{{Short description|1964 film by Marco Ferreri}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}} {{Infobox film | name = The Ape Woman | image = The Ape Woman.jpg | caption = Italian DVD cover | director = Marco Ferreri | producer = Carlo Ponti | studio = Compagnia Cinematografica Champion<br />Les Films Marceau Cocinor | writer = Rafael Azcona<br />Marco Ferreri | starring = Ugo Tognazzi<br />Annie Girardot | music = Teo Usuelli | cinematography = Aldo Tonti | editing = Mario Serandrei | released = {{Film date|1964|01|29|df=y|Italy|ref1=<ref name="cinemaritrovato">{{cite web|url=https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/proiezione/la-donna-scimmia/ |title=La donna scimmia |language=it |date=2020 |access-date=16 December 2023 |website=Il cinema ritrovato}}</ref><ref name="Tognazzi">{{cite book|title=Tognazzi '60 |last=Garavaglia |first=Alessandro |year=2023 |publisher=Bibliotheka |page= |isbn=9788869347535}}</ref>|1964|06|24|France|ref2=<ref name="cineressources">{{cite web|url=http://cinema.encyclopedie.films.bifi.fr/index.php?pk=41881 |title=La donna scimmia |language=fr |access-date=16 December 2023 |website=Ciné-Ressources}}</ref>}} | runtime = 94 minutes<br />(director's cut)<ref name="dvdbeaver">{{cite web|url=http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film10/blu-ray_review_158/the_ape_woman_blu-ray.htm |title=The Ape Woman |access-date=13 December 2023 |website=DVD Beaver}}</ref><br />98 minutes<br />(French version)<ref name="dvdbeaver" /> | country = Italy<br />France | language = Italian<br />French }} '''''The Ape Woman''''' ({{langx|it|La donna scimmia}}, {{langx|fr|Le Mari de la femme à barbe}}) is a 1964 Italian-French satirical drama film directed by Marco Ferreri.<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/oct/07/the-ape-woman-review-freakshow-satire-with-bizarre-alternative-ending-payoff|last=Bradshaw|first=Peter|title=The Ape Woman review – freakshow satire with bizarre alternative-ending payoff|newspaper=The Guardian|date=7 October 2021|access-date=15 October 2021}}</ref> The film was inspired by the real-life story of Julia Pastrana, a 19th-century woman who was exploited as a freak show attraction.<ref name="Guardian" />
In 2008, the film was included in the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."<ref>{{Cite news |title=Ecco i cento film italiani da salvare Corriere della Sera |url=https://www.corriere.it/spettacoli/08_febbraio_28/elenco_cento_film_d83cacd8-e5ce-11dc-ab61-0003ba99c667.shtml |access-date=2021-03-11 |newspaper=Corriere della Sera |language=it}}</ref>
==Plot== In a convent in Naples, entrepreneur Antonio Focaccia discovers Maria, who is completely covered with hair. He opens a business where he presents her as "the ape woman" whom he allegedly found in Africa. When he tries to sell her virginity to a professor, Maria resists and returns to the convent. To have her back, Antonio is forced to marry Maria at the convent's insistence.
After a successful audition in front of impresario Majeroni, the two are celebrated in night clubs in Paris, where Maria performs semi-nude. When Maria turns out to be pregnant, the examining doctor suggests an abortion as the baby might turn out a "monster". Maria rejects the possibility of an abortion and returns to Naples with Antonio to have her child. Both she and the child die shortly after the delivery, and their bodies are embalmed and presented at the museum of natural history. Antonio buys the bodies back from the museum and exhibits them in his own show.
==Cast== * Ugo Tognazzi as Antonio Focaccia * Annie Girardot as Maria * Achille Majeroni as Majeroni (credited as Achille Maieroni) * Filippo Pompa Marcelli as Bruno * {{Ill|Ermelinda De Felice|it|}} as Sister Furgonicino (credited as Linda De Felice) * Elvira Paolini as chambermaid * Ugo Rossi as retiree * Antonio Altoviti as professor
==Release== ''The Ape Woman'' was first screened in Bologna, Italy, on 29 January 1964<ref name="cinemaritrovato" /><ref name="Tognazzi" /> and, after being shown in competition at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/la-donna-scimmia |title=Festival de Cannes: The Ape Woman |access-date=15 October 2021 |website=festival-cannes.com}}</ref> released in French cinemas on 24 June 1964.<ref name="cineressources" />
After its 4K restoration in 2017,<ref name="dvdbeaver" /><ref name="apewoman">{{cite AV media |people=Ferreri, Marco (director) |date=11 October 2021 |title=The Ape Woman |type=Blu-ray |publisher=Cult Films}}</ref> the film was released on Blu-ray and digital platforms on 11 October 2021.<ref name="Guardian" />
==Alternate endings== ''The Ape Woman'' exists in three different versions.<ref name="apewoman" /><ref name="cinematheque">{{cite web|url=https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/41881.html |title=The Ape Woman |access-date=13 December 2023 |website=Cinémathèque Française |language=fr}}</ref><ref name="Cineteca">{{Cite web|url=http://fondazione.cinetecadibologna.it/archivi-non-film/archivicartacei/donna_scimmia_finali |title='La donna scimmia' e i suoi tre finali |website=Cineteca di Bologna |language=it |access-date=14 December 2023}}</ref> In the version intended by Ferreri, Maria dies during childbirth,<ref name="Guardian" /> and the embalmed corpses of mother and child are presented by Antonio in public.<ref name="Cineteca" /> This version was cut (either by the Italian censors<ref name="apewoman" /> or preventively by producer Ponti)<ref name="Cineteca" /> before the Italian theatrical release,<ref name="apewoman" /><ref name="cinematheque" /> omitting the exhibition of the bodies.<ref name="Cineteca" /> The longer French version adds an alternate ending, where Maria gives birth to a healthy child and loses her body hair, forcing Antonio to work at the docks to support his family.<ref name="Guardian" />
According to the restored version's title card, the lighter French version played at the Cannes Film Festival,<ref name="apewoman" /> while the Cinémathèque Française states that Ferreri's darker original version was screened in Cannes, meeting with negative reactions.<ref name="cinematheque" /> Jean de Baroncelli's review written for ''Le Monde'' during the Cannes Film Festival explicitly describes Maria's and the child's deaths and their posthumous presentation by Antonio, which corresponds with Ferreri's version.<ref name="lemonde">{{cite web|url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1964/05/06/de-l-amour-des-moutons-a-celui-d-une-femme-singe_2138754_1819218.html |title=De l'amour des moutons à celui d'une femme-singe |last=de Baroncelli |first=Jean |date=6 May 1964 |access-date=15 December 2023 |newspaper=Le Monde |language=fr}}</ref>
Diverging statements also exist whether it was Italian producer Carlo Ponti who demanded an upbeat ending for the French release,<ref name="apewoman" /> or (as recalled by Annie Girardot) French co-producer Les Films Marceau Cocinor.<ref name="Cineteca" />
==Reception== In their 1964 articles for ''L'Espresso'' and ''Paese Sera'', Alberto Moravia and Aldo Scagnetti criticised the decision to end the film with Maria's and her child's deaths and omit the presentation of their bodies for the Italian theatrical release.<ref name="Cineteca" /> While Moravia argued that the story had lost its "logical conclusion", Scagnetti lamented that Ferreri's original ending had given "meaning to his apologue, or at least […] greater substance to its cruel bitterness".<ref name="Cineteca" />
According to Annie Girardot's biographer Pascal Mérigeau, ''The Ape Woman'' met almost unanimously with "contempt and disgust" by the French press.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mérigeau |first=Pascal |title=Pascal Mérigeau |year=1978 |publisher=Éditions PAC |page=61 |isbn=9782853360913}}</ref> Jean de Baroncelli of ''Le Monde'', reporting from the Cannes Film Festival, found the film "difficult to bear", lacking "prodigious comic force, an exceptional sense of the grotesque" and "extreme sensitivity" which the "unsavory subject" would have required.<ref name="lemonde" /> Upon the film's New York opening in September 1964 (where it was shown in the French version), Bosley Crowther of the ''New York Times'' found an "oddly distasteful film", with many scenes being "more painful than amusing, more horrid than humorous".<ref name="nyt">{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/23/archives/annie-girardot-stars-in-the-ape-woman.html |title=Annie Girardot Stars in 'The Ape Woman' |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |date=23 September 1964 |access-date=15 December 2023 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>
Reviewing the film for ''The Guardian'' upon its 2021 re-release, critic Peter Bradshaw saw a "broadly heartwarming, if strange cautionary tale of hubris, redemption and love", which gained "a new tenderness and complexity" by watching both Ferreri's and the French version side by side, comparing it, among others, with ''Freaks'' and ''La Strada''.<ref name="Guardian" />
==Awards== * 1965 Nastro d'Argento for best original subject<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cinematografo.it/film/la-donna-scimmia-mkko2l2z |title=La donna scimmia |access-date=14 December 2023 |website=Cinematografo |language=it}}</ref>
==See also== * Bearded lady
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMDb title|0057006}}
{{Marco Ferreri}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ape Woman, The}} Category:1964 drama films Category:1964 Italian-language films Category:1964 French-language films Category:French black-and-white films Category:Italian black-and-white films Category:Films directed by Marco Ferreri Category:Films with screenplays by Rafael Azcona Category:1964 multilingual films Category:French multilingual films Category:Italian multilingual films Category:1964 French films Category:1964 Italian films Category:French-language Italian films Category:Films scored by Teo Usuelli Category:French-language drama films Category:Italian-language drama films Category:Italian-language French films