Naked Africa (1957)
** (out of 4)
Quentin Reynolds narrates this 70-minute documentary that takes a look at Africa and more closely at the Xhose tribe of Cape Nguru. I first heard of this film from an exploitation documentary that stated this was one of the films that were made just to show in "alternate" theaters back in the day for people who wanted to see some nudity. Having now seen the picture I'm not 100% sure that the point of this movie was to just show nudity and be exploitive of the people even though some of those elements are here. The majority of the running time takes a look at non-exploited stuff including the wildlife of Africa as well as how the communities are changing. The mondo style narration actually doesn't help much because of the way Reynolds delivers all his lines. A lot of the times the narration is just a tad bit too over-the-top and it doesn't help that the music score often kicks in at "dramatic" moments to try and make a scene more important. I think most people will be mildly amused by the stuff dealing with the wildlife because we really get some up close shots of various animals. There's an incredibly large crocodile that you'll see and there's other animals like giraffes, elephants and more. There is quite a bit of nudity from the women who all go around topless. Again, this aspect of the film has been sold off as exploitation but it's really not. It's just presented as how things are and the camera never lingers on it or even draws any attention to it.
