Jungle Warriors (1984)

Jungle Warriors is included in a women-in-prison boxed set but it’s not quite a women-in-prison movie although it has affinities with that delightfully scuzzy genre. 

The presence of John Vernon, Alex Cord and Sybil Danning in the cast makes this one sound promising.

Two groups of people are heading for an unnamed South American country. There’s Mafia kingpin Vito Mastranga (John Vernon) who, accompanied by his lawyer and nephew Nick Spilotro (Alex Cord), is there to organise a distribution deal with big-time local drug lord Cesar Santiago (Paul L. Smith).

The second group is a bunch of models heading for a jungle photo shoot.

There is no way these two groups should come in contact with each other, but they do.

The drug lord has his own private army and when the models’ Grumman amphibian flies a bit too close to their jungle headquarters they shoot it down. The models end up as prisoners of the drug lord and as you might expect they have a very unpleasant time. First he gives the girls to his psycho half-sister Angel (Sybil Danning) to play with. She likes playing cruel games with girls. When Angel grows tired of the games she gives the girls to Santiago’s foot soldiers. You can imagine what happens to the girls then.

Santiago thinks Mastranga plans to double-cross him. Mastranga thinks Santiago plans to double-cross him. When the girls get loose and start shooting up bad guys both men think their suspicions have been confirmed. What follows is an epic running battle between these three armed factions. Much blood is shed.

While this is happening US Federal agents are busy trying to locate the drug lord’s jungle lair. The Feds have an agent on the inside but that agent’s cover gets blown.

One thing I learnt from this movie - in the 80s all fashion models had extensive combat training and could handle automatic weapons with ease.

There’s as much violent action as you could ask for.

Surprisingly this film is relatively tame when it comes to sleaze. There is some but nowhere near as much as you would expect. The movie did run into censorship problems and was heavily cut so the original version was probably sleazier.

John Vernon is of course great fun, as are Alex Cord and Paul L. Smith. There is an abundance of overacting. Sybil Danning does the psycho bitch thing very well.

The supporting players vary in quality but they all overact and that’s what matters.

The low budget is evident and technically it’s just a tad slipshod at times.

The pacing however is taut and the action scenes have a lot of energy.

I believe this film was shot in Mexico. The locations are pretty impressive.

The theme song is sung by Marina Arcangeli and it’s stupendously awful.

Jungle Warriors isn’t great but it’s reasonably enjoyable. Worth a look if you’re going to buy the boxed set.

The Panik House DVD looks a bit rough around the edges and this does seem to be a slightly cut version. There are no extras. A restored uncut version on Blu-Ray would be nice and while it seems unlikely stranger things have happened.

The women-in-prison DVD set also includes Chained Heat and Red Heat (both with Linda Blair). Jungle Warriors is certainly the weakest of the three movies.

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold is a follow-up to the successful (and very underrated) 1985 King Solomon’s Mines.

Allan Quatermain appears in various novels and short stories written by H. Rider Haggard between the mid-1880s and the mid-1920s. He’s a big game hunter in Africa and a somewhat complex character. As a writer of adventure stories Haggard has few peers and he more or less invented the Lost Civilisation adventure tale.

The producers of the 1985 King Solomon’s Mines very wisely went for a period setting, the time of the First World War. A search for lost civilisations in remote parts of the globe would have seemed absurdly implausible in a 1980s setting.

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold is a direct sequel to the 1985 King Solomon’s Mines.

Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) and his American lady love Jesse Huston (Sharon Stone) are about to be married. Jesse insists that they move to America. Quatermain is not thrilled by the idea. He doesn’t approve of the modern world. Much to Quatermain’s relief he suddenly finds himself thrust into another African adventure. His younger brother and two of his friends have disappeared, apparently searching for a fabled lost city of gold.

Jesse storms off, determined to return to America on her own, until she remembers how much she loves Quatermain. And she’s the kind of woman who chooses a man and will then stick by him no matter how much craziness and danger it entails.

So Quatermain and Jesse are off on a search for that lost brother, accompanied by fearsome but friendly warrior Umslopogaas (James Earl Jones) and the crafty totally untrustworthy Swarma (Robert Donner).

Quatermain has acquired a useful accessory - a kind of primitive bullet-proof vest. It comes in very handy indeed.

They encounter the usual hazards, and a few unusual ones such as the ground literally opening up beneath their feet.

The lost city is a utopia and utopias are always dull. This one is all peace and brotherhood. Fortunately there’s an evil ambitious high priest (played by Henry Silva). There are two queens, one good and one evil. They’re both beautiful but the evil queen is just not given any opportunities to demonstrate her seductive evilness, which is very disappointing. Especially given that the beautiful but evil queen Sorais is played by Cassandra Peterson. Yes, Elvira herself! What this movie really needed was for Cassandra Peterson to be allowed to be totally and deliciously evil but it doesn’t happen.

This movie’s biggest strength is the casting of Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone (who were paired in the earlier movie). Chamberlain was ideal for this type of movie. Sharon Stone gets to be feisty and brave but also cute, adorable, sexy and very feminine. Jesse is no clichéd kickass action heroine but she’s a girl who stands by her man no matter what. They make a perfect romantic couple. She’s the sort of girl you could imagine a man like Quatermain falling for. He’s the kind of man you could imagine a girl like her falling for. And they’re both extremely likeable.

The location shooting is good. The special effects are handled pretty well. Visually there is nothing at all to complain about. The action scenes are quite decent.

King Solomon’s Mines was directed by J. Lee Thompson, a great director who certainly knew how to do thrillers and action adventure movies. Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold’s director is Gary Nelson and he just doesn’t achieve the same sense of excitement and energy. The first movie also had Herbert Lom as the chief villain. Henry Silva tries hard to be evil and crazy but he doesn’t have Lom’s style.

The script lacks bite as well.

There’s nothing terribly wrong with Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. It’s a decent adventure movie that suffers from being a sequel to a much better movie. If you adjust your expectations accordingly it’s reasonably entertaining. Goes perfectly with beer and popcorn. Recommended.

It looks terrific on Blu-Ray.

I reviewed King Solomon’s Mines not too long ago.

Tarzan and the Great River (1967)

Tarzan and the Great River is a 1967 Tarzan movie.

In 1958 producer Sy Weintraub took over and totally revitalised the Tarzan franchise. He brought it more in line with the original creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs. 

Weintraub believed (correctly) that the version of Tarzan presented in movies was at that point entirely played out. Weintraub wanted a Tarzan who was as much at home in the modern world as in the jungle, a Tarzan who spoke perfect English and was comfortable with modern technology. A man of two worlds.

He also felt that for the kinds of movies he had in mind Jane would have to go. This would be a globe-trotting Tarzan, a restless wanderer.

Weintraub also believed it to be essential to shoot the movies in colour with high production values, and to get Tarzan away from African settings and put him in lots of different exotic locations. Everything was to be done to make the Tarzan series seem fresh and exciting again, and it worked.

This time Tarzan is in South America, on his way up the Amazon. A dangerous bloodthirsty cult led by the charismatic and ruthless Barcuna (Rafer Johnson) is spreading slaughter and destruction among the jungle tribes.

Tarzan teams up with probably not overly honest river-boat captain Sam Bishop (Jan Murray) who has adopted an orphan kid named Pepe from a local tribe. Captain Bishop is there to provide some very uninspired comic relief while the kid is there to give the movie its cuteness factor.

Tarzan encounters dedicated doctor Ann Philips (Diana Millay). The village where she has been operating her clinic has just been razed to the ground by Barcuna. She is determined to reach another village where an epidemic has broken out. Tarzan warns her that this would be incredibly dangerous but she insists. Tarzan accepts her decision - he understands that she has to do her duty as she sees it.

Along the way Tarzan and his companions encounter all the animals you’d expect to find in the Amazon rainforest - hippos, lions, ostriches. There was supposedly some location shooting done in Brazil but I get the impression that a lot of stock footage was used without the slightest attempt at authenticity.

This is a fairly ruthless Tarzan. When the riverboat is menaced by hostile tribesmen in canoes Tarzan realises he cannot take on eight men single-handedly. He solves the problem by overturning their canoes and letting the gators take care of them. Tarzan thinks it’s a great idea and so do the gators. Tarzan deals with similar threats just as ruthlessly. Killing bad guys doesn’t bother him one little bit.

Gordon Scott played Tarzan in the first two Weintraub-produced movies, with Jock Mahoney taking over the next two. In the last three movies ex-football star Mike Henry took over. I have no problem with any of the three actors. Mike Henry certainly had the physique to look very convincing in the role. He’s perfectly OK in this movie.

The other cast members are quite adequate. It’s not exactly a movie that requires advanced acting skills.

The previous entry in the cycle, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, had been an attempt to give the movie a bit of a James Bond feel. That didn’t please everybody although personally I thought it worked quite well. Tarzan and the Great River feels like an attempt to go back to basics which may be why I was a bit disappointed by it. It’s too much of a stock-standard Tarzan movie. For me the appeal of the earlier Weintraub Tarzan movies is that they try to avoid being too formulaic.

The action scenes in Tarzan and the Great River are not quite as impressive as those in the earlier films.

Tarzan and the Great River is not a great Tarzan movie but it’s enjoyable. Recommended.

It’s included in a Warner Archive Tarzan DVD boxed set. The transfer is reasonably good.

I’ve reviewed the original 1914 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan of the Apes. I’ve also reviewed several of the earlier Sy Weintraub-produced movies in this franchise - Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959), Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963), Tarzan Goes to India (1962) and Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966). They’re all very much worth seeing. And of course if you’re a Tarzan then you absolutely have to see Tarzan and His Mate (1934) which I’ve also reviewed.

Tarzan Goes to India (1962)

Tarzan Goes to India is a 1962 Tarzan movie produced by Sy Weintraub and starring Jock Mahoney.

Weintraub had taken over the Tarzan franchise in 1958 and realised that a fresh approach was going to be needed. The old approach was well and truly played out. He dropped the idea of Tarzan speaking halting English. He wanted a Tarzan closer to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original conception. Tarzan would be an educated man, equally at home in the jungle or the civilised world. 

Jane was also dropped. Tarzan would now be more of a globetrotting adventurer, a man without ties. Weintraub also wanted to move away from African settings and put Tarzan into other exotic settings.

Most of all Weintraub wanted to avoid a B-movie look. These would be Tarzan movies made in colour and Cinemascope, shot on location with high production values. They would look like expensive A-pictures.

The first fruit of Weintraub’s approach was Tarzan's Greatest Adventure in 1959 and it’s a terrific Tarzan movie.

Tarzan Goes to India was shot entirely on location in India.

An elderly Indian maharajah asks for Tarzan’s help. A new dam is going to flood a valley and a herd of 300 wild elephants lives in that valley. Tarzan’s task is to persuade the elephants to leave the valley before the flood waters arrive. The difficulty is that the herd is led by a bad-tempered mean rogue bull elephant and he’s not likely to be cooperative.

And Tarzan has only a few days in which to accomplish his task.

Tarzan has a couple of allies. There’s the maharajah’s beautiful daughter. There’s also a boy named Jai who has also refused to leave the valley. Jai and his elephant Gavendra will prove occasionally exasperating but also very useful.

There are of course villains. The head engineer manager at the dam construction site, Bryce (Leo Gordon) is a nasty piece of work and he and Tarzan already have reason to hate each other. The man in overall charge of the dam project, O’Hara (Mark Dana), turns out to be equally villainous.

Tarzan doesn’t want to stop progress. He doesn’t want to stop the dam. He just wants to see progress done with humanity, with some concern being shown for the people and the animals who are likely to be affected. The people behind the dam project want progress no matter what the price. Fortunately the movie doesn’t get into heavy-handed messaging.

Naturally Tarzan encounters plenty of dangers, having to deal with attacks by cobras and leopards as well as that mean rogue bull elephant.

Jock Mahoney makes an interesting Tarzan. He was in his early forties at the time but he gets away with it. This is a Tarzan who doesn’t rely purely on speed and brute strength. He has acquired a certain amount of wisdom, and cool judgment. He’s an older wiser Tarzan.

The location shooting is excellent. The movie looks exotic without looking too much like a travelogue.

Director John Guillerman (who also helmed Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure) handles the action scenes more than competently.

Tarzan Goes to India is fine well-crafted entertainment. Highly recommended.

The Warner Archive DVD release looks very nice indeed.

I’ve reviewed several of the other Sy Weintraub Tarzan movies - Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959), Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963) and Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966) which is Tarzan with a Bond movie flavour. I would highly recommend all of these titles.

I’ve also reviewed a couple of the very early MGM Tarzan movies, Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934), which make a fascinating contrast with the Sy Weintraub Tarzan pictures. And if you’re a hardcore Tarzan fan I’ve reviewed the original 1914 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan of the Apes.

Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963)

Producer Sy Weintraub bought the rights to the Tarzan franchise in 1958 and he realised some changes were going to be needed to keep the franchise from becoming stale. Weintraub wanted to go back to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original concept of Tarzan - a man raised in the jungle and at home in that environment but a man who was quite well-educated (in the original books self-educated from books) and quite articulate and even cultured, and by no means completely unsophisticated. He is not just a man of the jungle but a man of two worlds.

Weintraub also dispensed with Jane, and made Tarzan something of a world-traveller. These were bold moves but they worked.

Gordon Scott played Tarzan in the first two movies and was then replaced by Jock Mahoney. This was another bold movie. Mahoney was in his forties and he didn’t quite have the incredibly muscular physique you expect from Tarzan. This is a Tarzan who has to rely on his wits as well as on brawn. Tarzan's Three Challenges, released in 1963, was Mahoney’s second and final appearance in the rôle (his departure from the series was a result of a very serious illness contracted during the course of the production).

Tarzan's Three Challenges was shot in Thailand. The story takes place in an unnamed and obviously very remote Asian country. The spiritual leader of the country is dying. He has chosen his successor, a young boy named Kashi. The leader’s brother Gishi Khan, who is clearly going to be the villain of the movie, disputes his choice. Somehow the successor will have to be taken safely to the capital from the remote monastery where he has been raised and for some mysterious reason Tarzan has been chosen for the job. He arrives by parachute!

Almost immediately Tarzan is set upon by ruffians. That doesn’t delay him too long but when he arrives at the monastery he has no proof of his identity. The only way he can prove himself worthy of his task is by facing three challenges - tests of skill, strength and wisdom.

These three challenges are just the start of the adventure. The difficult dangerous part is still to come. Tarzan has to escort Kashi to the capital and Gishi Khan and his men will be lying in wait for them. Tarzan and Kashi are accompanied by a monk named Mang, Kashi’s nursemaid Cho San and a guide Tarzan has picked up, a man named Hani. They will have to survive a raging forest fire as well as attacks by Gishi Khan’s men. And there is another great challenge awaiting Kashi and another equally perilous challenge awaiting Tarzan.

Jock Mahoney probably was a little too old for the rôle. He just doesn’t look sufficiently physically imposing. There’s nothing wrong with his acting and it is interesting to see an older, wiser and more experienced Tarzan. Woody Strode (in one of several appearances in the Tarzan films) plays Gishi Khan with gusto.

It’s easy to see why Weintraub wanted to dump Jane - it frees Tarzan up to be a wandering adventurer without any real roots and without any responsibilities, able to pack his loincloth and set off anywhere he might be needed (and to take on insanely dangerous tasks). It adds flexibility to the franchise. Of course it also potentially allows Tarzan to have romantic adventures but that flexibility is not taken advantage of in this film. This is a Tarzan who is a bit of a loner.

The Thailand location shooting is a plus. Tarzan still gets to have jungle adventures but in different jungles and there are some impressive temple scenes. The temple in the cave is pretty cool.

Robert Day directed four of the Tarzan movies. He did a lot of television directing as well in both the US and Britain. He does a fine job here.

Weintraub also did want a cheap B-movie look for his Tarzan films and he did not want to make crude use of boring stock footage. This one is shot in the Cinemascope aspect ratio and in colour and when you add the location shooting it has the expensive expansive look the producer was aiming for. It’s a good-looking movie.

While the setting is presumably supposed to be contemporary there are no signs of the modern world - no telephones, no radios, no motor vehicles (not even any bicycles). It’s as if Tarzan has parachuted into not just an exotic place but into a different historical epoch. This works quite well, giving the adventure a kind of storybook feel. This is a tale that could easily have taken place in 1914, when Edgar Rice Burroughs created the Tarzan character. The movie has a kind of lost world feel to it which paradoxically makes it more plausible.

The final action scenes are extremely good.

And the baby elephant (which Kashi kind of adopts along the way) is cute.

I’ve also reviewed one of the earlier Sy Weintraub movies, Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959). My review of the first of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels Tarzan of the Apes (published in 1914) might be of interest as well.

Tarzan's Three Challenges is fine entertainment. Highly recommended.

review - Jungle Siren (1942)

Jungle Siren is a low-budget but reasonably entertaining jungle adventure movie released by PRC in 1942. It stars Buster Crabbe and glamorous strip-tease legend Ann Corio.

This one is definitely worth a look if you like jungle girl movies, and who doesn't? And there are evil Nazis as well.

Here's the link to my full review over at Cult Movie Reviews.

Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)

Tarzan the Ape Man was the first of the MGM Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan (although there had been plenty of previous Tarzan movies going back as early as 1918). Tarzan the Ape Man was a major hit and spawned numerous sequels. The MGM Tarzan movies defined the character for several generations of movie-goers.

There are some crucial differences between Tarzan as played by Johnny Weissmuller and the Tarzan of the novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs (starting with Tarzan of the Apes in 1914). The Burroughs version of Tarzan is not an illiterate child of the jungle. Although raised by apes he has acquired an education from books. He belongs to both civilised society and to ape society. Someone at MGM decided that their Tarzan would be more popular if they quietly dropped the civilised side of the character. Given the enormous success enjoyed by the films it may well be that it was the right decision although it is a pity that so much of the complexity of the character is lost.

The movie begins with James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) and Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) hoping to get out of Africa, but they intend to leave the continent as rich men. Their plan is to find the legendary elephants’ graveyard where a fortune in ivory awaits them. The problem is that no-one knows the location of this graveyard and there’s no point in asking the natives since all the tribes are united on one point - anyone who knows the location must die. Parker and Holt however have quite accidentally stumbled upon a very promising lead.

They set off into the jungle with one unexpected additional member in their party. Parker’s daughter Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan) has just arrived in Africa and insists on joining the expedition.

It takes a very long time for Tarzan to make his appearance in Tarzan the Ape Man. This means of course that the audience is eagerly looking forward to his entrance and when he does arrive he does so in some style.

By the time Tarzan appears the expedition has already encountered some formidable obstacles and dangers. The crossing of the river on rafts, the river being infested with hundreds of angry hippos and a few hungry crocodiles as well, is a superb action-adventure set-piece.

Tarzan and Jane meet under somewhat informal circumstances - he kidnaps her and carries her off to his treetop lair. Jane spends the rest of the movie hurtling back and forth between her old life with her father and her new life with Tarzan.

In this movie Tarzan encounters European civilisation for the first time and the encounter does not go at all smoothly. In fact it’s close to open war. Harry Holt’s hotheadedness is a major contributing factor. Harry likes to shoot things and he tends to do so without giving it a second thought. This does not endear him to Tarzan, especially on those occasions when Tarzan is the target.

Tarzan’s encounter with Jane proceeds much more satisfactorily. Tarzan can’t talk but that’s OK because Jane does enough talking for both of them. In fact she does as much talking as a dozen normal people. This girl just never stops talking, although she and Tarzan also seem to manage pretty well with certain non-verbal forms of communication.

There’s plenty of action with an endless supply of marauding lions and leopards and Tarzan getting chased (and very nearly caught) by crocodiles plus of course there are the much-feared murderous dwarves. Not pygmies, we are distinctly told that these are dwarves not pygmies. And they have some nasty plans for Jane’s father and for Harry Holt.

The director was W.S. Van Dyke, more renowned for his efficiency than his brilliance but he handles the action pretty well. There is of course a great deal of stock footage, and some process shots that are amusing in their outrageous obviousness.

This movie is available on DVD but I caught it on cable TV so I can’t tell you anything about the quality of the DVDs. The TV print I saw was in reasonably good condition.

This film is of course very very politically incorrect. It’s also plenty of fun (strange how politically incorrect movies do tend to be fun). There’s adventure and there’s romance. Tarzan and His Mate followed two years later and is even better (and it ups the eroticism very significantly).

Tarzan the Ape Man is important historically in that it established the formula for most of the countless Tarzan movies that would follow and it’[s worth seeing it for its own sake. Recommended.

The Wild Women of Wongo (1958)

It has to be admitted that The Wild Women of Wongo, released in 1958, is a pretty terrible movie. It’s the sort of Z-grade cinematic shlock that will either bore you to tears or delight you depending on taste.

The opening voiceover is provided by Mother Nature herself. She explains that while overall she thinks she’s done a pretty good job she has made one or two mistakes and she proceeds to tell us about one of her bigger errors of judgment. Ten thousand years ago she tried an experiment with two tribes, the Wongo and the Goona. She made all the Wongo women gorgeous and the men ugly and dorky, while she made all the Goona men handsome studs and all the Goona women rather less than beautiful. In fact much less than beautiful.

At first things went OK since the two villages were unaware of each other’s existence, until one fateful day Engor, the son of the Goona king, arrived with a warning about a marauding tribe of ape-men. The women of Wongo are stunned when they see Engor. They have never seen such a hunky guy. They get really excited when he tells them that in Goona he’s nothing special - all the guys are equally good-looking. Omoo (Jean Harkshaw), the daughter of the Wongo king, is determined to have Engor as her husband. The men of Wongo might be ugly brutes but they’re not stupid. They figure out that they’re going to have a real problem with their women so they decide to kill Engor.

Omoo and the other Wongo gals foil this dastardly plan and for this they are punished by being offered as sacrifices to the dragon god.

Meanwhile Engor returns to Goona and now the studly men of Goona know that Wongo is full of hot babes. As you can imagine they’re extremely excited by this piece of news.

There’s really not enough plot for the film’s 71-minute running time. That’s the main weakness here. Trimmed to an hour or so it would have been much more fun. The plot also tends to wander at times. The ape-men seem like they’re going to be a major threat but then they just sort of get forgotten.

The acting is generally atrocious. In my view that’s a plus. Good acting would have sunk a movie like this. There’s some horrendous dialogue and it sounds better when it’s delivered with such spectacular ineptitude.

Whatever its other deficiencies The Wild Women of Wongo does have some nice visual elements. The various locations (all in Florida) look quite good. There’s a reasonably impressive underwater sequence. What makes that sequence really fun is that it includes a fight to the death between Omoo and an alligator. He’s not exactly the most fearsome of alligators and he’s no match for a strong healthy girl.

Naturally given all the sexual tensions there’s going to be a cat-fight scene. It’s between Omoo and her deadly rival Ahtee and it’s rather amusing. There’s also some very weird dancing by the Wongo women. They might be beautiful but their dancing skills are somewhat questionable.

There’s one moment that is quite gruesome by 1958 standards, a guy getting chomped by a gator, or at least it would be gruesome had it not been so ludicrously (and delightfully) fake.

There are plenty of very attractive women in skimpy costumes but there’s no nudity, which gives it a kind of innocent charm. There’s ample eye candy for the ladies as well, provided by the hot guys of Goona.

The ending is not totally unexpected and it’s probably the only way the film could have ended. This is after all a light-hearted fun movie.

This movie has had several DVD releases, most notably in a jungle triple-feature from Something Weird (the other movies on that DVD being Bowanga Bowanga and Virgin Sacrifice) and as a double-feature from VCI paired with Jungle Girl and the Slaver as Volume 4 in their Psychotronica series. I’m told the VCI release offers the better transfer but not having seen it I can’t confirm that. The Something Weird version isn’t too bad. Image quality is generally OK but the colours are definitely faded.

The Wild Women of Wongo won’t please everybody and perhaps you have to be in the right mood to appreciate it. I happened to be in just the right mood. I found it to be both engagingly goofy and funny and and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can certainly recommend it for fans of jungle movies and prehistoric women movies.

Bowanga Bowanga (1953)

Bowanga Bowanga: White Sirens of Africa (also released as Wild Women) is an ultra low budget 1953 jungle adventure movie which is quite enjoyable if you’re in the mood.

A couple of big game hunters on safari in Africa, Count Michelangelo Sparafucile (Don Orlando) and Kirby (Mort Thompson), come across the exhausted Trent (Lewis Wilson). Trent is an explorer and he has a strange tale to tell. Many years earlier, as a small boy, he had a terrifying encounter with the dreaded Ulama, the White Sirens of Africa. Just a few days earlier, tramping through the African jungle, he encountered them again. He is determined to lead an expedition to solve once and for all the question of the origin and nature of the Ulama.

And what are the Ulama? They are a tribe of savage white women who live in the jungle and they are feared by one and all. These amazons appear to have no menfolk.

Our three intrepid adventurers manage to get themselves captured by the Ulama almost immediately. The Count is much too scrawny to be of interest to the Ulama. The Ulama queen is however very interested in Trent. He is a strong man and she has a use for such a man. Judging by their reactions the other Ulama girls can also think of some interesting uses for a strong man. There is a great deal of excitement in the Ulama camp.

Our captive explorers do not know what strange and terrible fate awaits them. They might end up in the cooking pot, sacrificed to heathen gods or perhaps (most frightening of all) they might even be called upon to satisfy the lusts of these fearsome amazons.

Trent soon has reason to believe that it’s the queen’s lusts that he’s going to be called upon to satisfy. We discover that the Ulama do not live entirely without men but at the moment the queen is without a man. Her last husband was speared (by the queen herself) attempting to escape. Being the husband of the queen might turn out to be a slightly dangerous and not overly attractive occupation, even if the queen happens to be young and pretty.

The Ulama women are easily roused to anger and jealousy which offers the opportunity to include a couple of fairly energetic cat fights. The Ulama women seem to enjoy fighting rather a lot, and as we will learn later they like fighting against men as well.

There is some dissent within the Ulama camp. They don’t seem to be enough strong men to go around and the girls who are likely to miss out are not very happy about it. They might even prove to be allies of Trent and his companions against the queen. But first our explorers will have to survive single combat against the most formidable of the Ulama warriors.

There’s also an all-too-brief guy-in-a-gorilla-suit scene but apparently all this gorilla is interested in doing is strolling through the jungle hand-in-hand with an Ulama maiden.

This was 1953 so the Ulama are fairly modestly attired, their outfits being variations on the fur bikini theme. While these jungle women live a primitive lifestyle, hunting with spears, they do seem to have mastered the art of hairstyling (and may even have invented the permanent wave).

This film makes very extensive use of stock footage, which you’d expect in a low-budget offering in this genre. Other parts of the film were shot on location in the steamy jungles of Darkest California. This is a movie which probably cost almost nothing to make. It certainly looks like a film on which no money at all was spent.

Veteran writer-director Norman Dawn had worked extensively in the adventure genre. It’s probably unfair to offer a judgment on his talents based on a zero-budget feature such as this.

Queen Bonga Bonga is played by Dana Wilson, who went on to marry legendary producer Albert R. Broccoli. She does the fierce, proud and lustful amazon queen thing well enough. Let’s be honest, this is not a movie that was ever going to give any of the performers the chance to enhance their acting reputations. At best it was a much-needed pay cheque.

This movie is part of a jungle movie triple-header released by Something Weird, along with Wild Women of Wongo and Virgin Sacrifice  (and unusually for a Something Weird triple feature there are quite a few extras as well). Bowanga Bowanga is in reasonable shape although the print used was far from pristine. The movie was shot in black-and-white and is presented in its correct 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Bowanga Bowanga is pretty bad but it’s entertainingly bad if jungle movies and lusty amazon warriors are your thing. Recommended, and the DVD really is exceptional value for money.

Tarzan and His Mate (1934)

Tarzan and His Mate is one of the most notorious of all Hollywood pre-code movies. In fact it was considered so brazen and shameless at the time of its release in 1934 that it became one of the main reasons for the tightening up  of the Production Code. Until fairly recent times it’s only been available in a savagely cut version, with all that pre-code naughtiness removed.

It’s also possibly the best of all the Tarzan movies, and one of the greatest of all jungle adventure films. You could almost say it’s the Citizen Kane of jungle adventure films! Even now it still seems remarkably fast-paced and action-filled. There’s a considerable reliance on stock footage (in fact quite a lot of the footage is from an earlier MGM movie, Trader Horn) and on rear-projection. The process shots don’t seem very realistic today, but back in 1934 this movie offered spell-binding excitement. In fact even today it’s pretty exciting.

The plot is somewhat involved for a jungle movie, with an old flame of Jane’s setting out on an expedition to find the fabled elephants’ graveyard and the enormous cache of ivory it contains. He wants the ivory, but the real prize that he seeks is Jane. Harry is a decent sort of chap really but his partner is another matter. He’s motivated purely by greed, but disguises these base motives under an exterior of charm and affability. To reach the elephants’ graveyard these two mismatched explorers will need the help of Tarzan.

Johnny Weissmuller gives his standard performance as Tarzan, and it works. While he can’t really act he does manage to convey a certain sense of fun which makes Jane’s decision to share his jungle life reasonably understandable.

The supporting cast is quite adequate. Neil Hamilton is very good as Harry, a decent fellow really but we know that he’s not likely to be able to win Jane away from Tarzan. Paul Cavanagh as Harry’s partner Martin makes an effective, very sneaky and very caddish, villain.

The real highlight though is Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane. Wearing very little clothing (one of the reasons the movie is so controversial) she’s feisty and sexy and charming and bubbly and generally adorable.   

There’s a staggering amount of sexual innuendo in this movie. The combination of Maureen O'Sullivan’s overtly sexy performance as Jane and the extraordinary skimpiness of her costumes this would have been enough to get the moral watchdogs of the day in a lather. And then there’s the infamous nude swimming scene. As Jane dives into the water, her dress catches on a branch and is ripped off. There’s an extended underwater sequence in which none of Jane’s charms are left to the imagination (although in fact a body double was used).  If you don’t think 1930s American movies can be erotic then you haven’t seen this one. White it is erotic, it’s also playful and oddly innocent.

It’s probably worth pointing out that the movie is not quite as immoral as it seems. It’s made quite explicit that Tarzan and Jane consider themselves to be married.

It’s also an exceptionally violent movie, at some points quite disturbingly so. 

Tarzan the Ape Man had made an enormous amount of money for MGM in 1932 and for the follow-up movie, Tarzan and His Mate, the studio was prepared to be very lavish in the budgetary department. The action scenes are quite spectacular. The climax, with Jane along with Harry and Martin facing an entire army of lions, is certainly memorable. The elephants’ graveyard is another visually impressive sequence.

I caught this one on cable TV here in Australia but there have been several DVD releases.

If you’re only ever going to see one Tarzan movie, this is the one to see. It remains highly entertaining, and its notoriety makes it a must-see. Highly recommended.

Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959)

Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, released in 1959, was notable as being one of the few attempts to bring Tarzan to the screen in a form that was reasonably faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ conception of the character as delineated in his novels beginning with Tarzan of the Apes in 1914. Burroughs’ Tarzan was not a wild man who could barely speak intelligible English. He was literate and although his education was spotty he was certainly not an uneducated man. He was genuinely a man caught between two worlds but the key to understanding the character was that he was quite capable of existing in both worlds. His understanding of the jungle was profound but he understood the ways of civilisation perfectly well.

In some ways this makes the rôle more of a challenge to an actor since he has to make both sides of Tarzan convincing. Gordon Scott does a very creditable job of doing just that.

This movie is also noteworthy for its very strong cast overall with Anthony Quayle being being particularly good as the sinister Slade. A pre-James Bond Sean Connery is quite entertaining as the ruffian O’Bannion.

There is no Jane in this movie but Tarzan does acquire (much against his will) a sort of female side-kick in the person of the glamorous but cynical Angie (Sara Shane).

The movie starts with a robbery by a group of what appear to be natives (although we will soon discover that they are in fact white men). The robbery ends with a couple of brutal murders and this sets the tone for the film - this is to be no light-hearted jungle adventure romp.

Slade (Anthony Quayle) and his villainous cohorts carried out the robbery, their object being explosives. They will need the explosives when they reach the diamond mine which is their real objective. Kruger (Niall McGinnis) is a somewhat sleazy German who may or may not be an ex-Nazi. Slade needs him because although he doesn’t know too much about mining but he does know about diamonds and he knows how to cut the stones. Dino (Al Mulock) provided the boat, an essential requirement if they are to reach the mine. O’Bannion (Sean Connery) is there to provide muscle. The fifth member of the party is Slade’s girlfriend Toni (Scilla Gabel). 

Tarzan and Slade have encountered each other before. Tarzan’s objective is to bring the murderers to justice but he has a personal motivation as well, having experience of Slade’s treachery and viciousness. Slade is well aware that Tarzan is a very dangerous enemy. It’s four men against one but Slade realises that those odds may not be enough when dealing with Tarzan.

While Slade’s party sets off upriver to reach the mine Slade knows that they are the quarry and Tarzan is the hunter.

Tarzan acquires a companion when daredevil pilot Angie, who was amusing herself by showing off her flying skills while Tarzan paddled his canoe, gets a bit too clever for her own good and crashes her aircraft. There’s no time to take her back to civilisation so Tarzan reluctantly accepts that she will have to accompany him.

Another very unusual feature for a Tarzan film is that it was shot partly on location in Kenya. This adds verisimilitude and while the scenes on the river necessarily involved quite a few process shots they’re very well done. It might not have been a very big budget movie but it looks impressive. 

There’s no shortage of action either. British director John Guillermin had a lengthy and fairly interesting career which included one of the best air war movies ever made, the criminally underrated The Blue Max. He would also helm a much later jungle adventure movie, the enjoyably camp Sheena: Queen of the Jungle. Guillermin handles the action scenes well. Not having a huge budget made it difficult to stage spectacular action set-pieces so Guillermin instead relies largely on the tension inherent in Tarzan’s hunting of his deadly human quarry (who is also trying to hunt him).

There’s a pleasing absence of comic relief. Guillermin keeps things focused and he keeps the pacing tight.

The Warner Archive made-on-demand DVD is more than satisfactory, providing a fine anamorphic transfer. Image quality is generally reasonably crisp and the colours are pleasingly vibrant without being excessive. 

Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure offers us a much more interesting than usual Tarzan. There’s  some terrific acting from Anthony Quayle (an actor who could play heroes or villains with equal effectiveness and in this instance gives us a very nasty villain with a bit of depth). While Gordon Scott is good as Tarzan he’s overshadowed a little by Quayle, who has the advantage of being the villain (it’s always easier to play an entertaining villain than an entertaining hero) and of course Quayle was a very experienced and very distinguished actor. The supporting players are all very competent. The story is pretty basic but it’s very well executed and there’s plenty of excitement. Highly recommended.