinematic experience, that's for sure. Recommended!

I learned about this movie from a sidebar to an article on "horror noir" in Films in Review, where it was highly recommended.It does mix horror and film noir in its own peculiar fashion. It starts off more noir than horror. A woman addresses the camera, surrounded by smoke or fog, to tell us a tale. We're taken to a courtroom, where a stoic man is being tried for murder. The woman from the introduction enters the court as a spectator, and a couple of the other spectators call attention to her.The man on trial doesn't say much in his defense, speaking in a monotone. The woman jumps up to insist on speaking. She seems like a tough dame, and it turns out she's the man's sister. What she says doesn't help much, and she isn't a credible witness; it's implied she's a prostitute.Through a flashback to better days, we see the siblings when they were much more animated and happy. She wanted to leave their small town, but when she goes to the city she finds it hard to get work. She meets a man she falls in love with, and gets married, but when she wakes up after a party on her wedding night, he's disappeared. A strange man is in her bedroom informing her how much she owes for the room and party, and offers her work in a cabaret entertaining men...The brother goes to the city to find the missing husband, and gets framed for murder by a criminal conspiracy by the men his sister now works for. Back in the courtroom, he's convicted, vows revenge, and is executed, but not before he agrees to donate his brain to science.Post-mortem, his brain is implanted into an ape. It's not clear what the scientist hopes to accomplish by that. Something about evolution, perhaps seeing what the ape's potential is if its brain is upgraded. For some reason, the scientist seems to expect an intelligent ape, rather than a man's mind in an ape's body. It isn't clear to what extent the executed man's brain retains its personality or memories, but the ape does carry out his vow of revenge, and his own dog seems to recognize him.There were several other primate horror movies Universal made, among them the three titles in the Paula the Ape Woman series: Captive Wild Woman (1943), Jungle Woman (1944/I), Jungle Captive, The (1945), and then the Bela Lugosi film Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). It's a funny thing about primates and horror, they go back pretty far. The Doctor's Experiment, The Professor's Secret, and The Monkey Man (all 1908) are three of the earliest ones, the latter one even involving a brain transplant!