Despite its solid run in theatres throughout the '70s, Black Mama, White Mama was infernally difficult to see on home video for many years. A crummy, legally dubious version turned up as part of the The Philippines aren't exactly known for their booming horror film industry, but for a brief period through the 1960s (and, to a small extent, 1970s), producer Eddie Romero made a tidy profit in America's drive-ins by shooting exotic low budget gore epics in the politically charged country and releasing them under campy titles guaranteed to have parents dragging their kids to church services for penance. Romero's career got off to a roaring start with Terror Is a Man, later a hit in drive-ins under the title Blood Creature, and he continued the string of creature features with the infamous Mad Doctor of Blood Island, The Twilight People, and the surreal Brides of Blood. Unfortunately, as the quantities of gore and skin increased, the films suffered overall; in this case, the first was by far the best.
Almost everyone familiar with Terror Is a Man has noted its extreme similarity to H.G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau (or more likely, its first film adaptation, Island of Lost Souls). Poor William Fitzgerald (Derr) finds himself on the island of Dr. Charles Girard (Lederer) and his wife, Frances (Thyssen). The opening credits warn that a warning bell (actually the sound of a telephone) will sound and alert the audience of a particularly horrifying sequence, which basically consists of a few seconds of Lederer slicing along a patch of skin with a scalpel. Pretty nasty for 1959, but the face-grafting in the same year's Eyes without a Face leaves it in the dust. Generally this is much better than your average drive-in beastie fare and deserves the attention it has garnered from dedicated late night TV viewers. The beginning is a bit talky, but once things get in gear, this is a lot of fun. Fortunately, Image's newly transferred DVD is a revelation (and nifty cover art, too); the years of scratchy public domain prints and dupey TV screenings completely failed to capture the moody noirish photography and the richly textured jungle scenery. The fact that elements so clean and sharp could still exist for this film is frankly astonishing, though if someone ever manages to dig up a complete print of Mad Doctor of Blood Island that looks this good, the apocalypse must be coming.
Color, 1972, 87m. / Directed by Eddie Romero / Starring Pam Grier, Margaret Markov / MGM (US R1 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9)
After his fast and successful run of Filipino "Blood" films like Mad Doctor of Blood Island, director Eddie Romero switched gears
to offer his own spin on the women-in-prison genre. Working from a story co-written by a pre-Caged Heat Jonathan Demme, this schizoid production veers from one subplot to another with reckless abandon, all loosely tied together by a plot cribbed from The Defiant Ones. Life behind bars is hell for two prisoners, white Karen Brent (Margaret Markov) and black Lee Daniels (Pam Grier). The inmates can't even take a long, steamy shower without a lesbian guard slobbering over them through a peephole, and let's not even mention the wardens. During a trip in the paddy wagon, an assault from Karen's radical comrades sends the two quarreling women scurrying off into the jungle bound together by 
chains at the wrist. At first they indulge in some light bondage cat fighting, but begrudgingly they agree to join forces to survive. Naturally, they do the logical thing and disguise themselves as nuns. While the jailbirds hop on the nearest bus, their escape sends a number of forces in hot pursuit, such as scuzzy gangster Ernesto (Zaldy Zschornack), cowboy bounty hunter Ruben (Sid Haig), and the aforementioned revolutionaries. The various plot threads finally collide during a bloody showdown at the Filipino docks, where everyone involved is forced to face the music.
Neither the best nor the worst of the '70s WIP films, Black Mama, White Mama looks very similar to other Filipino jail epics like The Big Bird Cage. The rambling structure results in more than a few pacing lulls, or as Joe Bob Briggs would say, there's an awful lot of plot getting in the way of the story. What makes this film memorable is the presence of Grier and Markov, who teamed up again two years later for another quasi-feminist Italian B-movie favourite, The Arena. The two women don't receive as much screen time as one might expect from the title and do far less nudity than the anonymous Asian ladies populating the background; indeed, the stars are almost forgotten entirely for the middle third of the film. The ending is also an unexpected downer that negates much of went before it. Luckily the healthy doses of slapping, screaming, and showering are enough to qualify this as a sleazy good time, worthy of at least a single viewing. 
Women's Penitentiary series before Orion finally went back to the original materials for their overdue VHS version a few years ago. The MGM DVD looks even better, with an anamorphic letterboxed presentation (who'd have ever expected that?) that brings out as much colour and texture as you could expect from a film of this vintage. A couple of very minor source blemishes crop up, but the quality looks great, particularly for the low price, and the sound is crystal clear. The disc includes the US theatrical trailer in a somewhat different form than the one previously included on Something Weird's compilation tape, Afros, Macks and Zodiacs.
B&W, 1959, 89 mins. / Directed by Gerardo de Leon / Starring Francis Lederer, Greta Thyssen, Richard Derr, Oscar Keesee, Jr., Lilio Duran / Image (US R1 NTSC)
It seems the doctor is convinced he can develop human beings through the genetic components of animals - and of course, he's trying it out on a leopard, with disastrous results. The leopard creature (basically a bandaged man with pointy ears) is quite a sight - not one of the screen's greatest monsters, but definitely one of the oddest.
