Bowanga Bowanga

WILD WOMEN (aka: BOWANGA BOWANGA) stars no one in particular and is about a safari through the "dark continent" of Africa.

This movie's greatest assets are its preposterously erratic non-plot and its idiot dialogue. Absolutely nothing makes any sort of logical sense, with scenes seemingly tossed together in no particular order. This could be due to its being a patchwork of several unrelated movies stitched together. This only adds to the hilarity.

An orangutan, foreign to the continent of Africa, wanders about for no apparent reason. A man in a go-rilla suit roams through for 10 seconds, before disappearing forever. A sudden flashback sequence features an Amish-looking boy's encounter with a "tribe" of white women in 1950's swimwear. Holding spears! Natives dance around while their chief jumps up and down with a big snake in his hands. Savage women run through the jungle, pouncing on unsuspecting adventurers. Annnd, on and on.

Pure ultra-schlock gold!

Nothing can possibly prepare you for the male vs. Female throw-down showdown!

Blessedly short, this rivals other anti-classics like WILD WOMEN OF WONGO and MESA OF LOST WOMEN!,,,

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.

Over the years, I've seen a number of these "Primitive female tribe meeting civilized men" movies, and I have to confess that I am not a fan of them. I like the IDEA of these movies, because the idea promises that there will be a lot of campy unintentional humor. But for the most part I find them a slog to get through. "Bowanga Bowanga" (a.k.a. "Wild Women") didn't do anything to change my mind about these films.

For starters, I found this to be even cheaper and cruder than the usual cheap and crude nature of these movies. There is a TON of stock footage in the movie, and I suspect that the script was written AFTER the filmmakers got their hands on the stock footage and viewed it. The stock footage does show a couple of seconds of native African nudity (the only serious sexual aspect of the movie), and I admit I got a laugh that one stock footage clip showed a moose when the story is supposed to be taking place in Africa. But other than those two things, all the stock footage is just padding out a very thin story.

As for the women in this movie, it takes quite a long time to really get to them, aside from a few brief glimpses in the first part of the movie. And once we properly get to them, they turn out to be a really boring bunch of females. Their history - how they got to be their way, etc. - is never explained. Their dialogue is so garbled at times that it's hard to make out what they are saying. Their native customs (dancing, etc.) are boring as well.

One positive thing I can think about the movie - it's significantly shorter than other examples of its genre, so I was able to finish and put it in mind to forget about it quicker than usual. I'm already starting to forget it...

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.

The plot has something about white hunters captured by a tribe of white women in the African jungle/ plains.Its a turkey and the some. What it really is is wildly mismatched footage from early sound and silent films mixed with badly shot recent(to the release) footage of men on a safari. There are scenes of a man in a gorilla suit, south seas natives at sea (used to represent people in the middle of Africa), women in bikini's, horrible narration and a guy in a loin cloth with make up all over his body (racially insensitive I think so). This is a movie to sit and make fun of- but only with lots of alcoholic drinks and witty friends. At any other time this is going to be a chore to get through. Its a bad bad bad movie. Beyond that I'm speechless