Wild Women

I'm hoping whoever was involved with this foolishness 60 years ago was just kidding. It takes "exploitation movie" to the outer limits. The outer limits of Africa, to be exact. There, a mysterious band of Amazon beauties frighten the bejeebies out of their neighboring tribes.

There's plenty of extraneous stock footage shot by some long-ago National Geographic safari tourists: I love that same hippo that floats by every few minutes in a river that is nowhere near the action taking place. There's also a curious chimp that is shown repeatedly watching something--I guess the Prehistoric women(?), as well as several other animals.

Some guy named Trent who, as a boy, saw a blonde siren up on a mountain, wants to find these ladies, and gets two other comic relief guys from Brooklyn to join in the quest.

The women are, like any women who have been cut off from civilization for generations, dressed in tailored leopard skin. They have their hair done in downtown Hollywood, carefully filed and polished nails, shave their arms and legs, and wear cool moccasins. Everybody has a spear and says, "huzzzzbennnndddd..." Also, the routine cat fights take place, and they worship something while dancing the Shake and Shimmy. How the Amazons got there in the first place is questioned, but never explained.

This is a must-see for anybody who wants to see a movie that makes you exclaim, "Did they really make a film like this?"

An unintentional precurser to grindhouse and mondo movies of the 60s and 70s, this movie gave grandpa a chance to see exotic Africa and, better yet, good looking scantily clad ladies cavorting about. I give it a 6 rating because it is entertaining in its silliness and I think a movie like this has its place in film history.

Well, I will start with just why I give four stars. There are scenes with various wild animals in, trees and ?? That's as far as I can go. Now the movie, pretty bad really, over zealous acting and a class stereo typing (for its period) of tribal communities. Today it would (I believe wrongly) be called racist and a example of colonial control. I on the other hand feel it represents a part of movie history long consigned to the learning bin. It is however, another example of serious (for its period) sexism, not totally aimed, I feel, just at the female actors. Strange singing, dubious costumes and even worse, tan lines that are so bad even in black and white they are fully visible. To conclude, I recommend that if you are lost for something to do on a wet day, stick it out to the end.

Bowanga Bowanga: White Sirens of Africa (1951)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Three hunters go into the jungles of Africa where they are kidnapped by a group of female savages wanting to make them their husbands. Another female tribe hears that there is fresh meat in town so they attack wanting the men for themselves. If you're a fan of bad movies then this one here is pretty bad and certainly bad enough to get a few nice laughs out of it. I'm really not sure what's up with the actual story because it seems to change every few minutes but this is probably because there's so much stock footage the producer's had to use and they just try to wiggle a story around all of it. The movie runs 61-minutes but I'm going to guess that at least half of that running time is nothing more that stock footage. I actually enjoyed this stock footage of various wildlife and that includes one scene with th biggest snake I've ever seen. I'm terrified of snakes so this scene certainly got under my skin. Tigers, chimps and various other forms of animals are also on full display. The movie has a lot of narration through the first portion of the film because this is where most of the stock footage is. The second half gets spoken dialogue and after hearing it you'll be wishing they switched back to the stock footage. The performances are all pretty bad and there's nothing naughty going on except for women in bathing suits. If you look closely you can see tags coming out of the women's outfits, which is rather strange considering we're in the jungles of Africa. A few laughs are to be had including the whole segment with one of the men being "scared" to go with a beautiful blonde, big breasted gal because she wants him for a husband. Most men would be running to the gal. All in all this is a pretty poor movie but thankfully it's silly enough to keep bad movie lovers mildly entertained. Original title: WILD WOMEN.

Why so many of these films were made is obvious. It's a chance to put women in bikinis. They're cheap to make. And it panders to the sexual fantasy of men who want to be dominated and be submissive to women.

There's also the creepy racism. Africans get shown as primitive. But put white people in the jungle, even "primitive" ones, and they get shown as naturally dominant and superior.

This film was so cheap, its "African tribesmen" are dressed in western jean shorts with leather belts. One of its "Africans" was a white guy they didn't bother putting blackface makeup on.

The supposed primitive women have perfectly blow dried hair in 1950s hairstyles, some of them permed. Some are wearing obvious lipstick.

The jungle is obviously California. Nice oak and pine trees, buddy.

And they can't even decide if it's Africa or the Amazon. "Amazon" women but "African" tribesmen.

It's not bad in a fun way, just bad.