Ingagi (1930)

A documentary crew travels to Africa to film the natives and wildlife. There they learn of a tribe that sacrifices girls to the “ingagi” (or gorilla). Except, the crew never left Los Angeles.

Done in voice over, much of the film feels like an early episode of Wild Kingdom. No real narrative and a little boring, save for the oddly frequent need to kill animals for fresh meat. But a critical eye will notice that scenes featuring the principles will show them in front of tall grass or shrubs while long shots feature the recognizable African Serengeti. But the reason for Ingagi’s infamy is in the final few minutes. A naked native woman is sacrificed to a gorilla. For, you know. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Ingagi entered my radar years ago when I learned of a controversial, early exploitation film. It was either lost or unavailable until it appeared on YouTube a couple years ago. As mentioned, the filmmakers never went to Africa. They stole footage from earlier safari films, added scenes filmed at a local zoo, then recorded the narration. The end result is a somewhat plausible nature documentary, with a side order of implied bestiality. And if Charles Gemora, the man in the ape costume, fathered his children while wearing it, well, that’s his business.

Ingagi (a completely made up word) had difficulty being distributed but was wildly popular where it was shown. The MPAA tried to keep it suppressed but anti-trust legislation made that difficult. In the end, they resorted to insisting it be labeled a work of fiction. The filmmakers refused.

A great many words could be written about the kerfuffle this film caused, but there are videos that do a pretty good job covering that. But were I to focus only on what we see on screen, there wouldn’t be much to say. If nature films or safari adventure is your thing, look elsewhere. If sexy native women are your thing, look elsewhere. Ingagi was provocative in its day, but today it’s a snoozefest. AMRU 2.

The Terror of Tiny Town (1938)

The Villain Bat Haines plays two ranches off each other so he can rustle cattle from both sides. Oh, and everybody are dwarfs.

This low budget exploitation flic was inspired when the producer overheard someone saying "if this economy doesn't turn around, we'll have to start making pictures with midgets." The result is a film with little value beyond this novelty.

Many little people in films of this era sport thick Austrian accents. Hollywood apparently put out word that they were hiring and they didn't need much encouragement what with racial purity being on the march.

While the majority of the cast lacked acting talent, our hero (Billy Curtis) had better than fair horsemanship skills. His physicality was noticeable compared to the rest of the cast, who had difficulty with the full sized set. They rode ponies and Curtis being tall for a dwarf (4’2”) seemed over sized on his mount. His love interest, if IMDb is to be believed, celebrated her 101st birthday in January.

I felt a few of the actors appeared to be children, and I discovered that I wasn’t too far off. Fern Formica (that cannot possibly be her real name) would have been thirteen when the film was released, making her randy barroom song all that more inappropriate.

Poor acting, throw-away story, and bad diction. Other than the actors short stature and the films short run time, The Terror of Tiny Town has little to offer. AMRU 2.5.

The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959)

Man on bicycle looks at breasts. Roll credits.

Russ Meyer has long fascinated me. Undoubtedly the biggest name in the 60's "nudie cutie" genre, his movies are legendary and annoyingly hard to come by. Netflix? Never heard of him. Amazon Prime has nothing for free. And forget about your local library. YouTube to the rescue, believe it or not. That can't be legal.

Anyhow Mr. Teas (actual name!) sells dentist stuff door to door and along the way is greeted by unusually well endowed women showing unusual amounts of cleavage. The dental hygienist, his office secretary, the counter woman at the diner, some chick at the beach. And he concludes there must be something wrong with him because, and here's the sick part, he LIKES it! He even starts fantasizing about the women! Clearly he needs serious therapy.

A few odd things about this movie. First, there is no actual dialog. The movie is done in voice over narration (frequently a bit of trivia about a non-fleshy element on screen) with an insipid soundtrack. Secondly, with one exception, nobody appears to notice or care that Mr. Teas is snooping on the ladies. Also, there is no inference of sex. Well, except once and that turns into a comedic moment. There are just breasts for our man to look at. And the on-screen talent is quite impressive.

Surprisingly, this, Meyer's first, is a well photographed movie. The ladies are well lit, the editing crisp, good pacing, and the overall craft well done. Citizen Kane this is not, but take it for what it is: Cheesecake pornography. Remove the fleshy elements and you don't just have less of a film, you basically don't have a film. That said, AMRU 3.

Child Bride (1938)

The marriage of under aged girls in the Ozarks is a terrible problem. Who will spread the word regarding this awful practice? I know, an exploitation film will!

Eleven year old girl (Shirley Mills) is eyed by an evil bootlegger. Righteous school-marm campaigns for legal reform. Nudie swim, tar and feather, confrontation, crisis averted, roll credits.

Like so many early exploitation films, they tantalize audiences with what they pretend to condemn. Here, it's young Jennie in the buff. And the famous skinny dip scene was both significantly long and, as the MST3K folks said, disturbing. In fact, because of those comments in particular, I was hesitant to watch this thing. But I am curious about the old "pre-code" films (not one, I know), and Amazon Prime had it available, so what the hell. But like MST3k, I too should have skipped it.

From an acting/story/dialog standpoint, it was more than a little sub-par. Take into considering the poor audio and video quality of the public domain copy, not the best viewing experience. Following the story line or even telling some of the actors apart proved to be a chore. But the sets looked authentic enough, which is to say they even totally failed at totally failing at absolutely everything.

But if you feel weird ogling the 11 year old Jennie, rest assured that at the time of filming actress Shirley Mills was the ripe old age of twelve. Not entertaining, not historically significant, not even titillating. The best thing I can say was that it wasn't painful. AMRU 2.

Foxy Brown (1974)

Foxy Brown (Pam Grier) is a whole lotta woman. Her boyfriend is a cop who infiltrated the ghetto mob and they are out for revenge. To protect himself, he undergoes plastic surgery. Unfortunately, her ne'er-do-well brother, on the run from the same mob, recognizes him and trades his life for some debt forgiveness. Exit boyfriend. This don't go over well with o'll Foxy. She's a whole lotta woman. Foxy goes undercover in the mob's prostitution ring and, well, things play out mostly as you can expect.

What a terrible film! I occasionally hit the exploitation scene and I don't know why. The stories are formulaic, the acting is terrible, even the fight sequences are badly filmed. The only saving grace is the nudity, and Foxy Brown has fairly little. But the movie does redeem itself somewhat. The climax is clever and satisfying. I also liked the element of the boss man being a woman, with a boy-toy who clearly sees his relationship with her as part of the job. Does that save the film as a whole? I'm not so sure.

The titular character has become a pop culture icon. Is she not the archetype for Beyonce's Foxxy Cleopatra character in Goldmember? She is not the passive heroine so common in this kind of film. Foxy goes right after the bad guys and does not flinch. She takes her share of punishment and dishes out a whole lot more. In truth I can see why people become fascinated by these movies, but don't mistake them for fine filmmaking. It stands squarely in the guilty pleasure zone. That said, for me it's more guilt than pleasure. AMRU 2.5.

"That's my sister, baby, and she's a whole lotta woman."

Women in Cages (1971)

We have women, and they are in cages. But the title leaves so many unanswered question. For instance, what are they wearing? Not much, it turns out.

Did I really watch this? Yea, I did. I recently watched two documentaries about exploitation movies (American Grindhouse and Machete Maidens Unleashed!) and both mentioned this gem. Had to give it a try.

Dumb chick is set up by her boyfriend, who promises to get her out of prison. Actually, he wants to silence her so she can't testify against him. After several bouts of torture from the sadistic Alabama (Pam Grier) who was from Harlem, she decides to escape. Will her cellmates help? Gosh, I hope everything turns out ok.

Check your modesty and acting skills at the door. Of course Roger Corman was involved. This movie succeeds if you enjoy watching scantily clad (and non-clad) women being tortured. Big fan of the former, not so much for the latter. Luckily, the "violence" part of the show is hard to take seriously.

All in all, very skipable movie. Both documentaries were quite enlightening about this kind of movie and were far more entertaining. I had to watch Cages over three days. Continuity was not terribly important. AMRU 2.5. I'm being generous.

"This is going to be just like home, only different!"

Maniac (1934)

I had free time after work and was too tired to do any reading. I popped in a disk from my public domain horror collection and watched Maniac. The greybeard scientist is working on his plan to reanimate dead tissue. Apparently he watched Frankenstein a couple years earlier and wanted to do exactly that. 

Dr. Meirschultz's Ygor is a vaudeville actor named Maxwell who is wanted by the police. His specialty is impersonations and here he is impersonating an actor. Seriously. The actor was apparently a makeup artist in his only acting role. Meirschultz needs a body to do a full scale experiment and has Max impersonate the coroner to gain entry to the morgue. Max is worried but agrees.

Is this supposed to be a comedy? The script is bad but the acting is among the worst I've ever seen. And that is saying something! "Once a ham, always a ham!" 

In the morgue they find what they are looking for: a young hottie who committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The undertaker, believing Maxwell as the coroner, makes some risque comments. The body is brought back to the lab. 

Time for the next step. Need to find a body with a shattered heart and replace it with a throbbing prop he has in a jar. Meirschultz had a great idea! He tells Max to kill himself and promises to bring him back from the dead. Nope, no red flags there. Instead Max kills his mentor. 

Here the story becomes a little disjointed. Max impersonates Meirschultz, a woman arrives seeking help for her schizoid husband and sees the body, schizoid husband goes berserk and carries reanimated hottie (who's goodies are briefly visible) off to a park to do the Zombie Mambo. Max's wayward wife learns that Max has inherited a fortune and seeks him out. Max sinks lower and lower into insanity while scenes from crazy-weird silent films are superimposed over him. 

And quite frankly, so do I. This film is nuts. There are montage scenes where it is implied Max/Schultz molests a woman (who's goodies are briefly visible). Oh, right, this is Sex Maniac, the exploitation film. Now I remember. 

Oh, and the cat fights. There are several scenes where cats are fighting each other, chasing mice, and being all around annoying. In one scene they tied a cat and dog together to make them really go at it. Charming. Don't get be started about the crazy cat man. All this was brought together at the end when the schizoid's wife and Max's wife have a cat fight of their own. There may have been a little boobage there as well. 

The schizoid's wife, by the way, was played by Phyllis Diller. Not THE Phyllis Diller, just a Phyllis Diller. I wonder if the original run time was longer. What I saw was just under 51 minutes and there were jump cut scenes that may have contained more naughty bits. There is a fully restored version but I won't be looking it up. 

The film was loosely based on Poe's The Black Cat and written by the director's wife. Imagine that. "Honey, I want to do a sex film. Could you write it for me?" There was another Poe reference, when The Murders in the Rue Morgue was mentioned. 

I kinda enjoyed the film but you can't get around the fact that it was a really poorly made film. The dialog was poor, the acting was terrible, the best thing I can say is the sets were good. The weird montage scenes were interesting if for no other reason that because they were so unique. In the final analysis, I can't truly say I'm glad I watched it. AMRU 2.5. Watch it for yourself.