Review of Bride of the Gorilla (1951) by Wes S — 10 Jan 2011

In "Bride of the Gorilla," Lon Chaney Jr. finds himself effectively in the role Claude Rains played 10 years previous in "The Wolf Man;" he is monster-hunter, rather than the monster himself. Also peculiarly, Chaney plays a South American-born police commissioner who is forced to question whether a "civilized" education can help him solve the case of a mysterious, deadly creature wandering his native jungle. Sure, it's a white man playing a South American, but at least Chaney's not wearing... uh.... brown face -- and he's effective in the role.

Indeed, "Bride of the Gorilla" is that rare Hollywood B-picture where native "primitive" beliefs are played straight, rather than as superstitions that take on a life of their own (or worse, for laughs). The characters who believe in the demonic curse that possesses foreign laborer Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) are not loin-cloth-wearing simpletons; they range from servants to farmers to policemen in the story's narrative, and all are given lines -- accented or not -- filled with dignity and humanity.

The story of "Bride" is ultimately a moral one as well: If a man does bad things, he will be repaid for his acts either by the laws of men, or the inscrutable, unappealable laws of nature, which work in mysterious ways.