The Evolution of “The Gorilla”: 100 Years of a Hairy, Hoary Horror Comedy

100 years ago today (April 28, 1925), Ralph Spence’s spook comedy The Gorilla opened on Broadway.

We’ve come absurdly close to writing about this semi-classic on Travalanche in the past. For example, we wrote extensively about Mary Roberts Rinehart’s The Bat, which The Gorilla loosely parodies, here; and about all the straight horror movies featuring guys in gorilla suits here.The Gorilla also dates to a time when conventional murder mysteries like The Old Dark House and Seven Keys to Baldpate were theatrical staples, and when gorillas weren’t generally thought of as gentle giants asking for ice cream in sign language, but rather as savage jungle animals, the stuff of nightmares. My posts on Gargantua and King Kong speak to that popular trope. The Cat and the Canary, which premiered in 1922, had demonstrated how comedy and horror could be combined for an effective entertainment.

In short, there was nothing hugely original about The Gorilla, but it did have its day in the sun, thunder and lightning storms notwithstanding. Ralph Spence had was mostly a silent movie scenarist; he had worked in the field since 1912, and ended his career with over 150 films to his credit. In the ’20s he also contributed sketches to major revues like the Ziegfeld Follies and Earl Carroll’s Vanities, which led to The Gorilla, his only stage play. According to legend, he was prompted to write it on a bet after he claimed that he could write a play in three days. This was the result. Following its success, Spence would go on to contribute to scripts starring Wheeler and Woolsey, Laurel and Hardy, Jimmy Durante, et al.

As for the “plot”, ahem? It’s a spooky old house. The inhabitants and guests are worried about a much publicized criminal who calls himself “The Gorilla”, but there is also an escaped gorilla from the zoo on the loose, all while one of the characters, a playwright, is writing a mystery play called The Gorilla. (It’s not for thinking about, it’s for experiencing). Audiences liked it enough that it played the better part of a year, then enjoyed a West End production, and lots of regional revivals. (The poster shown above is from one of them, not the original production).

Two years later (1927), Hal Roach veteran Alfred Santell directed the first screen version of The Gorilla for First National, with an all star ensemble cast that included Charles Murray, Alice Day, Fred Kelsey, Syd Crossley, Claude Gillingwater, Tully Marshall, and a young Walter Pidgeon. Charles Gemora launched his storied career as a gorilla impersonator in this film.

The movie was long thought lost, but miraculously a copy turned up recently in Italy, and was screened at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival last year! Can’t wait to see it.

Still lost is the first talkie version from 1930, also for First National, using the Vitaphone process. It was directed by Vitaphone honcho Bryan Foy, with the terrific cast of Joe Frisco,Harry Gribbon, Lila Lee, and Roscoe Karns, et al, with Pidgeon and Gemora returning. The loss of this film is especially nettlesome to vaudeville fans, who would love to see how Frisco carried a feature.

Meanwhile, in a related development, a new play based on The Gorilla called Sh! The Octopus, produced, directed and co-written by Donald Gallaher premiered on Broadway in 1928. It was made into a film starring Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins in 1937.

This may have had something to do with the fact that the original The Gorilla was revived on screen one final time in 1939. This is the best known version of course, the other two movies being lost, and its certainly how I first learned about the rest of it. Like most people who first encounter this anomaly out of the blue, I was fairly quizzical. Directed by the old silent movie hand Allan Dwan, this one goes whole hog on both the horror and comedy elements. From the former world we get stars Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi, from the latter realm, the Ritz BrothersPatsy Kelly, and Wally Vernon. Also in the cast, the great Joseph Calleia, shortly to grace My Little Chickadee (1940) with Mae West and W.C. Fields, not to mention the distinctly Gorilla-esque The Monster and the Girl (1941).

Critics were not thrilled with the 1939 version of The Gorilla, with its creaky conventions, the tiresome antics of the Ritz Brothers, and Kelly’s incessant yowling for attention. Still, it’s fun and I don’t mind confessing that I’ve watched it several times, mostly for the camp vibe, and the weird chemistry of this all-star cast of strange bedfellows. It seems to have done well enough at the time, well enough anyway to have inspired a remake of The Cat and the Canary starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard later that year.

Apparently there was some chatter about reviving The Gorilla in the 1940s, but it proved a dead letter — a permanent one. I can see what stopped the momentum back in the day. There was a GLUT of spook comedy in the ’40s, not just the endless parade of them starring the likes of Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys, and others, but also other adaptations of similar stage plays like Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). Yet comedy/horror never died as a genre. It continues to chug along until the present day. It’s just this particular vehicle that outlasted its welcome. Evolution, you see, had passed The Gorilla by.

For more on theatre history,consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and for more on classic comedy please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.