I was hoping that Mistress of the Apes would be an enjoyable piece of jungle sexploitation, with gorgeous blonde lead Jenny Neumann being the female equivalent of Tarzan, swinging through the trees in nothing but a loincloth; this is most definitely not the case.Neumann plays Susan Jamison, wife of a famous anthropologist, who travels to the Congo region to try and find her missing husband, unaware that he has been murdered by poachers. What follows is a rather tepid adventure, with Susan and her pals Laura and Paul learning the truth and trying to avoid becoming the poachers' next victims, while also befriending a troop of ape-men, the missing link between Australopithecus and homo sapiens.While there is a little exploitative content - most notably the (not-too-graphic) rape of Laura by the baddies, and Susan breast-feeding an ape-child (who looks just like any ordinary baby) and having sex with one of the lucky banana-eating knuckle-draggers - the film is mostly a real snooze fest.As a fan of horror films and the art of special effects make-up, I found that the most interesting thing about the whole movie was the fact that the ape-men makeup was created by Oscar winner Greg Cannom (The Lost Boys, The Mask) and Oscar nominee Rob Bottin (Robocop, The Thing).

This particularly odd Buchanan concoction opens with some street punks with guns holding-up a NYC hospital for drugs. Jenny Neumann is a pregnant patient who suffers a miscarriage as a result. While recuperating she gets word that photographs taken by her photographer husband who went missing in the Congo have been discovered. They seem to show missing link ape men (pretty good face make-up by Greg Cannom, assisted by Rob Bottin). So she goes to "Africa" (Malibu State Park, not a convincing substitute) to continue the research. Her guide and most of the men she meets (including Stuart Lancaster from Russ Meyer movies as a poacher) are total sleazeballs, so a welcome alternative is to befriend the ape men, eventually sleeping with one (!) and staying in the jungle to become a mother (or "Ape Lady" as the jaunty, out-of-place theme tune, not dissimilar to the one from QUEEN KONG, puts it). Amid this loopiness, the sexy, very leggy Neumann has welcome topless scenes. One guy says to his girl "why don't you just shut up and...function". With Barbara Leigh and a man-in-a-suit gorilla. It's just the kind of endlessly tedious yet hypnotically odd obscurity that late night TV was made for. Nicholas Josef von Sternberg (son of highly respected Golden Age Hollywood Director Josef von Sternberg) was the Cinematographer (he had previously shot DOLEMITE, ALEX Joseph AND HIS WIVES and DEATH DRUG among others, and went on to shoot the likes of SKINHEADS, NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER 2 and HOSPITAL MASSACRE). Buchanan made THE LOCH NESS MONSTER next.Movie reviews @ spinegrinderweb.com

This movie seemed to promise B-movie T&A. I don't remember it existing. In fact, I remember a tremendous dearth of it. What I do remember is bad acting, a stupid script, and a general lack of quality that could have been saved by a little follow-through and a little less restraint. I mean, all of the sex was implied and, by the standard of interspecies copulation, it was paradoxically chaste. And therefore, something I would expect to see on "USA Up All Night." They wouldn't even have the edit the thing.Personally, I know I couldn't bear through it again. But maybe I was expecting something a little more Russ Meyer. If the MST3K crew were still around it might make interesting material.

Okay, forget Ed Wood, Jess Franco or even Al Adamson. If you are interested in investigating quirky filmmakers, try Larry Buchanan. Perhaps best known for Mars Needs Women, The Naked Witch and TV re-makes of AIP drive-in classics, Buchanan was responsible for this quickly and cannily lensed piece of exploitation shot in Malibu State Park and "dressed" as Africa. Of main interest to fanboys is the presence of the exaulted Barbara Leigh as the wife of an unscrupulous profiteer. A knowing finger on the pause/slow advance button on the remote about 45 minutes into the movie will prove why she is so venerated.The story is not really worth detailing; just the elements that are intriguing or shocking: Stuart Lancaster plays his usual lecherous self, Barbara Leigh gets raped not once, but twice (and quite unnervingly, too), the young bride breast-feeds a "near man" baby, and the recurring "Ape Woman/Ape Love" song that completely undermines any serious consideration of the subject matter. I mean, this is BAD 70s white-boy funk. Finally, the miscogenation of the lead actress with one of the "near men" is enough to raise some eyebrows.The dialog--as is usual for a Buchanan opus--is priceless and quoteable. To detail these joys would be gilding the lily of audience investigation...My source is an OOP video from Pan-Canadian (cover by Boris Vallejo!)