Son of Ingagi

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Movie
Original title Son of Ingagi
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1940
length 62 minutes
Rod
Director Richard C. Kahn
script Spencer Williams
production Richard C. Kahn
camera Roland Price ,
Herman Schopp
cut Dan Milner
occupation

Son of Ingagi is an American horror - science fiction film by Richard C. Kahn from 1940. Despite the name, not it is a sequel to Ingagi - Lord of the wilderness . Son of Ingagi is considered the first film of its genre with an all-black cast. The film is based on Spencer William's short story House of Horror .

action

After Eleanor and Bob Lindsay's wedding, the quirky and stingy old lady asks Dr. Helen Jackson asked her attorney to change her will. The lawyer makes the change and learns that Helen was once in love with Eleanor's father, but out of sheer grief that he preferred his mother, had traveled to Africa. There she brought home a considerable fortune. After the will is changed, her brother Zeno shows up and searches her office for the gold. But she strikes a gong and a kind of ape man named N'Gina appears from his secret hiding place in the lady's laboratory. Zeno flees in fear. N'Gina is said to be the missing link between apes and humans. The specimen that Helen brought to America originally came from Africa and is her assistant.

Later, in her laboratory, Helen develops an Elicxir that is supposed to serve the good of humanity. But N'Gina drinks it unnoticed and gets into an unstoppable rage. In this rage he kills his mistress. The Lindsays are awarded the house, but are suspected of murder. However, when the accusations dissolve in favor, they move into the house.

In the house, food often disappears. When the executor wants to see more documents, he accidentally hits the gong and is murdered. Detective Nelson is tasked with the case and is now on guard duty on the property. When Zeno enters the house again, Eleanor tries to stop him, but accidentally meets her husband.

Zeno comes across the secret passage into the cellar and finds the gold there too. When he tries to steal it, N'Gina overwhelms him. The screams call the detective, Eleanor, and Bob to the scene. They search the whole house. Ultimately, Eleanor finds N'Gina. But this takes them to the cellar. There he accidentally causes a fire. Through the smoke, Bob and the detective discover the secret chamber. Bob can lock the monster in a cage and free his wife. Nelson manages to get hold of the gold. The couple now look forward to a happy future.

background

Spencer Williams

The name of the eponymous character comes from the film Ingagi - The Lord of the Wild and describes an allegedly existing ape man who sleeps with women in Africa. The deeply racist film is in the style of a documentary and has nothing in common with Son of Ingagi except for the title. The addition “Son of” in turn is reminiscent of “ Son of Kong” (1933, German title: King Kongs Sohn ). The original story of the author Spencer Williams, however, was called House of Horror . The film has nothing to do with either of the films. Presumably the title was chosen from a purely commercial point of view. In fact, the film is more reminiscent of Frankenstein from its story .

The film is a so-called race film and is generally considered to be one of the first science fiction and horror films to be shot with an all-black cast. However, this is controversial, because the missing The Conjure Women (1926) by Oscar Micheaux could also have been a horror film.

Shot in a racist America for the heyday of racial segregation , any reference to a "white society" has been erased. Only director Richard C. Kahn is not black. Spencer Williams himself, author of the template and the script, took on a role as Detective Nelson, a kind of comic relief in the film. It was the breakthrough for Spencer Williams. He was allowed to direct the race film The Blood of Jesus (1941). Besides Oscar Micheaux, he was the only black director of his time.

As a special treat, the popular music group The Four Toppers performed at the wedding celebration .

Today the film is deposited in the Internet Archive , in the Berkeley Library of the University of California and in the National Museum of African American History and Culture . In 1993 it was shown at the Munich Film Festival .

reception

According to Cynthia Maria Erb, the film suffers from the flaws of many so-called “ race films ” of the 1940s, as they would be set in pure “black communities”. There are no “white” characters in the film. Even allusions to slavery , such as the abduction of the creature from Africa, have to do without reference to a white society. The slave mistress is played by a light-skinned black woman, which makes the socially critical character of the film appear vague. Nevertheless, the film would pick up racist jungle films and oppose them with a different cultural perspective. So Spencer Williams would put a lot of emphasis on class humor. The creature should also be seen less as a monster, but as a kind of vulnerable being that emerged from colonialism .

Richard Gilliam from Allmovie described the film as one of the most interesting low-budget films of the 1940s. In particular, Spencer Williams' appearance as a detective would be very beneficial to the film, whereby he praised the believable characters overall and the courage to cast a middle-aged lady as a Mad Scientist . The big weak point of the film, however, is the monster, which is not an "ape man", but quite obviously a man with a strange mask. A few passages also seem to be missing because the continuity of the film is abruptly broken several times.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Cynthia Marie Erb: Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture . Wayne State University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8143-3430-0 , pp. 193 ( google.com [accessed August 4, 2020]).
  2. ^ Robin R. Means Coleman: Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present . Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-136-94294-5 , pp. 72 ff . ( google.com [accessed August 4, 2020]).
  3. ^ A b Mark A. Reid: Black Lenses, Black Voices: African American Film Now . Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7425-2642-6 , pp. 61 ( google.com [accessed August 4, 2020]).
  4. ^ A b c Richard Gilliam: Son of Ingagi (1940) - Richard C. Kahn | Review | AllMovie. Retrieved August 4, 2020 (American English).
  5. ↑ Tensecondsfromnow Says: Son of Ingagi (1940). In: The EOFFTV Review. July 14, 2020, accessed on August 4, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Black Cinema: Micheaux Must Go On. In: TIME. October 20, 2010, accessed August 4, 2020 .
  7. ^ Son of Ingagi (1940) | UC Berkeley Library. Retrieved August 4, 2020 .
  8. ^ Son of Ingagi. In: National Museum of African American History & Culture. Retrieved on August 4, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Film details - Son of Ingagi. In: Munich Film Festival. Retrieved August 4, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Cynthia Marie Erb: Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture . Wayne State University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8143-3430-0 , pp. 197 ( google.com [accessed August 4, 2020]).