Bride of the Gorilla
by Shrub 7/10/06
Bride of the Gorilla… where do I start? Start from the top? I’ll start from the bottom. The bottom line on Bride of the Gorilla is that there’s not enough Gorilla action! Not a bad flick mind you, but I popped this sucker in wanting some Gorilla mayhem and it’s pretty lean around these parts.
General outline is that Raymond Burr (a.k.a. Perry Mason) plays a hired hand in the midst of a jungle who has the hots for his employer’s wife. As soon as he gets a hint that the feeling is mutual, he decides to take care of the boss and steal his wife. This leads to the greatest scene in the movie, where Burr takes him out with a single punch and an assist from a giant snake.
Turns out Burr’s character, Barney, spurned a local lover for the lady of the manor and this, along with the murder, leads an old witch to place a curse on him that makes him like an animal. The first glimpse we get of this new predicament is when all appears great in his life, he is wedding his new bride and then suddenly he finds himself signing his marriage papers with a gorilla hand.
From this point on he’d rather spend his nights out in the wilds of the jungle than with his new wife. She sticks by her man but he is done with the unsatisfying (for a beast) life at home. The natives grow restless as stories of a jungle creature spread and a showdown looms between the beast and the police commissioner (played by Lon Chaney Jr.) who has suspected Barney since the original snake incident.
