The Ape Woman is a 1964

1964 in film

The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....

 Italian

Cinema of Italy

The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...

-French

Cinema of France

The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Marco Ferreri. It was entered into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival

1964 Cannes Film Festival

The 17th Cannes Film Festival was held from 29 April to 14 May 1964. The Palme d’Or is renamed 'Grand Prix International du Festival', the name that will be used until 1975.-Jury:*Fritz Lang *Charles Boyer...

. The movie was inspired by the real-life story of Julia Pastrana

Julia Pastrana

Julia Pastrana was a woman born with hypertrichosis who took part in 19th-century exhibition tours in Europe. Pastrana, an indigenous woman from Mexico, was born in 1834, somewhere in the Sierra of Sinaloa State. She had hypertrichosis terminalis; that is, her face and body were covered with...

 a 19th-century woman exploited as a freak show attraction by her manager Theodore Lent.

Plot

The "Ape Woman" is Annie Girardot

Annie Girardot

Annie Girardot was a French actress.She began performing in 1955, making her film debut in Treize à table. Girardot won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 1956, and in 1977 won the César Award for Best Actress portraying the title character in Docteur Françoise Gailland...

, completely covered with hair; the entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 Tognazzi

Ugo Tognazzi

Ugo Tognazzi was an Italian film, TV, and theatre 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 traveller clerk for an insurance company.After his return in the native city in 1936, he...

 discovers her in a convent in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

; he marries her (a condition imposed by the nuns) and begins exhibiting her to the public. He tries to sell her to a funny guy who insist on her virginity

Virginity

Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...

, but she is a little reluctant. After tasting success in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, she dies during childbirth. Tognazzi recovers her mummy

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

 from the museum of natural history and exhibits it in Naples. The subject looks a little camp, but the film is considered one of the most touching of Ferreri's.

Cast

• Ugo Tognazzi
  Ugo Tognazzi
  Ugo Tognazzi was an Italian film, TV, and theatre 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 traveller clerk for an insurance company.After his return in the native city in 1936, he...
  
   - Antonio Focaccia
• Annie Girardot
  Annie Girardot
  Annie Girardot was a French actress.She began performing in 1955, making her film debut in Treize à table. Girardot won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 1956, and in 1977 won the César Award for Best Actress portraying the title character in Docteur Françoise Gailland...
  
   - Maria
• Achille Majeroni
  Achille Majeroni
  Achille Majeroni was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 73 films between 1913 and 1964.He was born in Syracuse, Sicily and died in Rome.-Selected filmography:* La damigella di Bard...
  
   - Majoroni
• Filippo Pompa Marcelli - Bruno
• Ermelinda De Felice - Sister Furgonicino (as Linda De Felice)
• Elvira Paolini - Chambermaid
• Ugo Rossi - Ponszoner