Ingagi

1930 ActionAdventure 81 minutes Directed by William Campbell

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About Ingagi

The film presents Sir Hubert Winstead as a London explorer in the Belgian Congo, looking into a tribe said to worship gorillas. Women are shown being given over to the animals. The expedition, the tribe, and the ritual were staged. Most of the picture was shot in Los Angeles, with American actresses, and much of the animal footage was made at Griffith Park Zoo. Charles Gemora plays the gorilla.

Cast & crew

More about Ingagi

William S. Campbell directed. William D. Alexander produced, with Nat Spitzer as executive producer. Congo Pictures was formed for this picture and also distributed it. Listed running time 81 minutes; The Numbers lists 75. A release date of 15 March 1930 is given, and it opened at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on 5 April 1930. RKO owned some of the theatres that played it. Arthur Clayton appears as the explorer Daniel Swayne. Louis Nizor is the narrator. Ed Joyce is credited as the cameraman.

Themes

  • An expedition that was staged
  • A gorilla suit
  • Advertising that the FTC pulled
  • Ingagi
  • Charles Gemora
  • Congo Pictures
  • gorilla
  • exploitation

Background

It was sold as an ethnographic record of the Belgian Congo in the pre-Code market, and the advertising leaned on nudity and on women handed to gorillas.

Making

Campbell built the "expedition" in Los Angeles and cut it with zoo footage. The gorilla is a suit worn by Charles Gemora.

Reviews

Mordaunt Hall, in The New York Times, called it "a loose assemblage of the usual African travel scenes, many of which are spoiled by extraordinarily bad photography," wrote that the screen was "a miserable blur for minutes at a time," and said the gorilla scenes lasted about ten minutes and were not convincing. He excepted a leopard trapping, a python, and a hippopotamus hunt as possibly genuine. Variety reported that the photography was poor.

Audiences

Reported domestic box office is $4,000,000.

Look

Ed Joyce is credited as cameraman. Hall wrote that much of the photography was a blur.

Preservation

A 4K restoration was issued on Blu-ray in 2021 by Something Weird Video and Kino Classics. Copies are on the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association withdrew any link to the film once the Congo story was shown to be staged.
  • Congo Pictures sued the association for $3,365,000, saying it had spread reports that the film was not authentic.
  • The Federal Trade Commission called most of the film false, fraudulent, deceptive, and misleading, and ordered the company to pull advertising that called it genuine. The sanction was lifted in 1947.
  • A 4K restoration came out on Blu-ray on 5 January 2021 from Something Weird Video and Kino Classics.

Scenes

  • The narration presents women of the tribe being turned over to a gorilla.
  • The animal shots, including the gorilla, were made at Griffith Park Zoo and in Los Angeles, not in the Congo.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (ingagi-1930)
  • Wikimedia Commons (Ingagi (1930 film).webm)
  • Kino Classics Blu-ray (2021, with Something Weird Video)