malcolmgsw
This is a supposedly startling expose where the outrageous actions are shown and is accompanied by a very moralistic narrator.There are some interesting views of London in the sixties.Difficult how they can call this primitive.Rather,like the film dull and rather boring.The only points of interest are Mick Mcmanus and Macdonald Hobley.The strippers are totally devoid of sex appeal.
christopher-underwood
Marginally more watchable than the previous years, London In The Raw, also from Mr Miller, this does, however, seem to have less genuine documentary sequences and more reconstructions. Still, it keeps one's attention and the is far more flesh in this, even if overall the girls are older and less attractive. The makers were clearly much affected by the role that censorship was to play in the chances of this getting released so for every salacious shot there was a hectoring response from the narrator. This was much in line with other media coverage at the time. The News of the World newspaper for instance was always carrying features with proclamations such as; 'Will these vile practises ever be stopped? - See pages 2, 3,4 and 5'!! Still, if that was the only way outside of a naturist film to get flesh on screen, then in exploitation film-making, needs must. I liked the wife swapping enactment and here the disapproving narration inadvertently adds some humour. As with other, aforementioned DVD release this is much helped by excellent extras including substantial booklet and shorts.
gavcrimson
Warning: spoilers.Primitive London's director Arnold Louis Miller was a kind of British Barry Mahon,who came into his own during the nudist camp era and subscribed to a quantity over quality ethos. The film is Louis Miller's answer to the Mondo Cane cycle of sensationalist documentaries. He had ventured into this territory before with West End Jungle an expose on prostitution,only for the film to have been banned by the British Censor in 1961. Despite that Miller and loyal cameraman Stanley Long,made London in the Raw and this follow up a few years later. The temptation that the ‘offbeat,scintillating,uninhibited' were only a double-decker bus ride away,must have proved greater than the worry they might get burned by the censor again. The obvious precursor to Long's 1970s sex documentaries Naughty and On the Game,the film's eye catching campaign featured a leopard skin clad stripper bursting out of a map of the capital. Opening with the birth of a baby;Miller's film is something of a tour-de-force in its attempts to cover just about every group making headlines at the time from dizzy overworked strippers to beatniks,mods,rockers and wrestlers as well as people who dabble in esoteric sports like judo,kendo and wife swapping-not all at the same time you understand. Wife swapping in the film is represented by men dropping spoons down women's dresses and people singing dirty rhyming songs,`these people are true delinquents' the film complains. Surprisingly given that Primitive London is a product of a time when British exploitation films had to morally justify their existence to the censor, at one point the film lightens up and almost gets a sense of humour about itself when the David Gell narration is temporary eschewed in favour of over two other voiceovers bickering on the soundtrack. ‘Harry' the film's sensitive editor enjoys cutting into the film lyrical shots of swans only to fall foul of ‘Louis' the film's director whose having none of that arty nonsense and immediately orders Harry to show scenes of rock and roll and girls in topless swimsuits, the stuff that the public will pay to see. It's played for comedy,but also seems a candid view of how Miller sees himself as an artless exploitation director. A suspicion given extra credibility by the beatnik scene,in which Miller thrusts a microphone in the direction of beat girls and boys,asking ‘do you believe in free love',‘do you believe in marriage' in a tone that is part tut-tut moralist and part envious dirty mac. Primitive London apes Mondo Cane most heavily in the juxtaposing of sequences for insightful or sardonic purpose,a bloody re-enactment of the Jack the Ripper murders is preceded by shots of smashed up cars. Gell notes that more people will die as a result of automobile accidents than ever did at the hands of the more famous murderer. While the ‘civilised' ritual of a housewife buying a chicken at the local supermarket is a stark contrast to the film's most infamous scene-a gruelling look at the killing of battery chickens,in which they are given electric shocks and have their throats slashed in an assembly line fashion. The sequence also throws in the memorably vomitious shot of a chicken's severed head hanging from a meat hook. There are some attempts at titillation as well but in a repeated pattern anything remotely salacious is quickly followed by something absurdly anti-erotic such as an operation being performed on a goldfish or close-ups of an unsightly corn being removed by a scalpel. The final blow for an audience on the lookout for muff in 1965 must be that when shots of bare bottoms and exposed flesh finally arrive,its not from pretty young girls,but from some obese,hairy old men being given a rub down by a black masseur who looks as if he is about to burst out laughing.
One of the unintentional plusses to Miller's films is that they usually offer the sight of familiar faces taking their first steps on the showbiz ladder. Another Miller title Secrets of a Windmill Girl features pre-fame appearances by Peter Gordeno,Dana Gillespie and Pauline Collins. In Primitive London we have Barry Cryer masquerading as a demanding TV ad director,lacquered haired wrestler Mick McManus at the outset of his career,while the late Jewish comedian Ray Martine is held up as an example of the new breed of ‘hateful' and ‘disturbing' comedians whose jokes are at the expense of audience members or authority figures. It's a piece of criticism that pre-dates that of alternative comedians of the 1980s,at one point in his routine poor Ray is interrupted by someone with a hilariously put on posh accent who remarks ‘I say,I really must protest about your insulting remarks about the mother country'. Uncovering the fickle world of the pop music industry Miller got to film Billy J. Kramer at the height of his fame,his popularity reflected by the scores of screaming female fans waiting for him at a record shop signing. The downside to the pop world is illustrated by Terry Dean,faded pop singer and one time star of Butchers Film's The Golden Disc,who can walk past the same girls without any of them knowing who he is. In fact Terry's turbulent career was dogged by many nervous breakdowns leading to years in born again obscurity soon after,Miller's film captures him at a time when he's still able to shrug and crack a smile about being yesterday's hero. Prophetically Miller juxtaposes Terry with an Oriental woman worshipping a pot effigy of an idol,the scene ends with the idol crashing to the floor and shattering into a million different pieces. Today more people have probably seen Primitive London in clip form. For a lowly exploitation film just about every documentary on British life in the 1960's seems to draw on the film for footage. The theme tune has also been recycled for at least one television commercial. The film itself is sometimes dull,sometimes amusing,generally dated,of interest mainly to students of the period and people who don't like chickens.
