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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Film Crew: Wild Women of Wongo (1958)

Rating: 3 Stars (out of 4)

Two Rights Don't Make a Wongo

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Film Crew: Wild Women of Wongo on DVD

More lunacy from some of the guys behind "Mystery Science Theater 3000," this one takes on a ridiculous, and kind of insulting, "island women" picture from 1958. Two tribes live on opposite sides of an island. One tribe is populated with beautiful women and ugly men, while the opposite configuration lives on the other side. Mother Nature and Father Time narrate and explain their "experiment." I guess we're supposed to hope that a beautiful woman will get together with a handsome man. A screeching parrot shows up every few minutes. Though I have to admit that some of the Wongo Women were kind of cute, it goes without saying that this awful movie is ripe for ridicule. The guys give it their best shot on their commentary track, with very funny results. (They way they work is that they get you off balance and keep pelting you with jokes.) As with the other "Film Crew" releases, this disc comes with an introduction, an intermission and a conclusion (not-so-funny jokes by the Crew), and there's no way to watch the movie uninterrupted, in its original state. It occurs to me that The Film Crew could be classified as a kind of subversive art group, like culture jammers, but they'd have to take on bigger and better movies than this one. (Note: Their website rifftrax.com allows viewers to download their own, "unofficial" commentary tracks for newer movies.) See also: Hollywood After Dark and Killers from Space.

Starring: Jean Hawkshaw, Mary Ann Webb, Cande Gerrard, Adrienne Bourbeau, Bill Corbett, Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy
Written by: Cedric Rutherford, Bill Corbett, Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy
Directed by: James L. Wolcott
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 71 minutes
Date: November 14, 2007