The Hairy Ape

“Hank” is a ship’s stoker whose sweaty graft keeps the engines running smoothly but also causes spoilt rich girl passenger “Mildred” (Susan Hayward) to recoil in rude horror when she strays into the bowels of his vessel. What we already know about her is that she is a snob; an entitled and supercilious woman who has no idea of just how fortunate she is to be on the rickety freighter that is taking her across the sea from war-torn Europe back to the States. Above deck, she is travelling with her friend “Helen” (Dorothy Comingore) who is enamoured of her old pal “Tony” (John Loder) who happens to be an engineer on the ship, but she cannot bear to see her friend happy so naturally, “Mildred” intervenes leading the weak-willed “Tony” merrily up the garden path. When their convoy finally arrives, she selfishly reverts to type with him but fails to appreciate just how offended “Hank” was, nor what he is prepared to do to settle scores. Unfortunately, there is something really quite flat about this drama, and it has little of the class analysis that drove much of Eugene O’Neill’s originally more challenging and provocative play. That said, though, nobody could every accuse William Bendix of not putting his heart and soul into this adaptation and Hayward and to a lesser extent, Comingore, work well enough. I felt it missed too much by way of substance, especially at the end, to offer more than a lightweight interpretation and it’s one attempt to insert something of the psychology of the title is too brief to make very much impact. Worth a watch for Bendix, though.