The white slave trade is alive and well and pipelining an endless supply of well-endowed drug-addled prostitutes to brothels in New York City's Chinatown.
Or maybe not. But that is the delightfully lurid contrivance of Olga's Girls, a 1964 sexploitation "classic." I use italics, for this is a classic in the same way that the films of Russ Meyer are classics. Full of remarkable silliness and incessant fun, Olga's Girls derives the lion's share of its reputation from its eagerness to fill our perceived need to see dozens of pairs of women's breasts. If this does not rest near the top of your List of Needs, best to stay away from this one.
Olga's Girls is one of those wonderful films that refuses to take itself seriously, encouraging you to laugh at the absurd premise and goofy situations that spiral out of it. How can we stifle a laugh when the Communist White Slave Master, who funnels girls to the wicked and sadistic madame Olga Saglo, appears in his best Wall Street three piece suit with a bevy of lovely, well dressed and apparently eager middle class girls in tow? These supposed victims of drug addiction look like they are ready to model for Vogue, not sell their bodies for dope, while the White Slaver is about as sinister as Mister Magoo. Good stuff, this.
The girls soon realise that Olga is a sick sister who gets her kicks out of tying up and torturing her young charges. In scenes that look like they belong in Bondage Monthly, Olga teases and torments her girls with whips, chains and flames. With a camera steadily set at breast level, we see more heaving bosoms than in an entire boxed set of Jackie Collins novels. The girls have a plan, however, and that's when the tables are turned…
The production qualities on this 1964 low budget effort are surprisingly good. The cinematography is in sparklingly clear black and white, while the editing is sharp and seamless. The acting and dialogue are hilariously awful, but that is surely intentional, and part of the outlandishness of the whole piece.
It will be a dull day when this sort of low budget, off-the-wall campiness is no longer deemed worthy of our attention. At a tiny fraction of the cost, there is more fun in twenty minutes of Olga's Girls than in three Adam Sandler movies.
