*1930 saw the debut of Ingagi, a sewn-together cinematic mess of stock footage and staged vignettes which serves as a good contender for the title of the first Mondo movie. Technically the Mondo genre started in 1962 with Mondo cane, but Ingagi carried the usual Mondo motifs: a fraudulent "true story" premise; copious stock footage; animal violence (according to some accounts); and, of course, real human exploitation. I've always felt wary of Mondo movies because, while they are technically from the same kingdom of being as the other exploitation movies I watch, it's sort of like saying that a cat is in the same class as an octopus or a spider. Like. Mondo movies feature real animal death, real human death--both caused on occasion by the filmmakers (caused often, I should say, in the case of the former). Mondo filmmakers have participated in human trafficking to make their movies. Ingagi typified that by having its primary selling point be a supposedly real sequence wherein an African tribe marries their women off to the titular Ingagi, a larger-than-average gorilla. They then proceed to beget gorilla-human hybrids, represented by black children with fur glued to their faces. All fake, with gorilla suits and everything. But presented to an audience who wanted it to be true, to confirm their ugly beliefs as authentic.
Ingagi is mostly lost today and that's probably a good thing. I say "mostly lost," because there are at least two prints said to remain in existence, and the film has enough demand where those prints may once be used to spare the film before they degrade beyond repair. But in my opinion, it should be presently exclusively as a historical document--a significant part of the history of exploitation cinema, and, similarly, an artifact of erroneous beliefs on race that were spawned by prejudicial and hateful social conditions. I'm thinking something rather like the DVD release for the Warner Bros. censored shorts. They could be respectful about it even while realizing there's no way to be perfectly respectful.
I'm not here to talk about Ingagi, however, because like 99.999999% of the living human race of the present, I haven't seen it. I'm here to see a film which, at first glance, must seem like a sequel to Ingagi. Unless there's something I don't know about, the two films are unrelated, at least as far as plot continuity goes. Think of Son of Ingagi instead as the anti-Ingagi--a movie which, instead of being a slander against black people, is created by and produced for the benefit of black people. While I don't know for sure, I suspect that this was the purpose behind Son of Ingagi's creation, during the period of the segregated "race films"--some accounts suggest the opposite, that Son of Ingagi was made to celebrate Ingagi, which, like many jungle films of the time, was appreciated by black audiences. It's possible that both are true. It's possible to be a fan of something and yet want to do it better.
Let me tell you, the cast and crew of Son of Ingagi did it do it better. Whatever Ingagi looks like, Son of Ingagi is more riveting and compelling than whatever was put to film in that 1930 outset. Son of Ingagi is a manic mess to rival the weirdest and lousiest of the Monogram '40s pictures. It is a fun fantasy thriller and you really shouldn't miss out on it.
We open with the wedding of Bob and Eleanor Lindsay, and one of their guests is Dr. Helen Jackson. Jackson is a miserly woman who is extraordinarily wealthy but refuses to pay her lawyer, Bradshaw, more than $5 per session, even when he writes out her will. Her will, incidentally, is made out to the Lindsays, because for all her bitterness Jackson is mostly lonely at heart, and was charmed by their decision to invite her to the celebrations. She was also friends with Eleanor's parents, and helped them marry. This will become important later; first we have to learn about Dr. Jackson's trip to Africa. A visit from her thieving brother Zeno reveals that not only did Jackson steal a fortune in gold from several countries of the continent while adventuring out there, and she's also brought something a bit more animate from back there: the implicitly titular Son of Ingagi, N'Gina, a half-man half-ape represented by, no joke, a guy in a ski mask with fur taped to his sleeves. (Interesting that "N'Gina" is a near-acronym of "Ingagi.") N'Gina is used as Jackson's private enforcer while she perfects a scientific formula of some kind which is the conclusion of her work. It seems N'Gina drinks the potion, which causes him to go berserk and kill the good doctor. Unfortunately, it does sound pretty suspicious for Jackson to suddenly amend her will to feature two strangers as the sole beneficiaries, just days or hours before her mysterious and violent murder. Between the police, the Lindsays, and Zeno, N'Gina has a lot of people he wants to kill. Will our couple get their happy ending...or will they find themselves the victim of a horrible monster?
This movie is defined in a lot of ways by the quality of its performances, and indeed, there are a lot of different types of performers on display here. There's a brief cut, during an amusing scene where the wedding party decides to crash the Lindsays' wedding night (!!!), to a performance by a swing/jazz group called the Four Toppers. If their music doesn't say "the beginning of rock and roll" I don't know what does, and they're amazing to see in action. I know that the origin of rock is an intense debate, but the genre wouldn't exist without black people and "race music"; race music in a race film. Most of the musical culture we take for granted in America was created by black people, to be frank, and there is really just something about this performance which prefigures rock in a way that I haven't seen before in any early '40s music I've heard...anyway, I digress. The Four Toppers are awesome, and they bring even more class to already classy cast.
Laura Bowman as Dr. Jackson is especially great. I want to look for more of her movie appearances. She is simultaneously cheesy and wooden, and it works well for the prototypical '40s mad scientist, in a very Bela Lugosi sort of way. She brings us a particularly artistic scene in the film, which is, incidentally, her death scene. When N'Gani closes in on her, we cut back towards the cool, calculated face of the ape-man, and her wide, panicked eyes. It's a little silly-looking, but as he strangles the doctor an inkwell falls from her desk and spills out--resembling nothing less than blood in black and white. It's a clever way of having a bloody death in a necessarily-bloodless film. (Thanks, Hays Code.)
Once again, I wish I knew more of the origins of this movie, and how the thinking came about for the title. I've always liked movies that are cash-ins/sequels/fan-films which also criticize the movie they're based off of. Is Son of Ingagi some sort of meta thing for Ingagi? Or was it played straighter than I anticipated? (Generally the film is ruled out as a sequel, for at no point is it suggested that N'Gani is a gorilla-human hybrid, a literal Son of the gorilla Ingagi--the general implication is that he's the missing link, meaning he is more of an evolutionary throwback.) I've found no production details on this film whatsoever, nor have I been able to divine the true relationship Ingagi had to black audiences of the '30s and '40s. Someone help me out! Sometimes the most beguiling thing about B-movies of this vintage is that we know nothing about them. But I want to change that. There's got to be something of interest here.
Movies like Son of Ingagi laid for the ground for movies like Sugar Hill and other blaxploitation films. I am fascinated by these race films of the '30s and '40s, not merely for their role in the history of blaxploitation. I also feel like they stand as a statement of important history in our country; as soon as there was film, there were people of color working on it as eagerly and skillfully as their white counterparts. Watching these movies calls up many similarities to other films I've seen from the Golden Age of Hollywood--and it really makes me wonder. I don't claim to be immune to perpetuating racism; I am white and have white privilege. I fight against racism, however, because I am faced persecution of my own and I know it's not right to let that happen to others. And so, fellow white people, when I see movies like these, I see how undeniable it is that black people are just like us. For someone to be unable to see black people as having the same qualities and thoughts and feelings as us white people, while also preserving a vital difference and diversity, is incomprehensible to me. Once, I was worried that showing off these cheap movies would be racist; I would be celebrating movies that showed nadirs of talent, which would surely count as poor representation. But in my mind, movies that are wrought with cheapness, and mistakes, show another dimension, a positive one, to the imagination, ambition, and talent of filmmakers. It shows a tenacity to not give up despite budget limitations; it shows people having fun with their friends. Anyone who sees these films and takes them as justification for barriers between people of different races is in the wrong. Trash is universal; everyone can make it. And we humans--we make it so good.
* This title card's improper cropping is a fault in the YouTube version of the film, not my version of the image. This is due to a fault in the print scan used for the video.
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