{"id":36639,"date":"2022-01-28T21:05:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-29T02:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=36639"},"modified":"2025-07-14T10:49:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T14:49:19","slug":"the-bootleg-files-ouanga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/28\/the-bootleg-files-ouanga\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Ouanga"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 793: <\/strong>\u201cOuanga\u201d (1936 horror film starring Fredi Washington). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On Vimeo.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> On cheapjack public domain labels.
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\nREASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> No one is rushing to get it into home entertainment release.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> The film has been restored, but no one is rushing to put it out on Blu-ray.<\/p>\n

Fredi Washington earned a degree of cinematic immortality for her startling performance as Peola, the light-skinned Black woman who is repeatedly thwarted in her attempts to transcend the racial barriers of Jim Crow America by passing for White in the 1934 classic \u201cImitation of Life.\u201d This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime role for Washington, both in terms of the quality of role and the exposure it afforded her \u2013 at a time when Black women in Hollywood studios were either cast as maids or nightclub singers, Washington found no offers to score a dramatic encore.
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But that\u2019s not to say she disappeared entirely. Shortly after \u201cImitation of Life\u201d was released, she was given the opportunity to star in an independently produced film that dared to challenge many of the censorship restrictions imposed on racially-tinged productions. The resulting film would play under several titles \u2013 it is best known as \u201cOuanga\u201d and it is one of the most peculiar yet jolting works of American independent cinema.<\/p>\n

The onerous Production Code that went into effect in 1934 specifically forbid the depiction of interracial romance. Yet the foundation of \u201cOuanga\u201d is an interracial love triangle \u2013 how the filmmakers imagined they could get this film past the censors is unclear. <\/p>\n

\u201cOuanga\u201d is set in Haiti and casts Washington as Klili, the owner of a plantation who is madly in love with Adam (Philip Brandon), a White man who has been away from the island for two years and is returning with Eve (Marie Paxton), a White woman who is going to be his bride. No matter how intense Klili begs Adam to overlook her \u201cdowry of blood,\u201d he refuses to consider her as a love interest. Klili is furious, observing how her white skin is just as pale as Eve\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Alas for Adam and Eve (yeah, you get the obvious joke in the character\u2019s names?) Klili is also a Haitian voodoo priestess. In fact, the film opens with Washington and a group of female dancers doing a voodoo dance \u2013 although their costumes and choreography seem closer to Harlem\u2019s Cotton Club than the Caribbean jungles.<\/p>\n

Complicating matters for Klili is LeStrange, Adam\u2019s Black overseer. He is in love with Klili, but she rejects him. As Klili plots a horrific voodoo-laced fate for Eve, LeStrange conspires to bring down Klili.<\/p>\n

The most interesting element of LeStrange\u2019s character is the fact he is played by Sheldon Leonard, a White character actor who is best known for playing gangsters in movies, radio and television. Why it was decided to give the role to Leonard and not a Black actor is unclear, especially since he overplays the role badly with broad grimacing and eyebrows that arch into obvious menace.<\/p>\n

For contemporary viewers, \u201cOuanga\u201d really pushed the limits of its day with Washington\u2019s vain romantic pleas to Brandon and Leonard\u2019s aggressive physicality to Washington. This might have been the first American film that depicted interracial romantic entanglements \u2013 it wouldn\u2019t be until the late 1950s with films like \u201cIsland in the Sun\u201d and \u201cThe World, the Flesh and the Devil\u201d when the concept of Black and White people being in love was able to be raised, albeit gingerly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOuanga\u201d is also notable as the second film to include zombies in its plot. Another indie film, the 1933 \u201cWhite Zombie\u201d starring Bela Lugosi, was the first.<\/p>\n

\u201cOuanga\u201d is not, by any stretch, a great film. There is a subplot with Adam\u2019s Black valet and Eve\u2019s Black maid that traffic too heavily in tiresome stereotypes. And much of the acting is at a subpar level, particularly Paxton\u2019s tiresome Eve.<\/p>\n

But the real oxygen here is Washington. Her Klili can be seen as Peola\u2019s evil twin \u2013 a harsh, vengeful, obsessed woman who cannot accept that she will never be viewed as White, and who is willing to bring down everyone and everything around her to satisfy her need for revenge. She brings a power and fury to the role that is remarkable \u2013 this might have been a crowning jewel in her career if the rest of the film matched her talent and energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOuanga\u201d always seemed to be plagued by problems. It was supposed to be shot in Haiti, but the production crew was forced to leave the island over complaints of how it was going to portray voodooism. It was shot in Jamaica, where four few members were killed under violent circumstances \u2013 two died when a cyclone hit the island, one was killed by a barracuda and another had a fatal bout of yellow fever. When the film was finally completed, its subject matter made it impossible to find theatrical release. Director George Terwillger did a semi-remake in 1939 called “The Devil’s Daughter” with an all-Black cast headlined by Nina Mae McKinney.<\/p>\n

\u201cOuanga\u201d was on the shelf until 1941 when Paramount Pictures picked it up and dumped it into release on a states-right basis, where the Production Code censors were not always paying strict attention. The film would get a 1951 re-release from Realart. Over the years, it underwent different titles including \u201cDrums of Voodoo\u201d and \u201cLove Wanga\u201d while several minutes of footage were shorn. It was considered lost for some years before a print emerged in Canada. Last year, it received a digitally restored version was given a virtual screening by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.<\/p>\n

A few cheapo public domain labels released \u201cOuanga\u201d on VHS and DVD, but the restored version is not available on any home entertainment format. The UCLA virtual screening is still online, though perhaps not forever, and fans of offbeat old flicks should take some time to explore this weird but invigorating curio.<\/p>\n