Untamed Mistress

Most of the film consists of actors walking around or standing around in fake jungle intercut with endless travelogue footage and tedious narration. The leading lady resembles a bizarre parody of Jane Russell in "The Outlaw", with her main scene being a rather odd clumsy dance with a "shrunken head." The high point of the film occurs near the end when two actors in very motheaten ape suits (supposed to be bull gorillas) fight over the girl. In the only action scene of any interest, the "gorillas" then turn on the hero (Allan Nixon) and his brother, stomping and tearing them to death .The woman Velda goes off with the simians and apparently lives happily ever after with the film abruptly ended. Not a moment too soon for any viewer left awake.

I love physical media, and for a lot of movies, not just B movies, but A ones as well, the back story is far more interesting than the show itself, or equal to. I would dare anyone to use analogue technology and figure out the math on using a mechanical zoom lenses which had to be metered off with chalk on the ground as to how far the camera had to be moved, try working with a 35mm camera and the car battery packs they ran off of, and count every penny of expense, because film cost big bucks especially in color. The real nightmare was if your distributor pulls out of the deal and they picked up the cost of duplicating all the reels that had to be sent out to all the movie theaters, and they took a good percentage of the profits for the risk. Movie makers often mortgaged their home to pay the financing capital to make a B movie that cost $300,000 by the late 60s to early 70s. I would not try to make a movie with the technology they had and many an idiot making worse movies today with digit media affordable and distribute yourself.

This film is made up of two parts, some travel footage of someone who toured Africa and took a lot of wildlife footage and tribal ceremonies, and the live action scenes with some white folks travelling through the jungle trying to find a group of gorillas that kidnap women.

Because a large portion of the tourist footage contained women with naked breasts, they also hired some African-American actresses to go topless with some guys in truly bad gorilla costumes, giving the movie just the hint of bestiality without outright saying it.

The movie runs for an hour and six minutes, but it seems like an very uncomfortable eternity, realizing this is how people actually saw Africa in the 1950's. Given the high number of naked breasts, I find it hard to believe this film was ever shown in mainstream theaters at the time, more likely to have been shown in exploitation tent shows..

I just imagine the poor doctor who took the tourist video seeing the finished product and being horrified.

At the end of the movie, all the characters we've been following are killed, so I'm not sure who was actually narrating this.

I bought this movie after seeing it described in a catalog as the "Plan 9" of jungle movies. I'm pleased to say that I was not disappointed. This piece of cinematic shlock is every bit as laughably bad as Ed Wood's sci-fi epic.

The plot of this movie is pretty much irrelevant. Basically, the film makers took a few actors, shot them standing around a forest, then intercut this material with stock footage of Africa. The discrepancy between the two types of footage is extremely obvious, and pretty darn funny.

Like many other exploitation movies, this movie also features a fair amount of topless females. We get to see several pair of African breasts. However,when Velda, played by a white actress, goes topless, her goodies are carefully shielded by tall grass.

Is this a bit racist? Yes, but not nearly as racist as the rambling prologue to this movie which features white actors in "brown-face" makeup, pretending to be Indians.

The movie also features perhaps the worst gorilla costumes you have ever seen.

Connoisseurs of bad cinema will enjoy the varied treats of "Untamed Mistress." All others should avoid this like the plague.

What looks like it will be a routine jungle/ape picture turns into a nudie-cutie (with African-American nudies only). Unbelievable that in the early '50s it was still acceptable to present black/African women topless but not white women. Attitudes have changed a lot since then, now the lead actress would have to get at least half-naked. The National Geographic-style travelogue footage rubs uneasily against the schlock-film jungle antics of the cast, complete with fake gorilla suits. Ed Wood must have been proud. The acting is embarrassing, the leads are stiff and wooden, and the supporting cast are cartoonish. Historically and culturally inaccurate and ineptly staged, this is a trash-o-rama classic. Gets a 2 star rating from me for the pure entertainment value of bad acting, incomprehensible plotting, fake gorillas and naked titties.