Ingagi

Ingagi

Theatrical poster to Ingagi
Directed by William Campbell
Produced by William D. Alexander
Nat Spitzer (executive)
Written by Adam Shirk
Starring Charlie Gemora as Ingagi
Music by Edward Gage
Cinematography L. Gillingham
Distributed by Congo Pictures
Release dates
  • March 15, 1930 (1930-03-15)
Running time
75 min
Country United States
Language English

Ingagi is a 1930 Pre-Code exploitation film. It purports to be a documentary about "Sir Hubert Winstead" of London on an expedition to Africa, and depicts a tribe of gorilla-worshiping women encountered by the explorer. The film claims to show a ritual in which African women are given over to gorillas as sex slaves, but in actuality was mostly filmed in Los Angeles, using white actresses in blackface in place of natives.[1] It was produced and distributed by Nat Spitzer's Congo Pictures, which had been formed expressly to make the film.[2] Although marketed under the pretense of being an ethnographic film, the premise was a fabrication, leading the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association to retract any involvement with the film.[3]

The film trades heavily on its nudity and on the suggestion of sex between a woman and a gorilla. Its success motivated RKO Radio Pictures to invest in the 1933 film, King Kong. RKO owned several of the theatres Ingagi where was shown, including one of the first, the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, where it opened April 5, 1930.[2][4]

The later Son of Ingagi (1940) is not a sequel but is the first all-black cast horror movie and features a house haunted by a female mad scientist and her missing link monster.

Notes

  1. Doherty. pgs. 236, 241
  2. 1 2 Illegitimate dad of 'Kong'
  3. Doherty. pgs. 238–40
  4. Gerald Perry, "Missing Links: The Jungle Origins of King Kong"

Sources

External links


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