Untamed Mistress

I thought I'd take a moment and defend the movie, since the other comment was quite pointed. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, but since my parents are the ones who made the movie, thought I'd shed a bit of light.

While it's true the movie is not high budget, when it was made in the early 1950's, it was truly innovative and scored high grosses throughout the south, mainly in drive-in theaters.

My dad and mom made the film and yes, there was travelogue footage, but rather than look at that as a negative, here's how it happened. A deal had been struck with Howco (my dad was originally the "o" in Howco, that with his leaving, he would have rights to the the Sabu movie, "Law of the Jungle", but he could not use the actual screen image of Sabu. Thus they were left with footage without a star and a story line. Enter the creative minds of Ron and June Ormond who now owned footage, of which they must create a story around.

My dad had a doctor friend, Dr. Harris (don't know his first name) who was a bit of an adventurer and had recently traveled to Africa, where... yes... he did film some footage which was made available to the Ormonds.

So we had Sabu footage... travelogue footage... now they just needed a story. During those years a popular series was Tarzan, using that as a catalyst; they reversed the gender of the hero, named her Velda and proceeded to film the movie.

So what you see is indeed travelogue footage... footage shot at Iverson's ranch.. and a fake jungle from "Law Of The Jungle". They then took these ingredients and made a film (which created traffic jams) filled the drive-in theaters across the South. As an aside, we'd get to town early... ballyhoo down the streets in a convertible, babe, guy in a gorilla suit and a loud speaker proclaiming... "Who will be her mate, man of beast". The southern towns loved it. And as far as a worn out gorilla suit, that's not the case. The suit(s) was bought from Western Costumes, in excellent condition and later my dad lent it to Ed Wood for his film "White Gorilla" (not certain of the name). So... the film can be criticized, or remembered for the innovative VERY low budget film that set box office records for its time. As for me, my mom and dad were the greatest and I could not have asked for a better childhood or more treasured memories such as being around when this film was made.

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.

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.

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.