Short Takes

This criminally ignored musical farce desperately demands cult status and, no doubt, the warm embrace of the fabulously loud and proud. Mick Jagger clone Robin Askwith stars as London street urchin "Ray Fay" who's swept aboard the Liberated Lady to distant "Lazanga Where They Do the Konga" by a domineering auteur (VO5 pitch gal Rula Lenska) and her jiggling crew. Between the absurdist dance numbers and jaunty tunes about man-on-gorilla coitus, there's oceans of decidedly English giggles including groaner spoofs of Jaws and The Exorcist (with full head rotation and required "pea soup" ref). Even as the film crew arrives, Lazanga's gender-bending society is busily preparing a gargantuan picnic table for their beloved 64-foot-tall ape queen who skips out early on their soiree to make really, really big googly eyes at Ray whilst fending off a rather unconvincing attack by a papier-mache T-Rex. What does London think of its newest tabloid sensation? Well, before they'll let her go ape and paw Big Ben (or even little Mr. Fay), they insist she don an enormous BRASSIERE!!! After the final reel, join CineSchlocker fave Fred Olen Ray as he squires director Frank Agrama through an amusing track that, among other morsels, chronicles the flick's misadventures at the behest of Dino De Laurentiis. No breasts. Mickey slipping. Gratuitous toilet scrubbing. Hut stomping. Royal racking. Toffee apple stealing. Capt'n Ahab's lost mantra, "The sea is like a woman unfolding her vast mystery before us!" (1977, 84 mins, 1.85:1, DD mono, Commentary, Trailer.)