THE GOLDEN IDOL, KILLER LEOPARD (1954)., LORD OF THE JUNGLE (1955)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: (1, 2) *poor*, (3) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


The most interesting thing about the last three BOMBA films is that, although numbers 10 and 11 are nearly rock-bottom in terms of general entertainment values, the twelfth and last at least rises to the level of "fair," which puts it on the same mythicity-level with the first (and best) in the series.

The idol of number 10's title-- hilariously referred to several times as "the Golden Idol of Watusi"-- is a priceless relic that the Jungle Boy steals from Ali, a crooked Arab chieftain, who in turn stole the idol from its true owner. Ali suborns the help of a crooked white hunter to track down Bomba and recover the statue. At the same time, a pretty young archaeologist arrives, and she tells Bomba that museums will pay top dollar for the idol to the tribe that owned it. (Almost as soon as she arrives, she decides to go swimming, signifying that the shadow of Maureen O'Sullivan still loomed large over the Bomba series even by the 1950s.) Mostly, IDOL burns up its running time with various chases and captures, none of which are memorable.

That said, IDOL is still a little better than KILLER LEOPARD, the dullest of the series. In addition to the leopard, Bomba also has to deal with a lady, though only in a non-romantic sense. LEOPARD dovetails the overt plot of the hunt for a man-killing beast with that of a civilized wife looking for her husband, who fled into the jungle from the forces of the law. Garland, one of the few BOMBA leading-ladies who went on to a measure of film-fame, has very little to do, though she does go swimming as well, with the usual result that Bomba must rescue her. There's a slight suggestion that Bomba's interested in her despite her married status, but naturally nothing comes of it, even though he was about 24 and no longer a "boy" in truth.

LORD OF THE JUNGLE-- which some writer may have borrowed from the title of a 1928 Tarzan book-- at least places the jungle boy in a situation that pits his love for the jungle-world against the encroachments of civilization. After a herd of elephants wreaks chaos on various native habitats, the colonial government sends Wood (Wayne Morris) and his fellow hunters to gun down the whole herd. Bomba argues with Wood, claiming that only the leader of the pack is a rogue, and that, if the rogue leader is killed, the other elephants will go back to their non-destructive ways. Wood, though not a true villain, is a martinet who insists on following his orders, and he doesn't like it when Bomba tries to keep the elephants on his land to prevent their being slaughtered. Bomba meets some resistance also from the local commissioner, who's usually on the jungle boy's side in other entries, but the commissioner's niece Mona (yes, another swimming fiend) throws her support toward the hero. Though Bomba is put into a few perilous pickles from stampeding elephants, in the end he gets his way when the rogue is slain and the other elephants are spared. Thus the series ends on the same quasi-ecological theme with which the first film in the series began.