Originally planning to end a run of new viewings for movies by film maker Jess Franco with The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968-also reviewed) (released on a great Blu-Ray by Indicator), I was happily caught by surprised, when new subtitles appeared for a title from the director that did not have a single IMDb review,leading to me joining Uncle Jess in the jungle.
Note:Review has some plot details.
View on the film:
Blasting open with tribal drums over clipped together pieces of scores from his past works, cinematographer/ director Jess Franco avoids the gut munching of Italian cannibal/ tribal films, (and also does not feature any animal slaughter, thankfully) in an attempt to instead go for a safari Adventure mood, where Uncle Jess plays his unique zoom-in trombone at arrows from the tribe landing in the white slave traders.
Going round the same plot of land towards the tied/up chained woman, (a recurring theme of the director, with the woman here being played by a bored looking Karin Dior) Uncle Jess sadly displays little interest in Sylvia and Mark Grace (played with a fitting level of grubby edges by Mabel Escano & Jose Miguel Garcia) taking a women to a tribe in order to exchange her for diamonds, until the last 15 minutes, with whip-pans on the caveman/ tribal leader,and ending on a fun gloomy note.
Detailed in the superb book Flowers Of Perversion:The Delirious Cinema Of Jess Franco: Volume Two by Stephen Thrower that the screenplay by Santiago Moncada was originally written in 1976, and ended up left on Jess's desk until he decided to dust it off almost a decade later.
Over the years he had it, Uncle Jess displays little sign of having invested in putting his own touches on the script, presenting the tribe as primitive savages, and the white slave traders as a interchangeable bunch a rich creep, who all have their eyes on the diamonds.
