I finally got around to watching some of these. I did a double feature of White Slaves of Chinatown and Olga’s House of Shame (didn’t have time for Olga’s Dance Hall Girls today).
I didn’t know much about the movies going into them other than they were obviously S & M sexploitation flicks with some horror elements. You know typical Something Weird Video stuff.
After watching the first two I read a little more about them. Apparently the target audience were horny angry old men who were upset about women getting more and more equal rights. So not my favorite kind of exploitation fair. I tend to go for more of the campy nonsense stuff.
Anyway, Olga has a great look to her. She seems like she’d be great to dress up as for a super obscure Halloween costume. The movie themselves are pretty tame by today’s standards. Also, incredibly cheaply made! They were shot on average in 4-5 days. Also, it was nice of the director to at least mic a few scenes in the second movie. With how frugal they were in making these I’m not sure if he rented the sound equipment or just stole it.
I kind of wish these came with at least one commentary track to give more insight into these things. While pretty obscure now I understand that they did have some legal cases attached to them and also got some other attention in the 1960s. I mean there were 5 made for goodness sakes!
Aside from this release Synapse Films also put out a special edition of Olga’s Girls. That is the only surviving film not in the set. The other Olga film, Madame Olga’s Massage Parlor is lost. The Synapse Films release includes a commentary track by the star and probably some other stuff. I may have to check that out at some point
