Entertainment

Monkey do

Man’s inhumanity to man doesn’t begin — or end — with man.

In the 1970s, a Columbia professor, Herb Terrace, who seems to have fewer brain cells — and less humanity— than a chimp, decided to tear a newborn chimp away from its mother. For a “scientific” experiment.

The baby was in the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma and, when Terrace approached, the baby chimp’s mother went crazy — probably because other researchers had stolen six newborns before.

Terrace’s main goal in life, it seems, was to get himself as much publicity as possible, His secondary goal was studying whether it was possible to teach a chimp to speak.

His insane need for publicity without regard to consequences must be what attracted the Oscar-winning, 1970s-centric filmmakers James Marsh and Simon Chinn (“Man on Wire”) to this project.

I mean where do you go after following a man who illegally walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers? Right. They found a guy who thought he could teach a chimp to speak.

Difference is, tightrope- walker Philippe Petit was an artist, while Terrace comes across as more of a con artist.

The esteemed scientist simply handed the newborn (named Nim) to his former student and girlfriend, Stephanie LaFarge, and her extended family, to raise. That was it — no scientific standards, no journals and no structure, either.

LaFarge and her new husband had seven children between them, and their home was in a constant state of chaos.

Nim would have been less wild in the jungle — although he couldn’t have had the occasional joint or brewski that he enjoyed with the LaFarges.

Stephanie freely admits that she breast-fed the chimp. Appearing on camera still as smug as ever, she even says, “I never felt sexually engaged with Nim, but it was a sexuality, [like] a preteen.” What?

The reason for all this insanity and inhumanity? “It was the ’70s!”

Terrace would show up from time to time with the press to pretend he was involved with Nim, who hated him.

Another of Terrace’s student lovers, Laura Petitto, took Nim away from his LaFarge “family” when she realized he wasn’t learning. She then moved in with Nim and Terrace, who had convinced Columbia University to let him take over the president’s mansion, rent-free, like a capitalist hippie.

Petitto did indeed teach Nim to “speak” using sign language, for which Terrace took the credit.

As his life became increasingly more bizarre and he got stronger, Nim became more aggressive and attacked a few of his “caretakers” — women who were also involved with the balding Terrace.

The rest of the saga is even more heartbreaking.

Nim was eventually sent back to the Oklahoma Primate Studies joint where he was thrown back into a cage.

Nim was then sold to an NYU research facility, where this almost-human chimp was subjected to horrible animal research.

After many years, one person who truly cared — a former handler in Oklahoma, Bob Ingersoll — was able to help, and finally Nim was brought to an animal rescue facility where he was able to live out his remaining years like a wild animal — safe from the civilized beasts who tamed him.

It’s tough to watch, but too important to miss.