Bela Lugosi's The Ape Man often co-featured with B westerns

 

There he is, the great Bela Lugosi in one of his most iconic poverty-row roles, Monogram's "The Ape Man." In this post Plan9Crunch blog is doing its occasional peek at how these vintage films were covered in the newspapers. 

What I found particularly interesting is that movie houses of 1943, when the film was released, often paired "The Ape Man" with westerns. Look at "Sierra Sue," with Gene Autry, or "Blocked Trail," with the "Three Mesquiteers," who included Bob Steele. 

And it played with other poverty-row chillers, as one ad showing it with George Zucco's "The Black Raven." It was also a featured film on old-time spook shows; note its presence in Dr. Zomb's Black Mask Mysteries, and a Midnite Voodoo Party show. Of course it played with comedy shorts; one shows an Our Gang short offering, another a Three Stooges short. And a trip to see "The Ape Man" included a serial chapters. One was "Daredevils of the West." Another was "Adventures of Smiling Jack." 

We've included some published in newspapers PR blurbs and photos, and a columnist musing (unsigned). I particularly like "Handsome Bela Lugosi will star in ..." from the columnist. OK, they're talking about "Return of the Ape Man" but I think it's cool that as late as 1943 Lugosi was still being described as handsome. 

Here's a portion of a review I wrote in this blog on "The Ape Man."

Of such bizarre plots were Monogram cheapies of the 1940s created. It's a lot of fun to watch, even if the production values are predictably low. Lugosi, as usual, acts far above the product he's pitching, and he manages to make the audience feel sympathy for his plight. His ferocious temper tantrums are effective. He nearly strangles his sister in one scene. Urecal, by the way, is great as the slightly creepy sister. In an Los Angeles Times review (the paper actually liked the film) the reviewer suggested Urecal be given her own horror film to star in. So far as I know, it never happened, although she was also very good in the Lugosi vehicle The Corpse Vanishes. Currie and Ford as the wisecracking journalists have strong chemistry. B movie veteran actor McDonald is also an asset to the film. In a bit part is Earnest Morrison, better known as Sunshine Sammy Morrison of The East Side Kids.

I really like the photo below describing Bela as the Master of Horror. You can watch The Ape Man here. As always, my friend David Grudt, of Long Beach, Calif., assisted in finding these newspaper treasures. I do plan on adding an index below, in the near future, noting where each clipping originally appeared.