DAUGHTER OF THE JUNGLE (1949)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I saw DAUGHTER OF THE JUNGLE so long ago I remembered nothing about it. From the few online reviews, I assumed it was just a one-off "jungle queen" story that would go through the motions of the usual jungle-adventure story. Yet strangely, the character of Ticoora (Lois Hall) has more in common with the jungle-melodramas of Dorothy Lamour than with the adventure-stories of Bomba and Jungle Jim. 

Ticoora was a small girl when she, her rich father and the pilot of their plane all crashed in some obscure part of Africa. The three white people were unable to make the difficult trek out of the wilderness-- I think because there are hostile tribes all around-- so for something like the next ten years Ticoora grows up with only vague recollections of civilization. 

Ticoora is sort of an anti-Sheena. In the origin of Sheena, the heroine's father dies and the young girl is raised by a native tribe, and thus she becomes a savage fighter. But though Ticoora doesn't receive training from natives, much less from animal adoptive parents, she's often seen swinging around on vines like it's second nature. She and her father eke out their living by treating natives with superior white medicine, but this earns them enmity from the local witch doctor (Frank Lackteen).

Then another plane crashes, and Ticoora meets her first new white men in ten years: Two are cops who have custody of the other two plane-passengers, both of whom are criminals being transported to prison. The four men want to get back to civilization, and I think they're willing to risk the dangerous trek because they have handguns. Ticoora goes with them-- but the meaner of the two crooks, Dalton (Sheldon Leonard), has plans to make sure he also escapes imprisonment.

There's very little action in DAUGHTER, and I rate it a subcombative adventure because there aren't any significant fights involved as the heroes try to escape both hostile natives and fierce animals. Ticoora wears an outfit that allegedly was recycled from the 1941 serial JUNGLE GIRL, presumably so that the filmmakers could re-use scenes from that chapterplay. But the heroine of JUNGLE GIRL could fight a little bit, while the only real action DAUGHTER swipes from the serial is a hard-to-see scene with Ticoora slaying a crocodile in a river. Overall she shows no true toughness, screaming when accosted by a gorilla and failing to hit back when Dalton slaps her, requiring one of the cop-characters to come to Ticoora's defense. The only significant metaphenomenality in the flick follows the trope "exotic lands and customs," if only because the witch doctor keeps ranting about using "voodoo" on the outsiders.

DAUGHTER was listed in the Medved Brothers' FIFTY WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME, but it's too dull to deserve that distinction. Its only assets are the good looks of Hall and the gangster-schtick of Leonard. George Blair also directed the oddball fantasy-flick SABU AND THE MAGIC RING and some ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN episodes, but the main distinction of his career was helming the 1960 horror-film THE HYPNOTIC EYE, which I remember fondly though I've yet found the chance to review it.