''The Ape Woman'' ( it, La donna scimmia, french: Le Mari de la femme à barbe) is a 1964 Italian-French
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
directed by
Marco Ferreri
Marco Ferreri (11 May 1928 – 9 May 1997) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, who began his career in the 1950s directing three films in Spain, followed by 24 Italian films before his death in 1997. He is considered one of ...
. It was entered into the
1964 Cannes Film Festival
The 17th Cannes Film Festival was held from 29 April to 14 May 1964. On this occasion, the Palme d’Or was renamed "Grand Prix du Festival International du Film", a name that remained in use through 1974, after which it became the Palme d'Or ag ...
. The film was inspired by the real-life story of
Julia Pastrana
Julia Pastrana (August 1834 – 25 March 1860) was a performer and singer during the 19th century who had hypertrichosis. Pastrana, an indigenous woman from Mexico, was born in 1834, somewhere in the state of Sinaloa.Lerma Garay, Antonio. Érase ...
a 19th-century woman exploited as a freak show attraction by her manager Theodore Lent.
In 2008, the film was selected to enter the list of the
100 Italian films to be saved
The list of the ''100 Italian films to be saved'' ( it, 100 film italiani da salvare) was created with the aim to report "100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978".
History
The project was established ...
.
Plot
Marie, the "Ape Woman", is completely covered with hair; the
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
Focaccia discovers her in a convent in
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
; he marries her (a condition imposed by the nuns) and begins exhibiting her to the public. He tries to sell her to a man who insists on her
virginity
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
, but she is a little reluctant. After tasting success in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, she dies during childbirth. Focaccia recovers her
mummy
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...
from the museum of natural history and exhibits it in Naples.
Cast
*
Ugo Tognazzi
Ugo Tognazzi (23 March 1922 – 27 October 1990) was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter.
Early life
Tognazzi was born in Cremona, in northern Italy but spent his youth in various localities as his father was a travelling clerk fo ...
as Antonio Focaccia
*
Annie Girardot
Annie Suzanne Girardot (25 October 193128 February 2011) was a French actress. She often played strong-willed, independent, hard-working, and often lonely women, imbuing her characters with an earthiness and reality that endeared her to women und ...
as Maria
*
Achille Majeroni as Majoroni
*Filippo Pompa Marcelli as Bruno
* as Sister Furgonicino (as Linda De Felice)
*Elvira Paolini as Chambermaid
*Ugo Rossi as Ponszoner
Release
''The Ape Woman'' was released in 4K restoration on
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
and digital platforms on 11 October 2021.
See also
*
Bearded lady
References
External links
*
1964 drama films
1960s Italian-language films
1960s French-language films
French black-and-white films
Italian black-and-white films
Films directed by Marco Ferreri
Films with screenplays by Rafael Azcona
1960s multilingual films
French multilingual films
Italian multilingual films
1960s French films
1960s Italian films
French-language Italian films
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