Swamp Fire

As the film opens, the narrator explains the swampland behind the credits, and how they must defend against fires. "Johnny" (Weissmuller) has just come back from war, home to the bayou and to "Toni" (Carol Thurston, who was actually 16 years younger than Weissmuller). Distractions for both Johnny and Toni... Virginia Grey is the rude, snooty outsider Janet, who is chasing Johnny, and local boy Mike (Buster Crabbe) has been after Toni the whole film. Another plot point here is that Johnny keeps having war-time flashbacks, and that has been delaying him from getting back into the ship piloting. Things happen quite fast, once they get going... it's only 69 minutes, so there really isn't much time for character development. Everything happens, all at once. and the storyline is kind of all over the map. Antics ensue. It's passable adventure. Directed by William Pine, who had co-founded prolific Pine Thomas studios. Story is ok. Picture quality is pretty bad... it seems to be a copy of a copy. Written by Daniel Mainwaring, who had written TONS of crime stories and adventure novels.

SWAMP FIRE never aspired to be anything more than a low budget B-movie intended for the double feature trade that thrived in the 1940's. Oddly, 37% of the votes on IMDb are a "10" -- no more idiotic than the 10-scores given to so many rotten pictures of 2006-2006 -- but equally inaccurate.

The main asset is Johnny Weissmuller -- herein playing a rare non-Tarzan role during the time when he was still thriving in his Tarzan role. But it doesn't end there. This is a tidy little good story about the Cajuns (and others) living in southern Louisiana at the time just after World War II. Even in 2008 the narrative holds up well and the swamp atmosphere is a big plus.

Ignore the reference to 2 Tarzans. Technically Buster Crabbe did play Tarzan, but almost nobody saw that movie. Johnny Weissmuller was the only true Tarzan to most folks, although I also credit Lex Barker.

Here's the inside word: Weissmuller was ready to quit Tarzan -- after 14 years -- for just one reason. In Swamp Water, as in Jungle Jim, he was allowed to wear clothes; not just a loin cloth. The ravages of age get the best of us all.

It's Cajun country about the bar pilots, the fellows who get the ships from the Gulf of Mexico through the maze of the Mississippi delta. Here's Johnny Weissmuller, returned from the war with some form of PTSD that has him afraid to pilot a ship, until Pierre Watkin's yacht is stuck in the mud. He gets it through just fine, abusing Watkin's daughter, Virginia Gray. So naturally she wants him, as does Cajun girl Carol Thurston, whom Cajun Buster Crabbe also lusts for.

It's another of the Pine-Thomas B movies for Paramount, which made use of sturdy plots and stars fallen on hard times and available on the cheap. Here the star is Weissmuller. He was still doing the Tarzan series, but for Sol Lesser at RKO. This was, presumably, his chance to show he could act, but while Bill Pine gets a decent performance out of him until he recovers his mojo, after that he becomes rather blah. He does get to wrestle an alligator, and to rescue Miss Thurston from the titular fire, but if that's enough to keep you interested for 69 minutes, you're a more patient man than I am. With Pedro de Cordoba, Edwin Maxwell, and Joseph Crehan.

At some time in studio boardroom had to have said "Let's put those 2 guys that played Tarzan together in one movie. This idea will sell itself to the distributors." He was probably right because SWAMP FIRE is a decently made, well paced movie that does not disappoint viewers.

Johnny Weissmuller starts as Johnny Duval, a war hero returning to his bayou home. He lost a ship he was in command of during the war and vows he will not take up his old position as bar pilot. This does not at all bother his old rival Mike (Buster Crabbe sporting a mustache and a Cajun accent) who sees this as a chance to make time with Johnny's old sweetheart Toni (Carol Thurston, who also appeared with Weissmuller in the Jungle Jim movie KILLER APE (1951)). Too bad but Toni only has eyes for Johnny. To make matters worse a spoiled rich girl (Virgina Grey) has set her sights on Johnny and coerces her dad (Pierre Watkin) to buy up a lot of bayou land and outlaw all trapping, which means the local folks can no longer hunt to feed their families. Is that enough plot for you? Wait, there is a lot more to come, and somehow it all fits into the 68 minutes running time without any of the resolutions seeming like a plot contrivance.

Johnny faces his demons while navigating rough waters one night but just when you think things are going to start going well he is piloting another ship through a dense fog and rams a smaller boat captained by Toni's father! Trying to drink himself to oblivion he is found Ms. Grey who uses this opportunity to poison his mind against Toni. Does it work? Does it ever? Don't forget the jealous Mike is still hanging around and think Johnny has sold out his own people to join the yacht club crowd. He plans a revenge where he plans to . . . oh well . . . you saw the title of the movie, right?

The cast is fabulous. Pierre Watkin had played Perry White in both SUPERMAN serials for Columbia Pictures. Ms. Grey would go on to encounter dinosaurs in UNKNOWN ISLAND in 1948. Mr. Crabbe found a home in B westerns and Mr. Weissmuller never really leave the jungle; starring as Jungle Jim in movies and TV for many years to come.

Budget restraints are pretty obvious. This movie must set a record for the number of rear screen projection shots used but it is still fairly believable and fun to watch.

Historically of interest as Johnny Weissmuller's only starring vehicle in a role other than Tarzan or Jungle Jim, 'Swamp Fire' boasts an original screenplay by Geoffrey Homes - soon to script the classic 'Out of the Past' - and has a solid supporting cast led by shoulder-padded femme fatale Virginia Grey and a moustached and outrageously accented Buster Crabbe as the villain. Weissmuller as usual fights an alligator, but the most daunting task the film presents him with is appearing throughout fully clothed and speaking in sentences.

'Swamp Fire' is for the most part a subdued drama with Weissmuller moodily carrying the baggage of his war service in the coast guard when he lost a ship under his command. The featured cast's scenes are all obviously shot on the soundstage; the Louisiana footage evidently the work of a second unit employing stand-ins, including a montage of various New Orleans bars - starting with the 'Historical Old Absinthe House' - that Weissmuller boozes his way through on a massive bender before he regains his mojo.