The Wild Women of Wongo

So how did my 18-year old hormones miss a title like Wild Women... back in '58. I guess I was watching a load of other drive-in crud back then. Too bad, since there's quite a bit of cleavage and leggy art work among the Wongo gals, as they herd the good looking guys from Goona into a connubial village where nature will take its course. The plot may be loony but it's got a worthwhile subtext. The gals really come to operate in a non-submissive way, sort of like sneaky Neanderthal feminists. But at the same time, they're arranging things so that pretty people can live alongside homely ones all in humane fashion. Okay, maybe I'm reading too much in- see what you think. Anyway, it's an anonymous cast (check IMDB bio's) that still manages despite their only screen appearance. And, oh wow, get a load of Zuni Dyer who's imperiously impressive as the priestess on her rock throne. Too bad it's her only screen credit.

All in all, the silly flick has its moments and never takes itself seriously, as the eye-winking cast and squawking parrot keep telling us. Meanwhile, I'm getting a ticket first thing to meet the leggy attractions of Wongo. So wish me luck, I'll need it.

I saw this on a UHF station during the 70's, and was amazed by it even then. It really is a must see for lovers of bad film. I finally found a video recently, and the movie's awfulness has held up very well. Bad movies often don't live up to the hilarious reviews found in the Golden Turkey books written by the The Medved brothers, but Wild Women of Wongo does on most levels. Really, what were these people thinking? The dance of the dragon god is worth the price of admission alone.

Yes, this was a bad movie (I watched it in a double bill with the similar-toned prehistoric tongue-in-cheek 'Prehistoric Women'--both from Mill Creek's 50-pack 'Nightmare Worlds'), but it was charming, short and sweet, and I enjoyed it. I wouldn't watch it again, probably, but it was decent fare to see once. I thought the way the credits were animated was cool (a low-budget Saul Bass), and I wouldn't have minded being trapped by the Wongo tribe, if I time-travelled back to that time, myself! At first, I thought they had misspelled Adrienne Barbeau's name, but no one looked like her in the film, and she would have been really young anyway.

It intrigued me that Tennessee Williams actually directed at least parts of the film. Though this film falls into the 'so-bad-it's good-territory, I'm glad it was made. Not everything has to be either a $300-million monster or Hamlet.

Outrageous camp factor, and every bit as weird and mindless as you've heard.

"Oh, Priestess, we request permission to find mates!" The narrator explains: "Nature made a mistake." Two independent tribes that mistrust but leave each other alone finally interact, as an alliance to fight some other weird tribe is proposed, then rejected. A parrot is perched somewhere, and periodically shows up to mock the characters, as if we the audience aren't doing that already.

Basically, some prehistoric guys and gals from each tribe run around the forest and occasionally meet each other. There's one girl (from the "pretty woman" tribe) who beats the snot out of a baby crocodile, and the monster people show up briefly. Her tribe has women with 50's hair styles, shaved legs, lipstick, and other make-up. The other tribe has women with buck teeth and attitudes that scare their sheepish men.

Beware of the soundtrack. They actually use some of the same music as the infamous "Plan 9 from Outer Space," and this movie makes that one look good by comparison. The acting is oafery, the director must have been out in the sun too long, and the story line is uhh, was there one? There's only one way to watch this: MST3K style. Get your buddies together and mock the thing, when it isn't bashing itself that is.

This 1950s bad movie classic takes us to Wongo, a tropical place (shot in Florida) where the women of Wongo have trouble with their men. When a very, very handsome stranger tells them about a place called Goona only a few miles away, where very, very handsome men are looking for beautiful companions, they are quick to consider their options...

I think the scene when the daughter of the king pretends to be engaged in a "life-or-death struggle" with a small rubber crocodile must have been worth the admission fee alone, although the talking parrot made me cringe every time... must be on screen every 5 minutes at least. The "leopard skin" jungle outfits of the 1950s are naturally nowhere near what Tanya Roberts was allowed to almost wear in the 1980s, so I wonder how hot "Women of Wongo" really seemed in the 1950s? As far as the male models (the word "actor" would be out of place) are concerned, one of them actually rose to stardom afterwards: Ed Fury became Ursus in the Italian cinema series.