Olga's Girls

REVIEW
The Olga films are among the most highly regarded and fondly remembered 1960s sexploitation “roughies,” and it’s not difficult to see why: with an emphasis on unrestrained sadism, bondage, and torture – and little in the way of narrative to detract from the almost uninterrupted fetishism on display – the Olga films also boast surprisingly accomplished, high-contrast black-and-white cinematography, and commanding work from actress Audrey Campbell in the eponymous role.

Olga’s Girls is one of the trio of “Olga” titles with Campbell in the lead role, and many feel that it’s possibly the best of the series (the other two Campbell Olga films – all three made in 1964 – are White Slaves of Chinatown and Olga’s House of Shame, both of which are available on a Something Weird DVD, along with a third, unrelated spin-off feature, Olga’s Dance Hall Girls). If your attraction to the Olga films is largely S&M-related, then there’s little doubt that Olga’s Girls is indeed the apex of the series – the most fetishistic and purely sado-masochistic in nature of the films (no mean feat), Olga’s Girls unfolds almost exclusively in Olga’s apartment and basement torture chamber, and the plot is kept to a bare minimum. Olga presides over a Chinatown den of prostitutes (some of them hooked on the “H,” of course…), and cruelly disciplines any of her slaves who dare to get out of line; chastity belts, torches, and electro-shock all come into play at various points in the narrative, as does a genuinely nasty tongue-severing. That’s about it for the narrative: director Joseph Mawra and producer George Weis keep the Olga films as spare and lean as possible, the films functioning as stripped-down, harsh (yet oddly dreamlike) essays in sado-masochism and dominance.

Like the other films in the trilogy, Olga’s Girls benefits from striking, chiaroscuro black-and-white cinematography, but it’s also the most claustrophobic of the series: Chinatown contains some evocative location footage of NYC in the winter, and House of Shame really opens up the drama, including some impressive upstate New York locations (and the first usage of sync sound in the Olga films), but Olga’s Girls remains largely confined to Olga’s interior torture chambers. Then again, this also contributes to the feverish intensity of the piece, and Olga’s Girls endures – along with the two other Campbell Olga films – as an essential example of 60s roughie sexploitation at its finest.