Untamed Women (1952)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Sorry, this movie sucks

Simply A Masterpiece

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A recommendation. Watch this film while trying to do something meaningful, time-sensitive, and pressing. You won't be able to do so, as the intense, gripping visuals on screen combined with taut, precisely metered dialogue will inevitably and quickly rivet your attention this masterpiece.This is an important film, one which I had the privilege of viewing late one Sunday night recently on THIS TV movie channel. Hopefully, THIS will air it again, because as is the case with masterworks of layered subtlety, one must repeatedly examine the subject matter to discover all its nuances.The great Lyle Talbot contributes mightily the intellectual psychodrama of this period piece.Thespian Talbot's role as physician is deftly counterbalanced by what appears to be stock footage of cannibalistic spear-toting savages interspersed with imagery of Dinosaurs thrashing about, chasing the savages and women clad in loincloth all over what appears to be a desert wilderness outside L.A.Yes, this is one not to miss. As astute reviewers here note, this film indeed proves that the late Edward D. Wood, Jr. did not direct all the lousy films, in fact he had quite a bit of competition during his heyday.But given the inane, preposterous, utterly non-credible nature of this pile of celluloid trash, Mr. Wood would surely have lamented not having so done.A sprawling epochal film of taste and beauty, layered with spears, loincloths, and girlies, one which will delight discriminating viewers for many a decade hence.Please, if you see no other film this year, see "Untamed Women".Paul Vincent ZecchinoCritic of Critical MassManasota Key, Florida18 April, 2011

Untamed Women has pilot Mikel Conrad who has spent time on a rubber raft being rescued and is now in the hospital. He and his crew have crashed in the Pacific (I think because the film isn't real specific) laying in the bed totally mute and in shock. Dr. Lyle Talbot administers some sodium pentathol and Conrad like Ishmael tells his tale.After sinking an enemy cruiser, the bomber is hit with flak and has to ditch in the ocean. The crew bails out and eventually four of them reach an uncharted island that the mapmakers missed.The uncharted island was really losing currency at this time. There just aren't any of those in the Atlantic and in the Pacific during World War II, the Americans and the Japanese probably charted everything that was left, but I digress.Once on the island Conrad and his crew run into all kinds of things, a tribe of Neanderthals who need some women because these guys definitely haven't had their itches scratched in like forever, a tribe of Amazons who are descended from Druids scattered to the four winds after the invasion of Britain by the Romans, a volcano everybody worships and for good measure some prehistoric beasts thrown in courtesy of One Million BC. I think you can figure out the rest of the plot with these elements.The movie leaves this location purposely vague. At one point the usual guy from Brooklyn who pops up in all war movies says that if they get back on the ocean the enemy might pick them up and they'll spend the rest of the war in a concentration camp eating raw fish and rice. Clues that these guys could be in either theater.These Amazons are without men because the Neanderthals have killed them all off in previous raids. They like what they see in this stranded bomber crew who speak so foreign, but want to make sure they're not with the Neanderthals. As for their looks, in those animal skins with Fifties styled hairdos, they look like a line that any Las Vegas club would be proud to have.Untamed Women just goes to show that Ed Wood did not direct all the bad movies from this era.

You would be hard-pressed to come up with a movie dumber and duller than "Untamed Women". It clocks in at barely more than an hour, and a significant chunk of it is simply padding with stock footage; but in spite of its sensational premise (four WWII Air Force crewmen are stranded on a deserted tropical isle with a tribe of mateless women), it drags on endlessly and never manages to generate even the slightest bit of interest or credibility. The "Untamed Women" have modern 50s suburban hairstyles and makeup, are plain and uncharismatic (they can't "act" at all, of course), have no muscle tone, are forced to mouth an unconvincing and unintentionally hilarious mix of Elizabethan English and pseudo-Shakespeare, and generally generate less erotic interest than the JC Penny lingerie catalog. The worst of the lot (because she is on camera more than the rest) is high priestess "Sandra", who couldn't read a line believably at gun point and couldn't "die" convincingly on camera if you actually shot her. (Not that I am suggesting anyone should. Bad performances are not a capital crime.) The men aren't much better, although some of the fault lies in the ham-handed clichés of the screenplay. Quite early in the movie I began to hope that the comic relief guy (from "Brooklyn", of course) would fall into a volcano as soon as possible. His role (and performance) was even worse than Sid Melton's similar role in "Lost Continent.") I didn't think that was possible, but the actor,director, and screenplay managed to top Sid in almost every way. Um, does this call for a "Bravo" or a Bronx cheer? Also memorably awful were the, um, "battle" sequences where the heroes battled the "Hairy Men", i.e. shot them. The Hairy Men are notable for their complete lack of energy or interest in the proceedings; they fight as though their limbs are made of wet noodles,and when they get "shot", they fall down as if struck by narcolepsy. One other sign of a really shoddy budget screenplay is the way the movie ends; the whole tribe of women perishes "off camera" as the movie shows stock footage of a rock slide and a volcano eruption.So do their tormentors, the "Hairy Men". It's pretty obvious that the director either lost interest or ran out of money and just decided to pretend he'd resolved the plot with a deus-ex-machina ending that wasn't justified by anything that had come before. Lyle Talbot is in here in a small part in the scenes that bookend the movie,and he gives his usual sturdy, dependable performance. It only makes the rest of the movie worse by comparison.

Four air force officers named Steve (the hero), Benny, (the kooky comic relief character) Ed (an insecure Momma's Boy), and Andy (the farm boy) have their plane shot down during WW2, and they land in a seemingly tropical paradise only to find trouble with it's residents: a bevy of women who just so happen to be the last descendents of the ancient Druids! The Druid women were being lead by a princess named Sandra. At first the women capture them thinking they are their enemies, then they realize one thing: they need men on their island! They soon befriend them.They also tell the men that they were being victimized by some cavemen-like people called 'The Hairy Men". The Hairy Men are after the Druid women so they could kidnap them and make them their wives. The worst character in this movie was Benny. Though he was there for comic relief, but he acts way too moronic, and his thick Brooklyn accent will give you the shudders! Compared to other comic relief characters I've seen, Benny is totally corny and unoriginal!This movie is so bad that it makes Robot Monster look like an Oscar-award winning performance! (Spoiler warning): During the scene where the air-force officers were explaining who they were and where they were from, Benny delivers a cheap piece of dialogue where he says, "We fly a bomber called an airplane! We go up and down, like this....." then he imitates the engine and gets the girls laughing, the Druid princess Sandra says, "The man has lost his senses!" The makers and writers of this movie must have lost their senses when they thought up of this plot!There was also this silly scene where our heroes, Steven, Benny, Ed, and Andy were shooting the hairy men with their guns nearly killing them all! The grande finale has a volcano on the island that erupts and destroys the island and only the hero, Steve survives. The Hairy Men were so stupid looking that they look like those mini-action figures that you find in kid's cereal boxes!Anyway, in closing, if you are the fan of B-movies feel free to check this one out!