Friday, April 10, 2015

Sons of Kong?: The Savage Girl (1932)

This is going to be an interesting experiment to say the least.  So here is what you need to know.  I bought a cheap 10-Film set from Alpha Video like a year and a half ago.  I finally said 'Dammit- I have to watch these.'  The set: Sons of Kong.  It is a giant lie, mind you, since no Kong-related Films are involved.  Yes, not even the actual Son of Kong!  This is just 10 Jungle-related and/or featuring-an-Ape Films that are Public Domain.  To make things extra fun, I decided to do the Films in Chronological Order and not in Disc Order.  Why?  I'm just insane like that, I guess.  It made watching the Puppet Master Films more interesting, so why not these?  So, with all that said, today's Film is The Savage Girl.  It is about...a Savage Girl.  It is mostly a doofy Comedy about would-be Explorers and even features a B-Plot to fill out the 58 minute run-time.  Yeah, old Films are often shorter than ones today.  Could you imagine if Michael Bay had to make 60 minute Transformers Films?  The Credits would be a quarter of the run-time right there!  This one is a doozy, so stick around and try not to get too PC with this one (although I make no such promise)...
Right off the bat, the Film tells you to not take it seriously.  Is that a good sign or a bad one?
So our two Leads are rich guys who are looking for something scientific to do to validate themselves.
The solution: go to the Jungles of...South Africa.

Okay, I know that there are Jungles there, but isn't there more City than Jungle (even in 1932)?
They are so 'wacky' that they take the Cab they took to the Docks with them on the trip.  Huh?!?
They hear the tale of a Savage Girl who can tame Animals to her side.  They actually capture her quite easily.  However...
This guy makes a move on her and gets rejected.  He's beat up and she's set free, to help her avoid the attempted Rapist.

To repeat: this is a COMEDY from 1932!
The B-Plot involves one of the 2 men trying to prove the 'Elephants are afraid of Mice' Theory.  They beat Mythbusters to it by about 80 years.

Oh and the guy running next to the Car is a Servant.  While that is bad enough, he's actually from Brooklyn...so they're just being Racist in general with no cultural excuse.  Joy.
In the main Plot, the angry guy sets up our hero with a rival Tribe to kill him.  It fails.
He tries again to rape the titular girl, but is stopped by our hero.  The fight turns against him, until an Ape just casually murders the villain.  Hurray?  The End.
Not the best way to start out this Set!  To be fair, this was made 83 years ago.  I know that certain ideas of how people of other Races have (thankfully) progressed since then.  I would ask if they really think that South Africa is just all Jungle and why there are so few white people there?  I'm not an expert on the population there, but it seems off, even for 1932.  Oh right- I'm not supposed to question anything!  Yeah, I can't do that.  This one is very-dated and I can't imagine what was supposed to make it so funny back then.  I'd love to hear someone else's opinion on this one, to be honest.  Aside from the PC stuff, the subject matter isn't treated as lightly as you'd think, aside from the B-Plot.  How did that help exactly?  Regardless, this is an odd piece of Film History that you're apparently supposed to enjoy with 'complete mental abandon'...
Next up, let's return to the present with some foreign silliness.  If you liked Ouija, then...wait, I can't finish that sentence, can I?  Stay tuned...

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