Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, Jayne!, January 23, 2002
Not quite as deleriously goofy as Jayne's post-mortem masterpiece "The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield" (Hint: PLEASE! Something Weird put that one out on DVD!!!), but sure to thrill fans of Jayne and her bizarre exploitation phase, the best of her career. One scene, which might just be the dictionary definition of "camp", has Jaynie hula-dancing in a fake jungle set with a black wig to the strains of an Annette Funicello record! The plot, such as it is, involves Jayne's quest for academic acceptance of her anthropological theories in an uncaring world. She demonstrates her ideas with the usual array of "mondo" film clips in her hotel room. Shameless mugging ensues from Franco and Ciccio, two Italian comics who are delightfully surreal in their sheer UN-funniness as they try to get a peek at Jayne and her shocking footage. Jayne also does a tame (no real nudity) but sexy striptease which turns a guy into a werewolf. Jayne's husband Mickey Hargitay has an unusual, challenging role in that he appears in several scenes but has the same line in each. Although I don't know a word of Italian, the weirdly catchy theme song got stuck in my head for days.
The second feature, Mondo Balordo is also a lot of fun but Boris Karloff only narrates and doesn't appear in the film. It's a typical "Mondo" movie not especially more or less shocking than Mondo Cane, but like all of these movies, has a handful of great scenes. More fun are the trailers for other mondo movies that trim the filler and show the best gore and debauchery moments, for those of us with attention deficit disorder.
Both movies look great on the DVD when compared to VHS copies, though DVD purists might be annoyed by some flickering color fading in "Primitive Love", but it's certainly the best you will ever see a rare title like this that isn't curated like some studio "classics".
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Turn off your mind & relax, December 18, 2001
This is an interesting document of "mondo" (world) films from the 1960s, when I guess they were in vogue. "Mondo" movies were collections of live, on-the-spot films of people in their native environments, the more unusual or "forbidden" the better. This disc includes trailers for about a dozen such films, most of which feature nudity and sensationalism. If the two feature films are not particularly shocking anymore, the trailers still have the power to shock or offend people (see in particular the trailers for "Mondo Freudo" and "Mondo Oscenita"). The bottom line is usually "Never have you seen anything like this -- you won't believe your eyes, but everything you'll see in this movie is REAL!!!" This sort of thing fits nicely in the context of the Sexual Revolution, as it tends to justify a revolt from the staid mores of Western civilization by showing various options available to the adventurous thrill-seeker. The two features on the disc, Primitive Love and Mondo Balordo, are definite examples of sexploitation masquerading as an academic effort to reveal the Shocking Truth of human behavior. Primitive Love is certainly a wretched comedy, an Italian feature in the unfunny teasing/slapstick tradition of Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, but the home-movie portions (the "mondo" segments) are interesting. Mondo Balordo is about 20 minutes too long, but some of its segments hold up well (the opener, where a midget lady is escorted down the sidewalk by a normal-sized man and hustled into a back seat for some heavy petting is guaranteed to please...). Fans of Jayne Mansfield and/or Boris Karloff will certainly want to see these, even if they aren't crown jewels in their respective careers. The intermission-shorts included with these films are nicely incongruous, the longest one being a collection of ads for Pennsylvania Dutch Country merchants who doubtless would have frowned upon the very existence of "mondo" culture. All in all, an enjoyable three hours of "drive-in" madness, and certainly something different for your TV.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Jayne!, January 23, 2002
Another fine release here from Something Weird Video. PRIMITIVE LOVE features Jayne Mansfield (who totally eclipses Marilyn whatsername in every possible way in my personal book of Cool), while the 2nd feature MONDO BALORDO is narrated by a venerable Boris Karloff. Both are fairly tame, but enjoyable, 60's mondo-fests. Jayne's dance/strip segments are priceless and alone are worth the price of admission.
There are also a bunch of extras on the DVD, including trailers for other mondo movies and two short-shorts. My one minor complaint is that the cover's listing of the extras uses the kinda misleading title "Let's Go To The Drive In!" - An interactive feature allowing uninterrupted playback of almost three hours of mondo drive in madness". This is really just a way to play the disc through without using the menus. Nothing new if you've already gone through everything. No big deal, though.
Now if only SWV would release THE WILD WORLD OF JAYNE MANSFIELD...
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