5. The Man From Deep River (1972)
This little film was responsible for making the cannibal movie popular in Italy and it showed that occasionally, Umberto Lenzi could come up with a decent, original film with suspense in it. John Bradley (Ivan Rassimov) is a photographer in Thailand. He goes into the jungle and takes some pictures. He stays in the jungle for a while but gets captured by some natives when he takes forty winks. His guide is dead and the tribe string John up and bash him with sticks. Apparently he is a POW of a war between two cannibal tribes. John is soon freed but must endure more humiliations at the hands of the natives. Things get sexy whenever he befriends a beautiful young woman called Maraya (Me Me Lai) who assists him during his turmoil. He gains acceptance from the tribe and marries Maraya. Unfortunately the pair are destined to have a miserable time of it and the ending is rather downbeat. The sex and nudity in the film doesn't seem to me to be very sleazy compared to later cannibal entries. It has a fresh innocence about itvthat is endearing. Having said that, poor old Ivan Rassimov gets a very hard time of it - violence-wise - from the cannibals who make his life difficult. He has to go through quite a tough time to be accepted. One of the infamous Italian Cannibal movies that were hated by the British censors, The Man From Deep River ended up on the infamous Video Nasty list and did not get a DVD release for twenty years.