* English Title: The Ape Woman * Original Title: La donna scimmia * Year: 1964 * Country: Italy, France * Language: Italian * Genre: Comedy, Drama * Director: Marco Ferreri * Writers: * Marco Ferrieri * Rafael Azcona * Music: Teo Usuelli * Cinematography: Aldo Tonti * Cast: * Ugo Tognazzi * Annie Girardot * Achille Majeroni * Ermelinda De Felice * Rating: 6.2/10 A competition entry in Cannes from Italy in 1964, this Marco Ferreri Black-and-White satire cashes in on the real-life story of Julia Pastrana (1834-1860), an indigenous woman from Mexico, whose face and body was covered with straight black hair due to an undiagnosed genetic condition, and was exploited in freak shows as a hybrid between an ape and a woman. The story is transposed to Naples, where Antonio (Tognazzi), a street-smart showman, alights on a hair-covered Maria (Girardot) in a convent (the script conveniently skates over her provenance by claiming her as an orphan), and takes her in for public exhibition as the so-called “ape woman", but what Maria is is nothing like an ape, she is simply an extra hirsute woman, no feral predisposition or mondo sauciness whatsoever, she is very aware of her unorthodox appearance and never expects a life of normalcy, at any rate, she tries to please Antonio in their act because it is their bread-and-butter, even reluctantly apes the behavior of a chimpanzee in the zoo…

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