Friday, March 29, 2019

The Beast of Borneo (1934)

A rather mediocre jungle and animal exploitation film. The film is slow and stilted and it's never a good sign when some of the animals can act better than the humans...

Dr Borodoff (Eugene Siglaoff) has some strange theories about human evolution from apes and needs a live orangutan to complete his experiments. As animal hunter Bob Ward (John Preston) has failed to provide a specimen so far from the jungles of Borneo Dr Borodoff - who is billed as an Anglo-Russian scientist though sounds like he is from Brooklyn - heads to Borneo with his beautiful assistant Alma (Mae Thorne). There they persuade Bob Ward, who is hesitant to provide animals for vivisection though is ok to put them in zoos, to take them into the jungle to find the orangutan Borodoff needs...

Despite being set in the jungle, and thus potentially full of life, the film is oddly lifeless. It proceeds at a glacial pace. The acting is frequently odd too, though in Mae Thorne's case it looks like she knew the film was complete nonsense and was doing it for a laugh.