Young Viewers Find ‘Buddy’ Is No ‘Monkey Business’

In “Buddy,” Rene Russo plays the childless wife of a doctor in the 1940s who saves a baby gorilla and tries to raise him as a human child, along with chimps, dogs, cats, a parrot and other assorted animals on her Brooklyn estate. Rated PG.

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Many kids found the relatively serious “Buddy” about as exciting as the title of Gertrude Lintz’s autobiography from which it was adapted: “Animals Are My Hobby.”

The animals are cute, no doubt about it. But they don’t talk, they’re not computer-enhanced, and there’s something slightly more weird than humorous about dressing primates in diapers and expensive children’s clothes, making them do chores, then locking them up evenings behind bars after a sweet nighty-night.

Contrary to the comedic clips in the movie trailers, (some of which never appear in the film), “Buddy” depicts the true--and somewhat traumatic--story of Lintz, apparently one of several wealthy, childless American and British women who adopted chimp and gorilla babies in the 1930s and ‘40s to raise as part of their families. The movie never explains what, if anything, might be driving her eccentric zeal.

When Lintz hears about a gorilla infant that’s ailing in the zoo, she hustles over and brings him home to join the rest of her menagerie. She nurses him back to health, names him Buddy, and basks in his affection for her. After he grows to towering adolescence, Lintz takes him and the chimps to exhibit at the World’s Fair.

Once there, the chimps perform their favorite trick--stealing keys and letting Buddy out of his cage. The crowds and Buddy terrify each other, and soon the gorilla is lashing out unpredictably at Lintz, who can no longer control him.

Kids found “Buddy” a far cry from “Monkey Trouble” or “Dunston Checks In,” recent movies that starred trained primates in farcical plots.

“It was different,” said Charlie Kope, 9, of Santa Ana. “It had happy parts, scary parts, sad parts and other parts.”

His sister Carolyn, 6, said one of her favorite parts was when Buddy was a baby in a crib and Lintz nursed him back to health. “If it wasn’t for her, the baby would be dead,” she said.

But many preschoolers couldn’t maintain their interest and were crawling in the aisles and over chairs, provoking more than a few “shhhhhs.”

“It was too deep for them,” said one mother who said she almost asked for her money back. “It wasn’t really a kid movie.”

Used to increasingly sophisticated animatronics, some kids also were distracted by the gorilla costume worn by the actors who played the grown Buddy.

“At some point it looked like a suit, at other times it was believable,’ said Laurinda Campbell, 14, of Orange. The baby Buddy was “debatable,” she said. But she said she liked Rene Russo as Lintz. Her brothers and sisters enjoyed the movie overall, she said, and already are looking forward to it coming out on video.

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Others said they were frightened by the gorilla’s rampages at the World’s Fair, and later, back at the Lintz mansion, where he threw furniture around. At that point Lintz was forced to call police, who arrived with guns drawn. “It was really scary to me,” said Timmy Kope, 9.

Some parents were nervous too when Buddy pounded up to Lintz’s bedroom. “I thought, ‘Oh no, is he missing his mate? What direction is this going to go?’ ” Linda Campbell said. “I kept telling myself, ‘It’s family rated.’ ”

Without much soul-searching, Lintz eventually returns Buddy to the zoo--to a spacious natural fenced-in habitat financed by her wealthy husband, Bill (Robbie Coltrane), and inhabited by other gorillas.

By this point, even the youngest kids had already figured out that grown gorillas don’t belong in human homes.

“My favorite part was when they let him go,” said Carly Dahl, 4, of Irvine. Her 3-year-old cousin, Joseph Depew, agreed. “I liked Buddy go to the zoo,” he said, “because animals live in the zoo.”

* FAMILY FILMGOER, Page 10