Primitive Love (1964)
** (out of 4)
This Italian film mixes their sex romps with the Mondo "documentary" but the real highlight here is that Jayne Mansfield was at a point in her career where she'd agree to do something like this. In the film she plays Dr. Jane who travels to Italy to meet a professor who she's going to show some footage to about different cultures from around the world. Before doing this she is pretty much stalked by a couple bell hops (Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia) who want her sexually. PRIMITIVE LOVE is a pretty bizarre film because of seeing someone like Mansfield partake in it. The entire beginning of the film is devoted to the "story" of her being preyed upon by these two bell hops who are clearly a European version of Martin and Lewis. I can't say I found any of the comedy very funny because of how forced it was but at the same time it was simply so bizarre that I couldn't help but be entertained by it. Both Franchi and Ingrassia come off rather annoying but they're certainly not the worse that I've seen. The "Mondo" footage, as you'd expect, is going to turn most people off. The majority of the footage shows various love rituals from across the world. One of the highlights is a sequence where two people fall in love in a rice field and there's an outrageous sequence where a woman in China has eggs thrown at her by her husband because she cheated on him. There's also some real animal deaths in the film including a cockfight as well as a pig, crocodile, snake and a chicken being slaughtered. These type of scenes always stir up a large debate so your feelings on the matter will determine how you take such scenes. As for Mansfield, she's really doesn't have too much to do as it appears to be someone dubbing her voice. In her "acting" scenes she basically just either sits around are looks at the bell hops as if they're dumb. She does get to do a belly dance during a fantasy sequence and towards the end she does a strip tease, which should please her fans.
