Film Crew: The Wild Women of Wongo

Movie:  (1958) A bizarre prehistoric fable about two tropical tribes, one composed of ugly men and beautiful women, the other the opposite.  Once they finally come into contact the women must overcome their tribe’s opposition to finding more attractive mates.  Also another tribe of ape men attacks, sort of.

First released: (on DVD) 9/11/2007 

Opening:   The Film Crew is frozen solid as the AC on too high.  Honcho calls from Paul Allen’s Caribbean island and orders them to supply the commentary track for “The Wild Women of Wongo.” 

 

Lunch Break: Kevin’s map of Wongo, showing where it is relative to Middle Earth, Atlantis, Lidsville, and possibly Tatooine.

End:  Bill has invented a device for matching you with your ideal mate (in all of history) based on physical attractiveness. Very Gizmonic!

Extras: First, the Crew is ordered to “Dance!”;  Second, the Crew says goodbye, Wongo-style.  Or at least tries their best.

Availability: Hulu, Amazon, Amazon instant, and Netflix.

Reminds me of:  Umm… maybe the Finnish trilogy, since they are also colorful, fantastic and largely nonsensical.  And maybe Catalina Caper, as a light beach movie with many scantily-clad young people.

Stray observations: 

This was a weird one, one of those locally-made, incredibly idiosyncratic films that showed up back in the day.  It was filmed entirely in at-the-time undeveloped Florida, where that coral castle still exists.  There is a lot of potential commentary to be made on the movie’s use of traditional female roles, judging people based on attractiveness, and blind obedience to authority figures, whether hereditary royalty or religious institutions.  Probably.

But mostly it is the world’s whitest tropical tribe (several of them are redheads!).  The attractiveness is a little vague for the men— the Wongo women are attractive in a very 1950’s way, while the Wongo men are “brutes”, but generally still in good shape.  Maybe they just didn’t shave?  The Goona men, as the Crew say, look like a Gold’s Gym (or at least a 1950s men's fitness magazine).  The Goona women, by contrast, are a real motley crew, with a fat one, a tall one, and (I think) some moles thrown in for good measure.   

The blue hair on some of the Wongo men is also bizarre.  I think it was a case of all the actors being about the same age, so they 'greyed' the actors playing older characters. 

The priestess transmogrifying and then leading the dancing is indeed a very strange scene, which lead to Extra #1.  Why didn't they just have the dancer do the whole part if the first woman couldn't dance?

For me, this was the Film Crew’s roughest movie, but offset by some fun sketches.  I was a little surprised it made it to #3.

Cast and crew roundup:  Most of the cast and crew were one-trick-ponies, and this was the only film they worked on.  A few had decent careers, but the most notable was probably one of the nameless Wongo women—Joyce Nizzari, who later that same year became a Playboy Playmate, and went on to a modestly successful acting and modeling career.  IMBD also states that in fact the director was a friend of famed playwright Tennessee Williams, and that he was in fact directed most of the film!

Callback: “I’ve never wanted to stuff dollar bills into a movie before” was also used in Hollywood After Dark.

Fave riff:  “I’m sure I saw a penis when she stood up.”  Honorable mention: “They should have baited the traps with Men’s Health magazines.”

Next week:   Cinematic Titanic meets Roger Corman’s “Wasp Woman”!