Mondo Cane - What's The Deal?

[JSngry]

Never saw this until recently, thought that with a theme song like "More" it must be some jet-set espionage/romance, but not, it's some funky looking travelogue of odd behaviors, I guess.

So this thing was a hit? Why? What was the point? What was the attraction? Was this, like, a mainstream hit?

[mjzee]

This was sort of the "oddities of the Internet" before the Internet came along.  It matched what the National Enquirer reported before they switched to celebrities.  Weird things around the world, brutal and horrid behavior, strange customs and peoples, etc.

http://www.avclub.com/article/imondo-canei-1962-65270

[JSngry]

I watched about half of it last night and found it significantly more odd than I did brutal or anything. Definitely nothing shocking...but then times have changed.

I wonder where this played, though, was it kind a grindhouse thing? It seems like it wasn't, I mean, Oscar nominated song, NYT review, sounds like this thing was mainstream from jump. Was it restricted admission, or was it fodder for the whole family?

It all seems so silly today, the concept and the movie. That song pretty much always has.

[Dave Garrett]

Mondo films were a whole genre unto themselves, and Mondo Cane was the great-grandaddy of them all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondo_film

Not sure how "mainstream" Mondo Cane was - it predated the establishment of the familiar G/PG (originally GP)/R/X ratings, but I can't imagine it got very far beyond being pigeonholed as a transgressive curiosity on the arthouse circuit. The later films it spawned were certainly much more grindhouse fodder. 

Pauline Kael reviewed Mondo Cane, and didn't think much of it:

"The Italian documentary-maker Gualtiero Jacopetti and his associates are actually documentary fakers: they set out to demonstrate how uncivilized the world is, and then fake the proofs. There's no shortage of available evidence, but they prefer titillating, shocking frauds. The grossness of the picture works to the advantage of the filmmakers, since it seems almost naïve to attack it."

[JSngry]

Kai Winding got a hit out of it, and pimped the movie's name all over the 45 and the LP, either contractually obligated or looking to draw in people who knew, or what, exactly?

What was the American box office on this thing?

[Ted O'Reilly]

16 hours ago, Dave Garrett said:

Mondo films were a whole genre unto themselves, and Mondo Cane was the great-grandaddy of them all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondo_film

Not sure how "mainstream" Mondo Cane was - it predated the establishment of the familiar G/PG (originally GP)/R/X ratings, but I can't imagine it got very far beyond being pigeonholed as a transgressive curiosity on the arthouse circuit. The later films it spawned were certainly much more grindhouse fodder. 

Pauline Kael reviewed Mondo Cane, and didn't think much of it:

"The Italian documentary-maker Gualtiero Jacopetti and his associates are actually documentary fakers: they set out to demonstrate how uncivilized the world is, and then fake the proofs. There's no shortage of available evidence, but they prefer titillating, shocking frauds. The grossness of the picture works to the advantage of the filmmakers, since it seems almost naïve to attack it."

So, Ms. Kael has predicted reality TV then...

[Dave Garrett]

On 6/16/2016 at 9:05 PM, JSngry said:

What was the American box office on this thing?

Wikipedia sez $2,000,000 US and Canada - usual caveats apply to relying on Wikipedia, but in this case they do cite Variety's box office data for top rental features of 1963. 

I had forgotten that it was actually nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes!

Edited June 17, 2016 by Dave Garrett

[medjuck]

And that's rentals which means it would have done $4,000,000 at the box office. 

[JSngry]

So...that was not ginormous dollars, right? Meaning, as Dave suggested, it was an art-house thing, although apparently one that drew more than usual? Not unlike, say, Deep Throat", people went to the porn house to see that one who would not ordinarily go to a porn house, Mondo Cane Must have been ;like this, then, movie did not cross over into other venues, audiences crossed over to come to the venue, does that sound right?

Just trying to get some picture of where this thing was sitting in the landscape when it was happening...mainly because of that wretched song that slithered all over the pop music of the day. It all seems kind of....Jack Parr-ish, something that got talked about as part of the popular conversation, even if it stayed urban and arty, something like that?

[Dave Garrett]

Yeah, I should've been more clear about the distinction between rentals and gross. 

$4 million in 1963 dollars is roughly $31 million in 2016 dollars. By way of comparison, the top-grossing feature in 1963 was CLEOPATRA at $57.77 million, which is just shy of $450 million in 2016 dollars. Leaving aside CLEOPATRA's gargantuan production and marketing budget of $44 million and just comparing the grosses, that's the difference between a feature with niche appeal and one that had a much broader audience. 

[JSngry]

So...the song got over way past what the movie did, it seems?

That's a depressing thought, although icky pop songs coming from silly movies...the classics never go out of style, as they say.

originally this!

or, actually, this, minus the hit-warning sticker...