THE NAKED APE (1973) - Victoria Principal in Hugh Hefner's Offbeat, Rarely Seen Early '70s Comedy
Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2022 11:58 am
4/10
The kind of buried cult movie that's been difficult to find over the years, THE NAKED APE (84 mins., 1973, PG) is precisely the kind of oddball item you'd expect from Code Red. This co-production between Playboy's Hugh Hefner and Universal is a strange adaptation of Desmond Morris' massively popular anthropological study, here reconfigured by writer-director Donald Driver as an awkward college comedy where Johnny Crawford (“The Rifleman”) plays a student who finds his animal side piqued after he meets a pretty classmate (an early turn from Victoria Principal). Their courtship is contrasted with animated montages involving cave people and other designs by Jimmy Murakami's studio, yet the laugh quotient is low with most of the material coming off as simply dull. What's more, the PG rating ensues there's little raunchiness on-hand, while Jimmy Webb's unusual songs and score are more energetic and engaging than the film itself.
A movie that received scant TV broadcasts and even fewer home video releases, “The Naked Ape” premieres on home video this month courtesy of Code Red and Kino Lorber. Despite the occasional speckles, the HD transfer (1.85) looks good and should satisfy anyone looking to check out this rare and certainly unusual early '70s studio release.
The kind of buried cult movie that's been difficult to find over the years, THE NAKED APE (84 mins., 1973, PG) is precisely the kind of oddball item you'd expect from Code Red. This co-production between Playboy's Hugh Hefner and Universal is a strange adaptation of Desmond Morris' massively popular anthropological study, here reconfigured by writer-director Donald Driver as an awkward college comedy where Johnny Crawford (“The Rifleman”) plays a student who finds his animal side piqued after he meets a pretty classmate (an early turn from Victoria Principal). Their courtship is contrasted with animated montages involving cave people and other designs by Jimmy Murakami's studio, yet the laugh quotient is low with most of the material coming off as simply dull. What's more, the PG rating ensues there's little raunchiness on-hand, while Jimmy Webb's unusual songs and score are more energetic and engaging than the film itself.
A movie that received scant TV broadcasts and even fewer home video releases, “The Naked Ape” premieres on home video this month courtesy of Code Red and Kino Lorber. Despite the occasional speckles, the HD transfer (1.85) looks good and should satisfy anyone looking to check out this rare and certainly unusual early '70s studio release.