AllMovie

A lot of Eugene O'Neill fell by the wayside as The Hairy Ape made its transition to the silver screen, but what is left is powerful and quite effective. Unfortunately, the remnants of the O'Neill original must do battle with the softer, sometimes banal dialogue and plot machinations of Robert D. Andrews and Decla Dunning, which include a ludicrous ending that negates much of the film's impact. Even with the bowdlerizing and watering down, The Hairy Ape contains some remarkably potent moments, including the sequence in which the title character terrorizes Susan Hayward in her apartment. Director Alfred Santell makes the most of these moments, and also does a good job of transferring the expressionistic style of O'Neill's piece to the screen. William Bendix, in a rare starring role, is fascinating and frightening as the brutish Hank -- there's a rawness to his work that is startling. Susan Hayward matches him in intensity, creating an indelibly etched "bitch" portrait that would help define her screen persona for years to come. The changes wrought by the adaptors (and most likely the powers that be at the time) mitigate its effectiveness, but all seems to work very well in The Hairy Ape.