QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS (1947)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*  

The small-time studio Lippert Pictures didn't invest much in metaphenomenal movies until the 1950s, when they gained a modest reputation for flicks like KING DINOSAUR and ROCKETSHIP X-M. In the 1940s, though, almost all of the studio's fantasy-content was tied up in their two jungle movies-- this one, and 1948's JUNGLE GODDESS-- both of which evoked the still popular "white goddess" trope.  

The title of the later film is more truthful; GODDESS really is mostly about how a young White woman gets adopted as a goddess by a Black African tribe, and how she talks a couple of White adventurers into setting her free. But QUEEN isn't really about its tribe of White Amazons. One of the two main characters is Jean (Patricia Morison), a woman looking for her missing fiancee in tribal Africa, while the other is the new love Jean finds while she's looking for the old one. Though Jean searches for long-time boyfriend Greg, she finds that new love in Gary (former Batman Robert Lowery), a jungle guide she hires to find the tribe of "she-devils" who've allegedly abducted Greg. But Greg isn't being held against his will. While he was part of some vague mission to locate ivory smugglers, he encountered the Amazons' queen Zita (Amira Moustafa), and the two of them fell in love. In the cases of both Jean and Greg, absence did not make the heart grow fonder for the established fiancee; rather, their questionable affections cooled and found better (and presumably more permanent) mates because of their separation. By the flick's end, both new couples have paired off for happy endings, and any viewers hoping that Jean and Zita might battle over the same man must content themselves with a little bit of tough talk from Zita about fighting for her beloved. (So this film does not fall into my "fighting femme" category.)      

QUEEN's writer is so focused on getting his two couples linked up that the subject of the all-female tribe is barely addressed. Apparently, they started when a ship at sea foundered, and a lifeboat containing only women and girls managed to land in Africa. There's no clear history of how the survivors decided to dress up in leopard-skins and become their own tribe, rather than trying to reach civilization. No older women are seen, and there's a line or two about how all the current Amazons grew up in the jungle and have just started thinking about recruiting some males for marital purposes, but that's not exactly a thorough exegesis. The viewer also doesn't see much evidence of whatever warlike abilities the tribeswomen mastered in order to awe the local Black residents. There's one scene where Zita hits a stationary target with an arrow, and the real villain of the story-- the head of the smuggling operation-- gets killed by a blowpipe-dart wielded by one of Zita's girl servants. If anything, Jean comes off as a figure more formidable than Zita. When Jean first meets Gary, he, like Zita later on, is busy using some stationary targets for practice, albeit with a rifle. Gary voices some "woman-hating" sentiments, and Jean impresses him by whipping out a pistol and accurately ventilating all of the targets. Later she at least draws her pistol when Gary's attacked by a lion, even if she's unable to fire for fear of hitting him.

Some of the juvenile jungle-japes of this era boasted some pleasant sexploitation elements, QUEEN is pretty blah, even though Morison and Moustafa were both attractive women. There's not a lot of action when the good guys take on the smuggling gang-- with Gary getting to duke it out with the head villain-- but it's just barely enough of a battle-scene to make this a combative film, since Gary is, with Jean, one of the movie's two main characters.           

JUNGLE RAIDERS (1945)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*                                                                                                                          I've thought of the perfect term for limited-location serials like this one and others in the oeuvre of producer Sam Katzman: "shuttle serials." Basically, because the producer of such serials doesn't want to film on more than two or three locations, the actors are forced to keep "shuttling" back and forth between roughly the same locations. JUNGLE RAIDERS, for instance, really just has two functional locations for its fifteen chapters: a jungle trading-post and a camp, surrounded by mountains, where a tribe of Caucasian Africans make their home. The back-and-forth shutting isn't quite as dull as it is in Katzman's LOST PLANET, but I was ready for the serial to be over long before it ended.                                                                                  

The initiating action is provided by two middle-aged scientists who seek the secret of the Arzec tribe: a root reputed to have great curative powers. The root is never important to the story, however. Doctor Reed comes to the jungle first and manages to befriend the Arzecs and learn the hidden location of their camp. When seedy trader Jake (Charles King) learns of Reed's accomplishment, he holds Reed prisoner in the cellar of the trading-post, trying to learn the natives' location in order to plunder their famed secret treasure. While Reed is being held, his colleague Doctor Moore shows up and manages to befriend the Arzecs as well, again motivated by an altruistic cause. Both Reed and Moore have grown children-- daughter Ann for Reed, son Bob (Kane Richmond) for Moore-- who come to Africa to rendezvous with their respective dads. Ann arrives first by boat, and Jake sends his feminine aide Cora (Veda Ann Borg) to intercept Ann, the better to use her as a club over her old man. Just slightly later, Bob drives to the trading-post area with his war-buddy Joe (Eddie Quillan), looking to find Doctor Moore.                         

What follows is just one twist and turn after another, as Jake and his allies seek to find their way to the treasure, while Bob, Joe and Ann only slowly suss out the danger to themselves and the two scientists. (Reed, BTW, remains in captivity throughout most of the serial's early chapters and only becomes significant after being rescued.) Things are further complicated by the power-plays of an Arzec female priestess named Zara (Carol Hughes), who wants to displace the priest in charge of the tribe's religion. Some narrative tension is provided by the way both villains and heroes are obliged to enter into temporary alliances, which usually end in some sort of betrayal.   

   Nice location shots and attractive performers keep things moving moderately well in RAIDERS. Richmond provides a strong lead as always, while King is welcome here as a scuzzy schemer, as opposed to the more standard mystery mastermind. Quillan is similarly distinctive, providing comedy relief that's actually funny, a rarity in serials. The serial's most noteworthy aspect-- not including the lack of backstory for the Caucasian tribe in a part of Africa with no Negro residents-- is the presence of two formidable female villains in one serial. In fact, toward the end of the serial the two nasty ladies have a brief catfight. It's nothing compared to the spirited bouts of PERILS OF NYOKA, but it qualifies the film for my "fighting femmes" category.   

MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND (1981)

 

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

                                                                                                                ***SPOILERS***                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I didn't originally care much for MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND, directed and co-written by Spaniard Juan Piquer Simon. However, when I compare MYSTERY to the movie for which Simon may be best known to Americans, the terminally dumb SUPERSONIC MAN, this low-budget "robinsonade" doesn't come off quite so badly.                                                                                                                                                                                                There's even some fun to be had imagining how this project might have come about. It might have started when Simon scouted some location and realized that he might use it for a "Robinson Crusoe" type of story. Maybe he had some particular affection for the public domain Jules Verne novel GODFREY MORGAN, but realized that Crusoe-type stories weren't all that salable in the 1980s. So Simon took the adventurous trajectory of the Verne book-- in which a young man of privilege went on a sea voyage to prove his mettle and had various island-adventures-- and added some fake monsters. It seems axiomatic that Simon or someone in his orbit chose the title to make moviegoers associate MYSTERY with the well-liked MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. Yet the thrust of the movie's narrative is very different, and I find the novelty of MYSTERY slightly preferable to any of the lackluster remakes of the 1961 Harryhausen film.                                                                                   

So as mentioned above, the novel concerns Godfrey Morgan, who goes off on various adventures, accompanied by a comedy-relief tutor named Artelett, said adventures being fostered by Godfrey's uncle, so that the young man can prove himself before he marries his beloved, the uncle's female ward. MYSTERY starts out pretty much the same way, except that in the film, the young fellow (now named Jeff and played by Ian Sera) is sent to a particular island by the uncle (Peter Cushing). Jeff goes in the company of the tutor (David Hatton) in advance of his impending marriage to the ward Meg (Ana Obregon), but in this case, some chicanery is signaled by the fact that the uncle has actually purchased the island in advance. In fact, in a plot-point that I assume isn't in the book, the uncle competes for the purchase of the property with another rich man, Taskinar (Terence Stamp). Taskinar, unlike the uncle, knows that there's a cache of gold hidden on the island, and so he means to have that booty no matter who else gets in his way. That includes Jeff, Artellet, and all the minions of the uncle.     

  By "minions," I mean not only the transparently phony monsters encountered by Jeff and Artellet, but everyone else that the two meet on the island. From a "Friday"-like native to a supposed French castaway named Dominique (Blanca Estrada), everyone's just an actor hired by the uncle to give Jeff the illusion of an adventure. This ploy doesn't make much sense-- certainly Jeff resents the deception when he finds out-- but by sheer chance, the life-and-death stakes become real when Taskinar and his crew of pirates invade the island for the gold. So even though there are no monsters on Monster Island-- all the dinosaurs being the creation of some "toymaker"-- the movie does conclude in a big brawl between Jeff's allies and the forces of Taskinar, and the story ends with the good guys' victory.             

This simple film's list of merits and demerits is almost equal. Cushing and Stamp have only a smattering of scenes, so obviously Simon only had the funds to pay the "big names" in his movie for a few days apiece. (Paul Naschy has some minor scenes as well, but I didn't bother looking for him.) Main character Jeff ought to be likable since he sincerely wants to prove himself, but actor Sera is just kind of bland. Maybe that's why he didn't have a very long cinematic career, with three of his appearances being in movies by Simon. One odd development is the revelation that Taskinar somehow suborned the actress playing the role of castaway Dominque, but I don't see that she did anything to help the villain's designs. She does make a play for the engaged young man, but that may have been her own private idea. Still, in the concluding brawl, Meg gets to fight Dominique, even though Meg has no idea that the other girl put the moves on her man. I frankly liked best the performance of David Hatton as the incompetent and effete tutor, because I thought he gave the one-dimensional character his all, which is more than I could say for Ian Sera. And lastly, though this is a compromised adaptation of the Verne book, I probably will never read the source novel, and so MYSTERY educated me in the broad outlines of Verne's forgotten venture into Robinson Crusoe territory.                       

QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE (1935)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

There's just one element in this 12-chapter serial that renders it marvelous: a short sequence in which two people in the African jungle are pinned down by some sort of "strangler vines." To the best of my knowledge there exist no such plants, so QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE is marvelous. But most of the significant phenomena are uncanny, so as I occasionally do on this blog, I include labels for those tropes for my own reference.

QUEEN gets a "fair" rating for mythicity just because it manages to touch on five or six major jungle-adventure tropes. Nevertheless, the serial is a mess. It recycled footage from a 1922 silent serial, JUNGLE GODDESS (now lost), which was noteworthy in its time for having been shot on a forested backlot in the U.S. and for having a better than average budget for a chapterplay. But in the 1930s silent films were unmarketable. So a producer named Herman Wolk chose to cannibalize certain sequences from GODDESS and to shoot a lot of matching sequences on soundstages. This leads to a lot of padding with the use of stock jungle footage, none of which includes either old or new players. This creates one amusing sequence in which a chimp, cornered on a high rock by hungry lions, is rescued by a helpful elephant, who's never in the same frame with the lions.

Two of the major jungle-tropes used here are that of the "lost city" and "the white goddess." To be sure, there are actually two bizarre African cultures crammed close together. In the ERB tradition, there's a small coterie of White people-- far from the usual "city"-- that have somehow established a priesthood over their Black neighbors. To be sure, the two groups are never seen together, aside from an early scene in which the Black chieftain confers with head priest Kali (Lafe McKee), so apparently this mirrors the original plot of GODDESS. The White priests all wear big conical hats that I suppose are meant to look vaguely Semitic, but their only cultural identification is that they consider themselves citizens of "Mu." Since this legendary locale did not appear in print until one James Churchward wrote a book about it in 1926, I think it's safe to assume this tidbit is a 1935 interpolation.

The more numerous Black natives venerate a huge statue that sometimes shines deadly rays from its eyes. Since the viewer eventually learns that there's a radium deposit nearby, in the so-called "Garden of Rad," possibly the original idea in GODDESS was that the statue was inhabited by minions of the priesthood. The statue is seen to move its hands a little, which sounds like real votive statues (albeit much smaller ones) that were designed to "come to life" and impress the gullible. Did GODDESS originally include the idea that priests inside the statue somehow projected energy from raw radium through the statue's eyeholes, in order to create lethal rays and execute sacrificial victims? Hard to say, for that serial's gone, and QUEEN never explains the statue at all. ("Rad," by the way, is the name of the priesthood's god, so maybe they're supposed to be Latinate Romans?)

The white queen comes to the Black tribe by accident. As a small child, Joan Lawrence is taken away from her parents, and from neighbor-kid David, when she's caught in a hot-air balloon. The balloon's descent into the territory of Mu impresses the Black tribesmen and they raise little Joan to be their queen (Mary Kornman), even referred to a few times as "The Queen of the Jungle." 

Little David, however, grows up to be Adult David (Reed Howes). Joan's parents could never find her, or the radium mine that the father came to Africa to locate. Yet David apparently takes that right turn at Albuquerque, since he makes his way to the Mu territory with no big hassle. He does however get captured and slated for sacrifice by radiation-gaze. Adult Joan at first seems totally okay with the White guy getting burned to ash. Then a crawl asks rhetorically if her "White blood" will allow Joan to endure such savagery. By the next episode, naturally, Joan rescues David.

Despite the fact that Joan has forgotten the English language, and David doesn't speak the local Swahili, the young hunter talks the Queen into leaving the only people she's ever known. More oddly, they agree to let her go with no fuss. However, the writers, probably loosely following the earlier movie's template, did this so that Joan and David could be attacked by diverse menaces on their trek back to civilization. I think Kali is at least responsible for some assaults, because he's afraid David will bring back other invaders and mess up Kali's setup-- but the continuity's excruciatingly hard to follow. In addition to the aforementioned strangler vine, and the usual jungle-animals, David is attacked by a pair of natives who are implied to live beneath the surface of a river (no, no explanation of that either) while minions of Kali blind Joan with radium, stick her in a canoe and send her careening toward a waterfall. For a time White hunters capture Joan and David to find out the mine's location, I think because they've been sold minute quantities of radium by Kali. But the funniest assault comes when a native somehow manipulates a chimp into attacking Joan with a knife. David's priceless line as the chimp runs away: "I wonder who put him up to it."

Since Joan never learns English "on the road," her personality is confined to that of wide-eyed innocence. She's not any sort of fighter, but her scenes in Mu make the loose implication that she MAY have a psychic connection with elephants for some reason. She's seen commanding a trained elephant in Mu, and then later, on the hunters' ship, she actually commands an elephant whom the hunters have taken captive to do her will-- that is, by reaching its trunk through a porthole to strangle a bad hunter-guy. David therefore shoulders almost all the action-scenes herein, and Reed Howes acquits himself quite well, given that most fights in thirties' serials were spottily choreographed. He's seen to be a stand-up guy, tempted to take advantage of Joan's innocence but not yielding to the temptation.

Whenever the 1935 producers utilize footage from 1922, they don't bother to synch the two, so the viewer sees various scenes of "undercranking," resulting in characters moving like jumping-beans. The longest scene from GODDESS is one in which Kali tries to make his fellow priests think that Kali's own little boy is a god made flesh. But there's a mixup and the priests get the idea that a chimp is the new god in town, so there's an amusing moment where the simian cavorts around the room and the priests imitate his holy actions. However, Kali, like a number of other characters, just disappears from the story when it's convenient for the filmmakers, and so he never pays for his crimes.

QUEEN is a real curio. It's not good, or even "so bad it's good." But it's not as dull as some serials out there, and that's something.

SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE (1956=57)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

TUBI is now showing sixteen of the original run of 26 TV episodes, shot cheaply in Mexico and featuring the statuesque Irish McCalla in the role of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. For all that I know, these episodes may be the only ones extant, given that the series was never circulated in many markets, so I may as well review what survives. It's not very likely any of the unavailable episodes deviate from the basic mediocrity of the available ones.

Nevertheless, SHEENA isn't without some significance. By 1956 Hollywood was no longer making either adaptations of comic-book heroes or B-films with continuing characters, except for some of the Tarzan movies. Television had caused those markets to dry up, but the small screen did release a handful of low-budget series that functioned as had the old B-films, only with a much shorter run-time. And a tiny number of these were based in properties from comic books or strips. Superman is the only such series that's well remembered today, but there were also adaptations of Dick Tracy, Jungle Jim, and Sheena. 

Sheena is the first major female continuing character in comic books, getting published for nearly twenty years before her company closed its doors. Both jungle men and jungle girls in comic books at best offered only junky pulp thrills. SHEENA the comic was also junk, but I've found a little more creativity in at least some of the stories, which is more than I can say of most other jungle-serials. And Sheena the heroine is one of the first tough heroines of the medium, knifing crocodiles and outwrestling grown men with the best of the jungle boys.

I can't claim that any of the sixteen episodes are anything but extremely simple adventure-fare, and they don't even offer many fight-thrills. Once in a while, Sheena swings from a tree and kicks some malefactor, and in one episode she knife-kills a croc, possibly her only defeat of a jungle-beast. (Most of them appear in the show courtesy of stock footage.) Even her male confidante, jungle guide Bob Rayburn (Christian Drake) barely does anything more than pot-shot the occasional wild beast. Apparently the budget was too limited to even make possible the limited fight-scenes of TV westerns like LONE RANGER and CISCO KID. The only time any of Sheena's enemies provide a halfway interesting threat is in "The Rival Queen," in which a hypnotist mind-controls a white woman into stirring up trouble with the natives.

In the comics, Sheena has little interest in the world outside the jungle, but she speaks full sentences and is often good at planning strategy against evildoers. In contrast, the show's producers chose to have her talk baby-talk as in the early Tarzan films. She doesn't really command any animals, but in place of a Tarzan-yell, she would occasionally blow a horn at the opening of each episode, as if to announce her sovereignty over all she surveys.

Irish McCalla, while no great actress, gives her limited lines a fit level of brio, and at least she's always treated as a formidable presence, The Black African tribes aren't given any deeper characterization than anyone else, but I didn't think they were overly offensive either. They're certainly not shown as being over-awed by Sheena's Miss Clairol blonde locks, and in general she and Bob always argue for tolerance of tribal customs. All that said, the show's main significance lies in being the first adaptation of a prominent female comics-hero, which is more than other ephemera of the period can claim. Also, it's the only way anyone can ever see a live-action Sheena in her classic leopard-skin attire, since that outfit has been effectively banned in later adaptations, probably to keep from triggering animal rights activists.

LOST TREASURE OF THE INCAS (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I was strongly tempted to alter the title's use of "Incas" to "Aztecs," because all through the film the mysterious Indians with the barely seen treasure are called "Aztecs." I'm sure that there have been any number of lost-world stories about Incas. But the fact remains that there's no sense in doing a lost-world in the American Southwest of the 1880s and thinking that Incas are going to pop up in that domain. If the recrudescent Indian tribe is in the American Southwest, or in Mexico, then THEY'RE BLOODY AZTECS!!

TREASURE was one of three peplum films director Piero Pierotti made with bodybuilder-star Alan Steel, the others being HERCULES AND THE MASKED RIDER and HERCULES AGAINST ROME. However, because the bloom was off the rose for the strongman-movies, the producers cancelled plans for the flick to take place in the dim and dusty past and had their hero-- still known as "Samson" in the Italian title-- become a righteous cowboy. This was supposedly a response to the success of the pioneering spaghettti western A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, though TREASURE's hero, broad-shouldered Arizona Smith, is closer to Roy Rogers than Clint Eastwood.

Arizona and his buddy Alan ride around doing odd jobs, in between which Arizona rides into such-and-such a town to flirt with pretty schoolmarm Jenny (Brigitte Heiberg). But there's a fancy-dressing Eastern dude, Darmon, who's jockeying for power in the same town, so you know he and Arizona are bound to butt heads. I was never sure what Darmon's main criminal aim was, but he has a man killed and frames Alan for it. Alan heads for the hills despite Arizona's attempt to bring him in for a fair trial.

In the wilderness Alan happens across a young Indian woman, though he mistakes her for a boy because her attire is so unfeminine. The woman is Princess Mysia (Anna Maria Polani), and she's escaped from the mountain stronghold of a lost tribe of Aztecs. Her royal status is not much of a benefit, for her people happen to have chosen a dormant volcano as their home (don't you hate it when that happens), and Mysia's purpose is to be "married," i.e, sacrificed, to the volcano god to keep the deity from drowning the whole tribe in hot lava. During her travels with Alan Mysia falls in love with the secondary hero, and when the Aztecs overtake the two of them, Mysia agrees to go back and be sacrificed in order to save the young cowboy's life. All of these developments will eventually lead to Darmon and his gang storming the Aztec citadel to steal their gold, while Arizona and his allies seek to thwart the dirty owlhoots.

Before we get to the big standoff between Cowboys and Aztecs, TREASURE is a very slow slog, despite a couple of barroom brawls. The script even throws in a secondary love interest for Arizona, a saloon girl named Ilona, but she has so few scenes, she could have been cut with no consequences to the story. (Maybe in the archaic version of the story she had a bigger "bad girl" role?) There's a tiny bit of comic byplay with the town barber, who's also the mortician, but that's underdone as well.

The film does perk up somewhat with the big finish, as the two sets of cowboys blast away at each other while the Aztecs pick off their enemies with arrows. The schoolmarm manages to go along with Arizona's bunch and even manages to shoot one of the bad guys. The Aztecs' method of sacrifice is visually interesting: a big metal idol-head built into a temple-wall, made so that lava from the volcano's depths emerges from the idol's mouth to immolate anyone placed under the flow. The Indians are already somewhat aware that a big eruption is on the way, but they think a mass sacrifice of their captives, mostly surviving good guys, will fix their problems-- until "Samson" busts loose.

But no, there's no pulling down any pillars here. Arizona is an ordinary guy, and his only feat is lifting one Indian attacker and tossing him to the side. The pillars do come down, but it's because of the volcano's fury. All the good guys escape, along with good girl Mysia, while the Aztec colony returns to the dust.

Aside the mildly diverting design of the volcano-idol, TREASURE's only value is the performance of Heiberg as Schoolmarm Jenny. While Alan Steel just does his impression of a walking rock, Heiberg really communicates the sense of her being in love with the galoot, sometimes coquettish, sometimes playfully stern. She's certainly better than anyone else in the movie, though as it happened, the actress only made three other films in her short career.

CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT (1971)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT was the last of Hammer Studio's "prehistoric films," the most well known of which is still 1966's ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. Unlike YEARS, there are no "creatures" beyond naturalistic ones here, so it's often been suspected that some publicist came up with the title to suggest the presence of dinosaurs amidst the film's Stone Age protagonists.

It's hard to imagine why director Don Chaffey and writer-producer Michael Carreras thought audiences would line up for a prehistoric flick in which none of the principals can communicate save in grunts and gestures. True, a few of the males and females are played by good looking actors, such as the male lead Tony Bonner and the female support-character Julie Ege. But CREATURES doesn't offer lots of sexy cavepeople conflicts as YEARS did.

The decision to abstain from dialogue suggests that Carreras wanted to avoid some of the "baby talk" seen in earlier cavepeople flicks. Yet without dialogue, it proves difficult for a viewer to invest any importance to the seemingly endless quarrels between cavemen butting heads with one another. There's a vague quasi-ethnic myth in an intermarriage between a dark-haired tribe and a blonde-haired tribe, which in part results in a pair of contentious brothers, a dark one named Rool (Robert John) and a fair one, Toomak (Bonner). Guess which one is the nice one? Toomak is also the one who gets the girl Nala (Ege) and the leadership of their tribe. Rool doesn't seem to envy his brother's wife, but he does want to be the chief. Rool goes to great lengths, including the kidnapping of Nala, to dispossess Toomak.

The most interesting unused potential of CREATURES is that it might have dramatized the way early man formulated religion. There's an early scene in which the Dark Tribe loses its home thanks to an erupting volcano, but there are no further references to this momentous event. Halfway through the film we learn that the tribe has a female shaman of some sort, because when a cavewoman brings forth a mute girl, the shamaness adopts the girl and perhaps teaches her arcane ideas. There's a tribe that paints itself white and wears weird headgear, but what they mean is anyone's guess. At the film's climax the mute girl utilizes clay dolls in some sort of forerunner of voodoo, but it's ambiguous as to whether she causes ill fate to befall her victims or just believes that she does. 

The musical score and photography are solid, but I can't picture anyone watching CREATURES for any reason but to speculate on said unused potential.

FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

A quick classification matter: though FIRE depicts an Ice Age in which cavemen exist alongside weird variations on dinosaurs, I don't consider this type of film to be marvelous, for reasons I explained in my review of THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR. All of the flick's monsters, as the above Italian title shows, originally had no "fiery" context, and the only flaming menace in the movie is an exploding volcano, which actually works against the villains, not the hero.

Said hero was named Maciste in the original, and this seems to be the chronologically earliest adventure of the do-gooder, who as in most other movie-iterations just pops up out of nowhere to help the oppressed. The (very bad) American dub devotes one line to giving the muscleman the name "Maxxus," and claiming that he was the son of Hercules and a goddess, though throughout the film none of his feats of strength are truly "Herculean." So I'll call the hero Maciste instead.

Fleeing the frozen wastes of migrating glaciers, the shaggily-clad Sun Tribe finds its way to an uninhabited valley and decide to build their new home there. There's a tiny bit of badinage between young chieftan Idar and his impending bride Raya, mostly regarding his lack of urgency about their marriage, but then the two are threatened by a big lake-reptile. Maciste (Reg Lewis) appears on the scene and from many miles away hurls a spear that transfixes the nasty beast, thus earning the tribe's gratitude. Then off goes the stalwart fellow, seeking other wrongs to right.

While he's conveniently absent, the equally-shaggy Moon Tribe attacks the Sun Tribe, killing many of the men and absconding with the nubile women. Whereas the noble sun worshipers dwell out in the open, the devious moon worshipers inhabit a series of caves adjacent to a volcano. At first it seems that the bulky Moon chieftain Fuan (Andrea Aureli) wants to enact a Rape of the Cave-Sabines by letting his men ravish the females. But then Fuan relates that the true purpose of the captives is to serve as sacrifices to the moon-god.

Maciste, alerted to the raid, finds his way into the caves via a waterway, but he's wounded by a water-monster. He emerges in one of the caves, where he's found by Moah (Margaret Lee), who is the one maiden whom Chief Fuan most desires. Maciste later moves a big stone to admit the vengeful Sun-People, and a battle breaks out between the tribes. Once the women of the Sun Tribe are freed Maciste again moves the big stone and most of the good primitives escape.

Maciste himself is captured and buried up to his neck in the ground. While the Moon-worshipers sleep, Moah tries to rescue Maciste, but Fuan catches her and subjects her to the same torment. However, as if in sympathy with "rock-born" Maciste, the volcano erupts, shattering the ground that imprisons the hero and his new GF. The Moon-People are forced to flee the caves, but this makes Fuan determined to take over the home of the Sun People after killing them all. Fuan even enlists an even more primitive tribe to help them out, but it avails him nothing against Mighty Maciste. When all the slugging is done, Maciste starts to fade into the sunset, but Moah shows more gumption than some other leading ladies by following her man wherever he chooses to go.

FIRE was Reg Lewis' only entry into boulder-shoulder heroics.

TARZAN THE APE MAN (1981)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

When I finished watching John Derek's TARZAN THE APE MAN in the theater back in 1981, I would have fully agreed with the reigning current opinion that it was one of the worst films ever made. Not only did it fail to deliver on the larger-than-life adventure I expected of a Tarzan film, it was ponderous and pretentious, and seemingly more interested in Jane (Bo Derek) than in the titular Ape Man (Miles O'Keeffe in his breakout role). Back in 1981 I doubt that I knew that the director was the fifty-something husband of his twenty-something star, whom he'd married when she was 19. I'm sure I had heard that TARZAN was the first major role undertaken by Bo since her breakout success in the 1979 comedy "10," and that the filmmakers were clearly trying to capitalize on Bo's newfound prominence as a sex symbol.

I also might not have seen in 1981 the movie on which this film was based: the granddaddy of the Tarzan sound films, the 1932 TARZAN THE APE MAN, which cemented Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O'Sullivan as Tarzan and Jane as far as most moviegoers were concerned. In this 2013 review, though, I downgraded the John Derek film thusly:

Since the 1981 TARZAN film made so much of Oedipal currents in the relationship between Jane and her father, it should be noted that yes, [in the 1932 film] Jane does pull off her dress in her father's presence, and joke about how he shouldn't mind since he used to bathe her.  But I don't believe the writers intended this as part of some sexual complex.  The real context would seem to be that Jane, resenting her separation, is teasing him a little with her maturation in order to fluster him and thus have a little power over him.  Old Parker never seems other than paternal toward Jane, though it must be admitted that his death at the film's end does sever Jane's ties with civilization and make it easier for Tarzan to possess his new mate.

What was a minor aspect of the 1932 movie-- a modern young woman's involved relationship to her absentee father, which parallels nothing in the Burroughs book-- becomes ratcheted up to become the main theme of Derek's TARZAN. To be sure, in both films, the father of Jane perishes at the climax, which could imply the story's need to dispose of him to clear the wild man's access to his beloved. But it seems likely that Derek, who wrote other films with Bo, instructed the scriptwriters to build up the Oedipal currents in the triangle between Tarzan, Jane Parker, and James Parker.

Neither film is all that clear as to why Englishman James Parker has remained in Africa for close to twenty years, allowing his daughter to grow from childhood to womanhood in his absence. However, the 1981 film offers a rough reason in that its version of James, as essayed by Richard Harris, is a narcissist obsessed with finding glory through big game hunting, not looking for ivory and "the elephant's graveyard" as seen in the 1932 movie. Harris' James is also a good deal less monastic, for when Jane makes her unannounced trek to her dad's outpost, James has some Kurtz-like affair with a very young Black native woman, seemingly no older than Jane is. 

Jane has come to Africa because her mother is dead, leaving Jane a substantial fortune, and she wants to become acquainted with the father who neglected her for so long. Her attitude toward James is more contentious. Not only does Jane not approve of James shacking up with a very young woman (who isn't Jane?), she doesn't doff her clothes in James' presence, but claims that she's so rich she could buy and sell him. This of course makes the big game hunter rail in florid Shakespearean fashion, but it also makes him desire to prove his worth to his daughter-- who, as one might expect, favors her mother.

Seemingly out of nowhere, James announces his intention to hunt down a mysterious "White Ape" dwelling on a remote escarpment. He doesn't intend for Jane to go along, but she's as bullheaded as he is, and so she joins the expedition. There's a small irony here, for in a sense James creates his own rival by taking his daughter into the ape man's territory.

The script is silent as to how the inarticulate "white ape" happens to live in the jungle, communing with real apes and elephants. However, when the expedition trespasses on his terrain, he kidnaps Jane, which loosely parallels an event in the 1932 movie. The 1981 James Parker, though, fumes and rages like a jilted lover, swearing to mount and stuff the white ape's body.

Though Jane is initially terrified of the vine-swinging man-ape, she eventually becomes fascinated with his male beauty (probably helped by the fact that he doesn't talk). Jane gets wet several times, making it possible for the viewer to enjoy the wet-shirt effect, and she has a few scenes showing off her bared cleavage as well. It's not entirely certain that Tarzan understands that she's the opposite sex or what he might want to do about it, though, and this gives Jane some time to warm to him. She persuades Tarzan to take her back to her father, but James shoots at the ape man, wounding him. Jane makes her choice and helps Tarzan back to a refuge where she can clean his wound and care for him, bonding them even more.

However, the escarpment is also home to a tribe of weird Africans who like to paint themselves diverse colors, like white and green. The natives capture both James and Jane-- I frankly forget what happens to the other members of the party-- and the natives prepare Jane for her wedding to their chief, a big brute called "The Ivory King." The natives' ritual for the impending bride is to coat her with white paint, a foretaste of her coming degradation. This ritual strongly reinforces the idea that Derek had input in the script, for the scene resembles one in 1978's MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD. The victim of the painting-ritual in that film? Derek's ex-wife Ursula Andress, to whom he was married from 1957 to 1966.

While Jane is being prepared for her nuptials, James keeps shouting assurances about how she can distance herself from her impending rape by imagining herself to be the goddess Aphrodite. Neither this, nor James's self-flattering casting of himself as Zeus, make any difference to the savages, and the Ivory King spears James to shut him up.

Tarzan arrives with a troop of elephants and engages the chief in single combat while the other natives look on, presumably cowed by the elephants. The fight between Tarzan and the chief isn't all that great, but after so many long soft-core romance sequences, at least it was Tarzan doing a Tarzan type of thing. The film ends with Jane choosing to remain with her jungle lover, and, as in the 1932 flick, there's no mention of marriage.

The film's best asset is its gorgeous location photography, executed partly in Sri Lanka. Derek, who was also cinematographer, showed far more skill in shooting nature than he did in pacing the romance of Tarzan and Jane. O'Keeffe looks imposing but he's not given anything interesting to do compared to the business given Weismuller in 1932. Harris is allowed to flamboyantly overact at fever pitch, and that may have some appeal in an ironic sense. Bo Derek would later become a decent though not stellar actress, particularly in television roles, but at this point in her career her talents were pretty raw. Nevertheless, her performance includes some good moments, apart from her photogenic qualities.

Both versions of TARZAN THE APE MAN position the hero in terms of his erotic and protective appeal to the female lead. The 1981 film-- initially given the risible working title "Me, Jane"-- comes close to suggesting that the young woman has conjured up Tarzan as a solution to her Oedipal conflicts. This might be the reason the white ape's life in the jungle is barely elaborated. Thus Derek's film doesn't focus purely on Tarzan, as do all the other books and movies I've encountered. The 1981 movie is structured more like a standard romance-film, in that both lead male and lead female are equally important to the narrative.

HERCULES AGAINST THE SONS OF THE SUN (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Some of Italy's "Maciste" films were given "Hercules" marketing in the titles alone, while the hero's original name was used in the English dub. This time, the dub is consistent with the title, so that the Caucasian warrior is called Hercules throughout the movie, and at one point he even claims kinship with a heavenly father. However, this version of Hercules shows only an uncanny level of strength.

Hercules gets shipwrecked and ends up in South America. He meets a friendly Inca warrior, Maytha (Guiliano Gemma) and they hang out while Maytha, a prince of a local province, tells the stranger all about how he's leading a small army in revolt against the realm's capital of Tiahuanaco. The leader of the sacrificial cult is King Atahualpa, and Maytha hopes to end the evil monarch's practice of blood sacrifice. Hercules, who immediately decides that Maytha must be a good guy, decides to lend his expertise to the revolt.

Maytha also happens to have a pretty sister, Hamara (Anna Maria Pace), whom Atahualpa hopes to marry even though he already has a queen (a distinctly minor character who gets tossed aside very easily). In this routine film's only good scene, Hamara, marked for sacrifice after refusing the king, lies positioned on a slab while brightly feathered archers shoot arrows at her. Then Hercules rescues her, earning the love of Hamara and the enmity of the Inca king.

SONS is pedestrian in the extreme, and even ideologues looking to carp at such films for "white savior" tropes would barely find anything to rant about. (There is a scene in which Hercules introduces the rebel Incas to the use of wheels, the better to build mobile siege engines, but the script doesn't exploit this development.) Performances are ordinary, with Pace distinguishing herself as one of the least charismatic peplum-heroines ever. Only a handful of fight-scenes provide some diversion from the tedium.

DEVIL GODDESS (1955)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

DEVIL GODDESS is the last of the films spawned by the JUNGLE JIM franchise. I say "spawned" because as the JUNGLE JIM series was winding down, producer Sam Katzman's license to use the comic-strip character expired. Rather than renewing the license for the last of these cheapjack jungle-flicks, Katzman simply had actor Johnny Weissmuller play action-hero Johnny Weissmuller, who was in every other way identical to Katzman's Jungle Jim. 

I don't for a moment imagine that anyone making these toss-off cheapies had any sentiment about what they were doing, but GODDESS does have, if only by accident, a couple of "send-off" moments. The first is that its director and writer, Spencer G. Bennett and George Plympton, were two of the best raconteurs of adventure-serials, a form of cinematic entertainment which was doomed, like all of the B-films featuring continuing characters, by the spread of television. The second is that the plot involves characters searching for lost treasures of King Solomon, which is a fortuitous callback to the prose book that essentially jump started the African jungle-adventure, Rider Haggard's KING SOLOMON'S MINES.

All that said, everything in GODDESS is routine at best. Jungle Johnny meets a pretty young woman (Angela Stevens) who ropes him into helping her explorer-father looking for yet another explorer, one Dixon, who is the one seeking the treasures of Solomon. The seekers believe that Dixon has gone missing in the forbidden territory of the Korundi tribe, who sacrifice maidens to their volcano, which doubles as a "fire goddess" (and also the title's "devil goddess," I guess). However, some forgettable White treasure hunters intrude on the Korundis to get at the treasure. This ends up putting Jungle Johnny in between the tribesmen and the hunters, which leads to the film's only half decent fight-scene, when Jungle Johnny slides down the side of a mountain while fighting two tribesmen.

When Jungle Johnny makes it into the volcano where Dixon makes his home, the hero learns that Dixon now thinks that he is some sort of godly immortal, even though he has to use flash-powder tossed on a fire to "disappear." Despite being addled, he's also saved at least two sacrificial maidens from death because he's a Nice White Guy at heart. It takes almost no time for Dixon to remember who he really is, though, just in time for the bad treasure-hunters to be defeated and for all the good people to escape the exploding volcano. Oh, and the last shot of the Jungle Johnny-cum-Jim series is that of Kimba the Comedy Relief Chimp wearing the jewels of the long dead Solomon. Great art it's certainly not, but at least they didn't finish up the series with another of the ape's stupid back-flips.

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA (1952)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

This Italian production, probably a response to the success of America's 1951 historical drama QUO VADIS, QUEEN OF SHEBA is a quality production for the time, a far cry from the sort of formula peplum-films that later dominated Italy's output of historical adventure. Ironically, SHEBA's director was Pietro Franchisi, the same guy who helmed the first two HERCULES films, which rebirthed Italy's "cult of the muscleman hero" by introducing world audiences to the biceptual charms of Steve Reeves.

Since the Judeo-Christian tradition only provided meager information about the titular Queen, aside from the fact that she journeyed to Israel and became one of King Solomon's wives, the film's writers, one of whom was Francisci, felt free to rework these bare bones into a more substantial skeleton.

Solomon is a side-character here, seen at the beginning rendering his famous "cut the kid in half" judgment to suss out the child's true parent. But the king's greater concern is with the kingdom of Sheba, ruled by Balkis (Leonora Ruffo), a fierce warrior-queen who threatens Israel's security. Solomon sends his handsome son Rehoboam (Gino Leurini), along with one other warrior, to Sheba to spy on the enemy's intentions. Because the country of Balkis isn't fond of foreigners, the two Israelities masquerade as emissaries from Gath, an ally to Sheba. 

Though the two men have no real means of accessing the court of Balkis, they have the good fortune to find themselves up close and personal with the queen herself when they happen upon her bathing at an oasis. There's immediate chemistry between the queen and the Israelite, for all that he's left a nice Jewish girl back at home (making Rehoboam one of the first movie-Hebrews to lust after a foreign girl, without being punished for it). The spies learn that the leader of Balkis' army, one Kaball, wants to make Balkis his bride, but by tradition Balkis is forbidden to marry, being consecrated to the god Shamash (native to Babylon, actually). A prophecy contains the key to Balkis' release, which can only occur "when the mountain speaks."

Various intrigues transpire, including Rehoboam and his buddy visiting a place of low repute, though the only thing that happens is a big wrestling-scene and a near-duel between the hero and Kaball. Balkis finds out that the man she now loves is an enemy spy and Rehoboam flees back to Israel. If Balkis wasn't planning to attack Israel before, her busted heart leads her to attack the Hebrew sanctum with all of her forces.

Since the traditional Queen of Sheba was not a warrior-queen, I wondered how far the movie would go in rewriting this version of the legend. Not only does Balkis lead her troops into battle, she even disguises herself as a male warrior so that she can personally try to execute her former lover, leading to a swordfight (in which Rehoboam somehow doesn't notice her feminine attributes). The hero defeats the heroine without killing her, and afterward wise Solomon releases her-- which in a roundabout way leads to a more traditional guy vs. guy duel when Kaball tries to master Balkis and Rehoboam comes to her rescue. Then the prophecy gets fulfilled, for during the guy-fight Balkis shouts the hero's name, and this causes the mountain to "speak," as her voice echoes and causes an avalanche that kills Kaball-- and incidentally, makes possible a marital alliance of the two kingdoms. (In the Old Testament, Rehoboam-- who is the son of Solomon by one of his other wives-- actually goofs up and allows Israel to fragment into two nations, one of which is the northern kingdom of Judah.) 

A minor note is that in one scene, Balkis is accompanied by a retinue of leopard-skinned warrior-women called "Amazons," but they're seen so briefly that they don't contribute to the trope of "exotic lands and customs" as does the mysterious fulfilled prophecy.

REVOLT OF THE PRAETORIANS (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

When I decided to watch this moldy-oldie peplum about the Rome of Emperor Domitian, I had no expectations of finding a new addition to my list of "superhero idiom" films. Most melodramas about ancient Rome aren't known for heroes with double identities, and so I can only assume that someone, possibly cult director Alfonso Brescia, decided to mash up the genre of the Roman historical flick with that of the costumed swashbuckler.

Domitian (Piero Lulli) is a thoroughly reprehensible despot who keeps his citizens on a tight leash, having his Praetorian Guard execute anyone who talks against the Emperor. Domitian has also alloyed the Roman court to be swayed into pagan practices by his leman Artamne (Moira Orfei), a priestess of Isis who persuades the Emperor to treat young Roman noblewomen as temple prostitutes. (Sounds more Babylonian than Egyptian, but who knows?) Two of Domitian's apparent allies, however, plan to unseat him: his jester-dwarf Elpidion and his centurion Valerius Rufus (Richard Harrison).

Rufus, hoping to generate a resistance movement in Rome, dons a wolf's head mask and begins picking fights with Praetorians, whom he beats easily with his superior strength and skill. Domitian calls for the execution of the mysterious warrior, dubbed "The Red Wolf," but the hero does the usual Zorro-esque disappearing act. (I would think that in the original Italian script someone would have drawn parallels to the legends of Rome's founders, the wolf-nurtured twins Romulus and Remus, but if so the English dub didn't trouble with that detail.)

Rufus succeeds in drumming up a resistance movement of both citizens and patricians, and the dwarf Elpidion joins him. The Red Wolf even kidnaps Artamne in order to use her as a hostage. The priestess escapes custody and reveals the hideout of the rebels to Domitian, but Rufus helps the rebels escape death. Rufus's double identity is almost exposed, but he finds that some of the Praetorians are willing to join the rebellion. This leads to a very strange end-sequence in which Rufus, the good Praetorians, and a troupe of traveling circus-performers fight Domitian's loyalists. The presence of the circus-people lends the big brawl an antic quality, for the performers use odd weapons (rolled-up bolts of cloth, a fire-eater's trick flame) and one female even floors a bad Praetorian with a judo toss! Still, all gets serious in the final duel between Rufus and Domitian, which, as one may guess, has no relation to anything in Roman history books. 

PYGMY ISLAND (1950)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

If MST3K had ever riffed on any of Johnny Weissmuller's JUNGLE JIM films, PYGMY ISLAND would have perfect for that show's humor. "Wow, another exciting walking-around-in-the-potted-plant-jungle scene!" Not to mention any number of little-people jokes that I won't even attempt to conceive.

The only halfway-interesting part of ISLAND are the scenes in which Jim and the other regular-sized characters share screen time with a tribe of "white pygmies." Most weird cultures that show up in fantasy-versions of Africa get transplanted to the Dark Continent because their ancestors get shipwrecked or something. But what in the world is supposed to have produced a tribe of white pygmies in Africa? Not surprisingly, no character in the script even takes a shot at explaining their provenance-- though the real explanation would be that most of the working little people in Hollywood-- Billy Barty, Billy Curtis, and an unbilled Angelo Rossito-- were white.

Part of ISLAND is the usual "white American lost in the jungle" trope, which means that Jungle Jim is called upon to find the missing person-- in this case, a female Army officer, Captain Kingsley (Ann Savage). She's taken in by the white pygmies, but though Jim doesn't know this at the film's opening, he does attest to Kingsley's superior officers that the pygmies just happen to possess a uniquely durable type of vegetable fiber, so durable that it would be a military asset. (This type of slightly novel plant-growth fits the same category of "exotic lands and people" as does the pygmy tribe.) So the task of finding a missing woman is made positively patriotic since the quest will also put greater resources in the hands of the United States. 

To provide conflict, some enemy agents-- presumably Communists but never so identified-- infiltrate the land of the white pygmies. For a few minutes the agents try to intimidate the pygmies by dressing up in the costumes of an infamously formidable tribe of warriors, "the bush devils." This masquerade gets dropped early on, even before Jim tells his army contacts that the "devils" must be phony because the impostors wear boots.

There's barely any action worth mentioning, no good villains, and not even a slight romantic spark between the hero and his leading lady. This may be the dullest film in the series. The only part that woke me up a little comes toward the end. The pygmies, having saved Jim from the Commies, pledge that the Americans can take their wondrous fiber any time they want, as part of a "good neighbor policy." Yeah, because the first one worked out so well...

ZAN, KING OF THE JUNGLE (1969)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

I don't want to suggest that ZAN KING OF THE JUNGLE is, on the whole, anything but a largely dull Tarzan knock-off, sometimes billed as TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN GROTTO in whatever markets its producers thought they could escape scrutiny by the Burroughs estate. However, sad to say, I have seen many worse Tarzan knock-offs, not least the recently reviewed ZAMBO LORD OF THE JUNGLE.

The writers-- one of whom was Umberto Lenzi-- at least made an attempt to swipe from the better Tarzan movies. Zan (Steve Hawkes) is first seen riding an elephant to the rescue of an white Amazon female (Kitty Swan), about to be burned at the stake by a tribe of Black Africans for no stated offense. Zan rescues the female and takes her back to her tribe, all of whom are also white characters (no men at all in sight). They inhabit the titular grotto, whose walls are filthy with gold, and some of them think Tarzan can't be trusted with their location. Much as the Weismuller Tarzan did in TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS, the jungle lord promises to protect the gynocentric culture from exploitation.

A couple of white reprobates-- practically interchangeable as characters-- have heard rumors of the golden grotto, and they attempt to get the Black tribesmen to help them find it. One tribesman, decked out in modern garments, does better than that: he ambushes Zan with his rifle. The jungle-lord falls in the river and the bad guys presume him dead. (This may be the first/only time a Black native manages to take out a white jungle-guy with a gun.)

Zan floats down the river and is succored by an old gold-hunter. When Zan recovers, it's suggested that he may have lost his memory, for he seeks to help the old fellow by giving him directions to the Amazons' golden grotto, and even giving the prospector some of the nuggets. The prospector goes into a local town to celebrate, the reprobates find out, and force from the old guy the location of the grotto. With various Black bearers in tow, the villains attack the Amazon tribe, and though the girls put up a decent fight, most of them are slaughtered, except for the girl Zan rescued at the opening. She doesn't do much of anything but since she appears in the movie's only sequel, she had to be kept around to be Zan's jungle mate.

While all the slaughter is going on, and the reprobates start mining the gold, the daughter of the prospector comes looking for him, and engages a raffish guide to help her. This subplot, and the eventual romance of the girl and her guide, are a big waste of time, particularly since nothing they do affects the outcome-- the old prospector getting killed, and Zan belatedly coming to knock off the evil white guys.

There aren't many fight-scenes-- as is often the case, nature photography serves to burn up a lot of time-- but there's one interesting moment. When Zan enters the grotto, four Black tribal guys lasso each of his limbs with ropes and try to drag the jungle-lord down. Zan outmuscles them all like a peplum hero and they head for the hills. Steve Hawkes has been called cinema's worst Tarzan, but frankly, everyone is so blah in this movie that his bad acting doesn't stand out for me.

JUNGLE DRUMS OF AFRICA (1953)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

I first saw this 12-part serial in a condensed TV-form, where it was given the awkward title of "U-238 and the Witch Doctor." But though it's not a very euphonious sounding title, it's more accurate than the original, since "jungle drums" play no real role in the story. 

DRUMS was one of the last Republic serials, and though a number of other serials from the studio cobbled together earlier footage to save money, this one uses only a handful of brief scenes from other films. The conflict is predicated on the good-hearted mission of two Americans from a uranium processing company who want an African tribe's permission to dig for the radioactive mineral. The quest for uranium barely influences the plot as such; instead, it's simply the bone over which two sets of dogs fight. On the good guy side, there's American agents Alan King (Clayton Moore) and Bert Hadley (Johnny Spencer), as well as a white female doctor who ministers to the tribe, Carol Bryant (Phyllis Coates, who would play a jungle-heroine two years later in the same studio's PANTHER GIRL OF THE KONGO, one of the very serials which did employ a lot of old footage). One other good guy has a minor influence on the plot, the tribe's chief Dounga, who favors the Americans because he himself was educated at an American college-- but despite this promising touch, Douanga does very little). On the side of the bad guys are a handful of unmemorable white traders who want to harvest the uranium for a foreign power, and the witch doctor of the alternate title. The latter, Naganto by name, is pissed off because all of his tribesmen give their business to the white doctor, so that Naganto can't sell his phony magical cures. (He's played skillfully by Roy Glenn, immortalized as the Black Dad in GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER.) 

Most of the serial consists of the bad guys trying to get rid of the American agents, either in running gun-battles or with involved traps. The diabolical devices include a spear-launcher set to fire when a rope is pulled and a "hypnotic drug" that causes a hulking warrior to attack the two Americans without cause. More interesting is the serial's replay (with almost no old footage) of the wind-tunnel menace from 1942's PERILS OF NYOKA. The seesaw battles finally come to a head and the villains are defeated, so that beneficent American technology can continue bringing light to the Dark Continent, or something like that. 

Though DRUMS is pedestrian in concept, the charm of the three good guys and the wily Naganto make this chapterplay an adequate time-killer. In contrast to some other jungle-serials, the heroine here is pretty gutsy, often seeming less like a lady doctor than like a sharp-shooting jungle guide.

THE SON OF TARZAN (1920)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

Serials in the sound era weren’t known for fidelity to their sources, but a few silent chapterplays hit closer to the mark. SON OF TARZAN may have been following the lead of the 1918 TARZAN OF THE APES, a feature-length film which faithfully adapts the first half of the first Tarzan novel. Further, whenever SON departs from the 1915 Burroughs novel, it’s generally an improvement.

I wrote that the novel that gave us “Korak Son of Tarzan” didn’t manage to create a hero equal to his famed sire, and the serial is also little more than a variation on the jungle-man theme. But though some silent serials ate just assemblages of perilous situations, sometimes lacking the celebrated “cliffhangers,” the various vicissitudes of SON OF TARZAN are more artfully crafted. Like the perils of the novel, all the conflicts serve to give hero Korak and heroine Meriem their “baptism of fire” until the happy ending.

One huge improvement on the novel is the serial’s main villain. In the book Paulvitch, the fiend who is indirectly responsible for sending the son of Tarzan to the jungle, is killed right away. But in the film, he survives his first encounter with the young hero and pursues the youth to Africa as a means of seeking vengeance on Tarzan. Since the novel’s villains are weak and narrowly conceived, Paulvitch, played by Eugene Burr, provides a more obsessed and hiss-worthy enemy.

As in the book, Korak and Meriem starts as children, mature during their very chaste time together in the jungle, and then are played by different actors in their teen years. Rather surprisingly, the serial even preserves the novel’s idea that Meriem initially thinks of Korak only as a “big brother,” but slowly gains an awareness than she doesn’t want a brother’s affection from him. As a displacement for those burgeoning sexual feelings, the serial adds a detail absent in the novel: a scene in which Meriem goes bathing in a river and has to be rescued from a beast by Korak. Whether or not the makers of the 1932 TARZAN THE APE MAN were aware of this earlier adventure in jungle-nudity is anyone’s guess.

As in the novel, Tarzan and Jane play supporting roles, kept in the background as they tirelessly search for their lost offspring. However, someone in production must have decided that the audience wanted some real ape-man action, for the serial introduces a subplot in which thugs attack Tarzan and get their asses handed to them by jungle savagery.