Balaoo — Gaston Leroux

Written in 1911 by Gaston Leroux, the author renowned for such mysteries as The Perfume Of The Lady In Black and The Phantom Of The Opera, BALAOO is the extraordinary black fable of a pithecanthrope, or monkey-man, created by a scientist and raised as human in a small French village. Unfortunately Balaoo, the creature in question, is endowed with immense strength and a ferocious temper, which leads him to murder and an eventual chase by police over the rooftops of Paris. BALAOO has been filmed several times, first by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset in 1913, and later as The Wizard (1927) and Dr. Renault's Secret (1942).