Surprisingly incoherent and boring

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Paula Dupree, (Vicky Lane), known as the Ape-Woman , has already been killed twice with overdose of tranquilizers. In the middle of the night, a huge, strikingly ugly man named Moloch the Brute (Rondo Hatton) is sent to collect the Ape-Woman's body for the local university; after a failed kidnapping, Paula's body is taken to a secluded mansion, where a mad scientist Dr. Stendahl (Otto Kruger), is working on a major research project of restoring life to dead bodies by blood transfusions and direct electric stimulation of the heart.This film is directed by Harold Young and you immediately know you are watching low budget horror. Not the greatest, but very comfortable to watch due to so many familiar faces.Rounding out the cast: Amelita Ward, Phil Brown, Jerome Cowan, Jack Overman and Ernie Adams.

The third in Universal's dismal Ape Woman series. Perhaps it is a step up from the awful second movie, Jungle Woman, but it's nothing to write home about on its own. This one has mad scientist Otto Kruger trying to bring the Ape Woman back to life, even at the expense of his pretty female lab assistant. Excitement most definitely does not follow.Kruger's always fun to watch but he gets little help here. The Ape Woman is now played by Vicky Lane, replacing the attractive but talentless Acquanetta. Ms. Lane spends about half of the movie comatose. When she does wake up, there's only one brief scene with the monster makeup on. Undoubtedly most monster fans will be disappointed at how little "ape" there is in an Ape Woman movie. The makeup used is pretty cool, however. It looks similar to the later makeup used on Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. Rondo Hatton gets one of his better roles here as Kruger's henchman Moloch. He's still a terrible actor but the part is less exploitative than some of his other roles. Jerome Cowan plays the police inspector investigating it all and has a couple of amusing moments. The tacked-on romance between Don Young and Amelita Ward (the future Mrs. Leo Gorcey) is nauseating but thankfully they're separated for most of the film.Despite the short runtime, the movie is padded with pointless little scenes that appear to be designed solely to fill five minutes here and there. It's one of those movies that probably should have been over in twenty or thirty minutes. If you're a Universal completist, give it a look. For everyone else, it depends on how valuable your time is. I doubt this is going to become anyone's favorite.

For fans of Rondo Hatton, this's the one. He has more lines in THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE than in all the other films I've seen him in, combined. He handles what dialogue he's given well enough, and the fact that he falls for the heroine and eventually sacrifices himself to save her makes for an overall very satisfying performance. The writer(s?), however, could've done a bit better by Hatton by leaving out the put-downs leveled at him by his boss: "No offense, but, with a face like that..." or "You're better suited to be the suitor of the Ape Woman than the heroine..."- that kind of s---. Hatton would've made an interesting Hero, if you ask me. (The makeup for the title Captive is outstanding, by the way.)

This final installment in the short-lived Universal series about Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman, has some fairly creepy moments, and a good monster. Unfortunately, the Ape Woman doesn't have much to do here, unlike her two earlier appearances. She spends most of her time in the secluded laboratory of Stendhal, the mad doctor who hopes to achieve some kind of scientific goal by reviving the deceased creature.Rondo Hatton turns in his most multi-faceted performance as Moloch, the assistant to Stendhal. Unlike most of his other movie roles, where he just stalks around and kills people, here he acts friendly toward the beleaguered heroine, even smiles and makes a joke at one point, and is about as normal and likable as he would ever be shown in his Forties horror pictures. He becomes a sort of human King Kong, whose sympathy for the captive girl finally causes him to turn on his master to save her from further cruel experiments. It shows possibilities unhinted at in his other roles and is quite unexpected.Jerome Cowan is good as a breezy police detective investigating the various murders and disappearances, but Otto Kruger is so menacing as the crazy scientist that he all but steals the picture. His low key portrayal of the cold blooded experimenter is actually quite unnerving in its realism. He refuses to play the part in an eye-rolling, hammy clichéd way, and is thus frighteningly believable.Not a great movie by any means, but worth seeing for fans of low budget Forties horror movies.