SON OF INGAGI (1940)

[The Burgomaster]

   

This movie is included in Mill Creek's NIGHT SCREAMS 50 MOVIE PACK.

The only reason to watch this is as a history lesson in blaxploitation horror cinema . . . more specifically, bad blaxploitation horror cinema.

Dr. Jackson, a female mad scientist, has a jungle man (sort of an ape man in cheap make-up who looks more like a man than an ape) hidden in a secret room in her basement.  When she wants to summon him, she bangs a gong and he creeps up from the basement.

The jungle man kills a couple of people, but the dimwitted police detective can't figure out that there's a hidden basement in the house.  In a 3-Stooges style comedy scene the detective keeps making sandwiches and every time he turns his back the jungle man walks into the kitchen and steals them.

Most of this movie takes place on sparsely decorated sets and there is almost no musical score.  It's just a cheap, creaky, old comedy/thriller that probably won't appeal to most modern viewers.  But it's only about an hour long, so you might want to give it a try. 

[Joe the Destroyer]

I haven't seen this, but it looks pretty odd.  Based on the pictures, I was more convinced that the antagonist was mentally disabled, and not some kind of ape man.

[Raffine]

Tried this one last night, but fell asleep right when the party started at the newlywed's apartment. Those close harmony crooners lured me to sleep.

From what I've seen the Dr. Jackson character impressed me as very unusual, particularly for the genre (if early no-budget all-black comedy-horror really is a genre!).

There are reports a print of the original INGAGI (1931), long thought to be lost, has been discovered and may soon be released on DVD. It was a quite famous and popular fake African travelogue/guy in a gorillla suit movie in its day. The Little Rascals made references to it a couple of times.

It was completely unrelated to sequel-in-name-only SON OF INGAGI.

[Joe the Destroyer]

I read a little bit on the original Ingagi, and it sounds like it's inspired by, if not a complete ape of, H.P. Lovecraft's Arthur Jermyn.  The copyright, according to the Lovecraft book I have, predates Ingagi by seven years, so it sounds possible.  The premise sound pretty close to the same, with a few small differences.  I'm pretty sure the predictable twist ending wasn't included. 

Being a mere 10 page story, I do recommend reading it.  It does make me hope that that Ingagi DVD does come out so I can compare the two.

[Raffine]

Here's the Classic Horror Film Board thread where the supposed rediscovery of INGAGI is discussed:

http://p075.ezboard.com/fmonsterkidclassichorrorforumfrm72.showMessage?topicID=223.topic

Again, everybody go check your garage for a print of LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT!

Frankly I'd be surprised if the makers were even aware of Lovecraft's story. He was still very obscure at the time (1930) this was made. More likely this was seen as an opportunity to release a bunch of jungle stock footage and some rather bizarre new stuff (that pre-Gamera "tortadillo" creature is a hoot!) tied together with an "Apes Mate With Wimmin!" exploitation angle.

[Ozzymandias]

Ozzymandias speaks: This is not so much blackexploitation. I think it was one of the films made for the black cinema circut. Mill Stream has put a few of these in their box sets. This is one of the few that actually qualifies as a horror film.  I don't remember the titles of the others but one has a woman rumored to be a voodoo queen. The other is a tear jerker about a grandfather's ghost protecting the family (or something).

I've kicked myself for not buying one of the Herb Jeffries/Spencer Williams B-westerns at the Cowboy Hall of Fame in OKC a few years back when I was there.

Ozzymandias has spoken!!! 

[Raffine]

There were literally hundreds of these all-black cast films made for the "colored circut", most sadly are lost and most of the surviving films are in terrible shape. One of the best I've seen is a very early example titled WITHIN OUR GATES (1920) directed by Oscar Micheaux. It's a serious and really shocking look at the terrible treatment of blacks by whites, including the lynching of a young child and an elderly woman,  in the (then) contemporary south.

Now here's some SON OF INGAGI trivia for you, gleemed from imdb:

Zack Williams, the actor who played "Ingeena the Ape Man", was in GONE WITH THE WIND the previous year.

I watched NABONGA (1944), another ape flick in this collection, this afternoon. The print is terribly dark, but it's a fairly entertaining little jungle movie in a goofy kind of way. It was released by PRC, which was sort of a poor man's Monogram Pictures.  With Buster Crabbe, Barton MacLane, Fifi D'Orsay, a very young Julie London, and Ray "Crash" Corrigan (billed as N'bonga) as Samson the Gorilla. A couple of years later MacLane and Corrigan would both be in UNKNOWN ISLAND!