The TCM database estimates that only 4.8% of all films ever made are currently available to the public, Gordon Jackson notes, which suggest that there are many weird and wonderful movies that you’ll never get to see — like Ingagi, from 1930:
The first “found footage” movie and a precursor to King Kong, the film involves a group of explorers encountering an ancient tribe who sacrifice women to gigantic gorillas.
Purporting to be a documentary, the film was a box-office smash at the time of its release, but ran into a whirlwind of legal troubles when an audience member recognized an “African native” who’d come straight from Central Casting. Challenging its authenticity, the MPPDA ordered Congo Pictures, Ltd., Ingagi‘s distributor, to cease all distribution and exhibition of the film immediately, claiming that much of it was actually shot in Los Angeles. Congo filed a suit against the MPPDA for $3,365,000 in retaliation.
By September of 1930, Photoplay Magazine uncovered that one of the film’s actors had sued the producers over his salary, claiming he had been offered $6.50 per day, but was later promoted to “the gorilla division”. By October, a private detective in employ of the MPPDA convinced Hollywood make-up artist Charles Gemora, known publically as “King of the Gorilla Men”, to sign an affidavit swearing he played the film’s lead gorilla. The detective was also able to uncover that all scenes featuring gorillas were filmed on sets built by William Selig at the Los Angeles Zoo, and that much of the African footage had been stolen from earlier films, including Lady Grace Mackenzie’s 1915 documentary “Heart of Africa” — prompting another lawsuit from Mackenzie’s son, Byron.
To make matters worse, the American Society of Mammalologists protested the film, taking special umbrage at a species of venomous reptile seen within called the “Tortadillo”, which was later revealed to be a leopard tortoise with wings, scales and tail attached. The group demanded Sir Hubert Winstead, Ingagi‘s chief explorer, have his credentials checked, leading to an investigation from the Better Business Bureau which discovered no such man existed. By 1933, the Federal Trade Commission issued a cease and desist order against Ingagi, demanding the film no longer portray itself as a factual record, and in consequence resigning it to obscurity. King Kong would be released later that year.
The film’s controversy proved to be a financial boon, earning Ingagi an astonishing $4,000,000 in 1930 alone, though $150,000 would go to Byron Mackenzie in damages. Ten years later, a sequel, Son of Ingagi, was released — the first genre film in history to feature an all-African American cast.
The whole list is weird and wonderful.