Jungle Jim is back for his second adventure
in this remarkably long series. Sixteen films. I don't plan on seeing them
all. In my defense these two Jungle Jim films were bonus films from another
set of films I bought. And I was curious. I think for now my curiosity has
been met and defeated. Again for children back in the 1940s these were probably
ok - some action, a ton of stock footage of wild animals (some repeated from
the first film) and a bit of cheesecake for the young boys entering puberty.
At the rate we are going most of these animals will be extinct some day and
this may be all we will have to see them.
I enjoy some of these old B films for the supporting cast of favorites but
this one has a group of actors only their mother would recognize. The first
one at least had the future Superman. But we do have a bunch of actors in
ape suits, a rubber crocodile and a rubber shark. Not to mention a few real
lions. For its running time of 70 minutes there is actually a fair amount
of action to keep the kiddies glued to their seats. Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller)
has two fights with sharks - take that Tarzan - one with a lion - 2 times
with crocodiles - and with various villains. Worse though is fending off
the advances of a man-eating blonde. All in one day. It must be exhausting
to be Jungle Jim.
Jim is at home taking it easy in his short shorts - creepy on a middle age
man believe me - when his friend the crow comes to tell him that something
is amiss out in the jungle. So he follows the bird with his little dog Scout.
Some sort of terrier I think. Not exactly an attack dog. Scout was in the
first film too and seems to sort of take the place of Cheetah except not
nearly as funny. But he goes on all these adventures with Jim and at one
point Jim has to save him from a crocodile. Not really a big help.
At any rate it turns out some white men are trying to find out where the
Lost City of Zam is, which doesn't look like much but has piles of diamonds.
Diamonds on the soles of their shoes. And a lovely native maiden who gets
Jim to help. He agrees (and thankfully he has magically switched to long
pants) and on the way back saves a giant ape and her apelet from a lion.
This proves to be a good thing later. At the speed that people seem to get
from the Lost City to the white settlement it can't be much further than
walking to you local grocery store - but mysteriously no one can find it.
After getting captured and getting away and getting captured and getting
away and getting captured and getting away, you begin to wonder just how
smart Jungle Jim is. But he does have two babes chasing after him so who
am I to judge.
