Primitive London and London in the Raw

The two British documentaries compiled here will puzzle strangers to 1960s "shockumentaries" (such as Mondo Cane), those National Geographic-gone-tabloid docs that gave grindhouses grab-bags of the extreme and exotic (albeit sometimes faked). London in the Raw (1964) wanders the titular city's leisure and nightlife, serving up prostitutes, ethnic enclaves, female exercise-machine workouts (quaintly considered bizarre), gimmicky restaurants, acupuncture, belly dancers/strippers, "meth-drinker" alcoholics, drug addicts, and—for real blood—male hair-plug surgery. The filmmakers were either too early or slipshod to acknowledge the "Swinging London" culture of the era, an element not overlooked in 1965's Primitive London from exploitation mogul and executive producer Tony Tenser, which opens on the graphic birth of a baby, before covering "mod" and "rocker" youth, more strippers and prostitutes, partner-swapping, topless fashion, insult comics (quaintly considered bizarre), bodybuilding, and Ripper murders. Along the way, gag voiceovers (purporting to be the uncouth producers) argue over the presentation. As a pop-culture artifact, this double bill has minor merit (and a fine remastering by the British Film Institute that it barely deserves); in fact, the latter doc's factory chicken-processing interlude could be shown unchanged today as animal-rights/vegetarian agitprop—although here it's a sleaze-metaphor for a Cockney stripper selling herself. Optional. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)