Ingagi

File:Ingagi (1930 film).webm

The film starts with a text introduction, explaining the purported documentary background, then shows life aboard ship before it docks at Mombasa. They then travel inland to Nairobi, seeing African wildlife such as wildebeest on the way. Along the journey, they mention the finding of a tortoise with an odd, wing-like shell and large scales that they christen a "tortorillo", just before one of the dogs they brought with was purportedly killed by its venomous bite. The expedition then finds a tribe who sacrifices virgin women to the "Ingagi" to reproduce with, and they speak of a Half Human, Half Gorilla hybrid offspring. It is at this point were the expedition kills one of the "Ingagi" and then return from the expedition.

Much of the footage featured in the film was taken without permission from Grace Mackenzie's 1915 film Heart of Africa, which later resulted in legal action being brought against Congo Pictures by Mackenzie's son. The film purports to feature footage of a newly discovered animal, the "Tortadillo"; however, this animal was in fact a turtle with false wings and scales attached to it.{{Cite web |title=Federal Trade Commission Decisions Vol. 17 |url=https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/commission_decision_volumes/volume-17/vol17.pdf}} The majority of the original footage was filmed at the Griffith Park Zoo.

File:Ingagi still 2.jpg

The gorilla in the film is portrayed with a mixture of stock footage, much of which is actually footage of orangutans and chimpanzees, and actors in gorilla costumes. In October 1930, actor Charlie Gemora signed an affidavit swearing that he portrayed the gorilla. Actor Hilton Phillips, originally hired to play one of the African natives in the film, alleged that he also played the gorilla. Phillips later sued Congo Pictures, claiming they failed to pay him.{{Cite news |date=September 1930 |title=Let's Drop In and Gossip With Old Cal York! |pages=102, 104 Note: "Cal York" was an amalgam of California and New York, and not a real name |work=Photoplay}}

It was reported that Congo Pictures prepared versions of Ingagi dubbed in French, German, and Spanish.{{Cite news |date=July 30, 1930 |title=Foreign 'Ingagis' |page=6 |work=Variety}} Sources have claimed that the word "ingagi" cannot be found "in any African language dictionary". "Ingagi" is in fact a Kinyarwanda word meaning "gorilla".

The African women portrayed in the film are partially white American actresses in blackface{{Cite journal |last=Berenstein |first=Rhona J. |date=1994 |title=White Heroines and Hearts of Darkness: Race, Gender and Disguise in 1930s Jungle Films. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3814926.pdf |journal=Film History |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=316 |jstor=3814926 }}

Following the film's release, multiple articles and reviews were published that were skeptical of the film's authenticity.{{cite AV media |people= |date=January 5, 2021 |title=Bret Wood audio commentary track |work=Ingagi |medium=Blu-ray |publisher=Kino Lorber Home Video}} In response, Congo Pictures filed a lawsuit against the MPPDA seeking $3,365,000 in damages, claiming that the MPPDA had "circulated reports doubting the authenticity of the film".{{Cite news |date=July 2, 1930 |title=News From the Dailies |pages=60 |work=Variety}}

An investigation by the Federal Trade Commission concluded that the majority of the film was "false, fraudulent, deceptive and misleading", and ordered Congo Pictures to withdraw any advertising and material from the film proclaiming it to be genuine. As a result, the film was pulled from circulation. The Federal Trade Commission removed its sanction on the film in 1947.

The film was never lost, contrary to popular belief due to it long being unavailable on home video or television. Three nitrate prints of Ingagi are held at The Library of Congress.

Seven of the eight Vitaphone discs have been found by fans and are now available on YouTube.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq-ieQGhY-U&t=233s Ingagi 1930 Vitaphone Reel 1], Youtube. Accessed September 25, 2021{{Primary source inline|date=September 2022}} 96 seconds of the film are included in the documentary Charlie Gemora: Uncredited.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wppvPESZYvU Charlie Gemora: Uncredited], full documentary at Youtube. Clips start at 17:39. Video accessed September 25, 2021 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210925000058/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wppvPESZYvU |date=September 25, 2021 }}{{Primary source inline|date=September 2022}}

In partnership with Something Weird Video, Kino Classics released a 4K restoration of the film on Blu-ray Disc on January 5, 2021.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=November 2, 2020|title=Ingagi Blu-ray|url=https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=27662|access-date=|website=Blu-ray.com}}

Film critic Mordaunt Hall wrote in The New York Times that the film "is a loose assemblage of the usual African travel scenes, many of which are spoiled by extraordinarily bad photography," that "the screen is a miserable blur for minutes at a time," that "the scenes with gorillas last about ten minutes and are not at all convincing," but noted that "the trapping of a leopard, the capture of a giant python and a hippopotamus hunt might be genuinely interesting."{{cite web |last1=Hall |first1=Mordaunt |title=The Screen; From Jail to Riches |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1931/03/17/archives/the-screen-from-jail-to-riches.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=2024-03-18 |date=1931-03-17}} A contemporary review of the film in Variety reported that "photography is poor" and "the ape women are seen completely naked, but shadowed in a clearing [and] they are not as black as expected for the jungle" with "doubt concerning the naturalness of the gorilla," but noted that "there is a gripping scene when a lioness attacks a cameraman [with] no doubt of the authenticity of this frightful but vivid scene."{{cite web |title=Ingagi |url=https://archive.org/details/variety98-1930-04/page/n205/mode/1up?view=theater |website=Internet Archive |publisher=Variety |access-date=2024-03-18 |date=1930-04-16}} A review from the Houston Chronicle called Ingagi “an effort to obtain money under false pretenses and a deliberate propagation of fabrications in the name of science. It is howlingly ridiculous, so obviously fake that one forgets to resent it.”{{Cite web |title=Ingagi |url=https://www.cineaste.com/spring2021/ingagi |access-date=2024-10-25 |website=Cineaste Magazine |language=en-US}}

From retrospective reviews, Michael Atkinson reviewed the home video release in Sight & Sound. Atkinson found the film "distinctive for portending to be something it absolutely is not", noting the film's litany of large animals killed and butchered and its "wall to wall" supremacist stereotypes, while finding the footage taken from other films uproarious.{{sfn|Atkinson|2021}} A review of the film on DVD Talk noted that it is "fascinating even if it's not entirely fun. There's definitely some interest in the classic wildlife footage, but the continued brutality of the hunters (which admittedly is not shown as explicitly as it could be) eventually becomes deadening. And the way the black characters are treated{{snd}}whether it's the actual African natives put down by the narration or the American actors put into demeaning situations{{snd}}is so offputting and infuriating that it would derail any self-respecting Bad Movie Night."{{cite web |last1=Remer |first1=Justin |title=Ingagi (Forbidden Fruit Vol. 8) |url=https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74667 |publisher=DVDTalk.com |access-date=2024-03-18}}

Congo Pictures followed Ingagi with an unsuccessful film titled Nu-Ma-Pu – Cannibalism in 1931, featuring much of the same crew. Like Ingagi, it purported to be a documentary, but was mostly fictitious.

The 1937 film Love Life of a Gorilla likely borrows footage from Ingagi, as contemporary plot descriptions mention a character named "Colonel Hubert Winstead".{{AFI film|3932|Love Life of a Gorilla}} Retrieved July 3, 2022.

The 1940 film Son of Ingagi, while not a sequel, is the first all-African-American horror film and features a house haunted by a female mad scientist and her missing link monster.

In 1947, Charlie Gemora announced his plans to direct and star in a jungle adventure movie that contemporary newspapers described as a sequel of Ingagi. However, the project never came to fruition.{{cite AV media |people= |date=January 5, 2021 |title=Kelly Robinson audio commentary track |work=Ingagi |medium=Blu-ray |publisher=Kino Lorber Home Video}}

• Congorilla, 1932 film
• Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, a 2013 TV documentary that was exposed as a hoax.

{{reflist}}

• {{cite magazine|magazine=Sight & Sound|title=Ingagi|last=Atkinson|first=Michael|page=84|date=May 2021|volume=31|issue=4}}
• Berenstein, Rhona J. "White Heroines and Hearts of Darkness: Race, Gender and Disguise in 1930s Jungle Films", in Film History Vol. 6 No. 3 (Autumn 1994), Exploitation Films, pp. 314–339 (Published by Indiana University Press); {{jstor|3814926}}
• {{cite book |last1=Doherty |first1=Thomas Patrick |title=Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930–1934 |date=1999 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-231-11094-4}}

{{commons category|Ingagi}}

• {{IMDb title|id=0164686|title=Ingagi}}
• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20230815160334/http://www.geraldpeary.com/essays/jkl/kingkong-1.html Connection of the film to King Kong]}}
• {{cite web |first1=Andrew|last1=Erish|url=http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-ca-ingagi8jan08,0,6475224.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels|title=Illegitimate dad of 'Kong' |accessdate=April 3, 2008|date=January 9, 2006|work=Los Angeles Times}} [http://ramblefishing.blogspot.com/2006/01/illegitimate-dad-of-kong.html Alt URL]
• {{Internet Archive film|ingagi-1930|Ingagi}}

Category:1930 adventure films

Category:American black-and-white films

Category:1930s English-language films

Category:1930s exploitation films

Category:Zoophilia in culture

Category:Films set in Belgian Congo

Category:History of racism in the cinema of the United States

Category:Hoaxes in the United States

Category:American adventure films

Category:Films about gorillas

Category:1930s American films

Category:English-language adventure films