African Treasure

African Treasure (1952)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The seventh film in Monogram's series finds Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) trying to stop some diamond smugglers (one played by Lyle Talbot) who are trying to get rich while abusing some local natives. African TREASURE is as cheap as the previous six films but there's very little entertainment to be found here. At just 70-minutes the film seems way too long and even worse is the fact that very little happens throughout the movie. The biggest problem is the actual screenplay that doesn't give the characters anything to do. For the most part we have three or four groups who are constantly wondering around and talking about what they're going to do when they run into one of the other groups. We hear the natives call Bomba the "White Devil" and we get such politically incorrect lines as a jungle girl telling them they don't have to fear him because he's white. Yes, there's a jungle girl here played by Laurette Luez and she tries to bring a love story but even this here falls flat. The only good thing that can be said about the film are a couple fine performances. Sheffield is obviously very comfortable in the role and he has no problem as he at least appears to be giving it his all. Talbot, a classic bad guy, also makes for some fun but one wishes he had more to do. You can look quickly for a young Woody Strode. Outside of these things there's pretty much nothing else going on. We see Bomba fight a fake lion and of course he has to rescue people.

Roy Rockwood's creation, Bomba, the Jungle Boy, returns for his seventh cinematic adventure--amusingly, this one as cheap and padded with stock footage as were the previous six! As the mythical "white devil" who swings from the vines and talks to the animals, Johnny Sheffield seems to know much more English this time, and he's allowed to have affectionate feelings for the requisite native girl involved in the proceedings. Still, the premise here (diamond poachers in an abandoned crater using kidnapped natives to sort out the stones from clay and help smuggle them out) doesn't allow for much animal action or boy-girl romance. Instead, we get the greedy, murderous white men ordering the natives around mercilessly, while Bomba sends urgent messages back to the village via drum calls (when Bomba takes out two sticks and starts pounding away on hollowed branches, this entry almost becomes a "Bomba" parody). The murky underwater photography, as well as a fight between Bomba and a lion, are both bottom of the barrel, however Sheffield still manages to hold the screen with his youthful appeal. *1/2 from ****

Andy Barnes (Leonard Mudie) gets word by short wave that two of the three geologists who passed through his district some weeks before were known diamond smugglers, and that nothing since has been heard of the trio. And he also learns that a hunter, Pat Gilroy (Lyle Talbot), who has just arrived at the compound is really an escaped convict named Roy DeHaven.

Obviously, time to call in Bomba the Jungle Boy (Johnny Sheffield). He is summoned via the jungle drum wireless-telegraph, and Barnes asks Bomba to go to the cheesy back lot set and try to locate Gatesby, the geologist who was with Greg (Arthur Space) and Hardy (Lane Bradford.)Bomba finds the body of Gatesby but...lucky him and the viewer---he also finds Lita Sebastian (Laurette Luez), who is out in the jungle looking for her father, Pedro (Martin Garralaga),a Portuguese guide, and the cheesy jungle set now looks better than it did.

Through the help of jungle drums and his animal friends, all stock footage except Kimbbo the Chimp, Bomba leads Lita to where her father, and a large number of natives, are being held as slaves by Greg and Hardy, who have found diamonds in the crater of an extinct volcano, known locally as The Mountain of Diamonds. Lita is captured by Greg, but Bomba has summoned help and Gerg and Hardy flee but not without first staring a landslide on the enslaved workers.

Bomba has a lot of work to do before he can restore order to this jungle.

African Treasure finds Johnny Sheffield as Bomba the Jungle Boy looking to help his native friends who've been taken prisoners and forced to mine diamonds in a secret location that some smugglers know about. Arthur Space and Lane Bradford keep the prisoners and another criminal played by Lyle Talbot holds Bomba's friend, Commissioner Leonard Mudie prisoner as well. The odds don't look good for Bomba.

But of course with his knowledge of jungle ways Sheffield does triumph in the end. Like Tarzan, Bomba has a chimp to make chumps out of the bad guys and save him in a tight spot. Like Tarzan, Bomba's learned the value of friendship with the animals though he does get into a fight with a lion here.

This particular Bomba entrée has got more than it share of pulp adventure sequences that would have kept its young audience glued to their movie seats. It will keep you in your Laz-E-Boy chairs as well.

AFRICAN TREASURE (Monogram, 1952), written and directed by Ford Beebe, marks the seventh theatrical entry to the "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" series starring Johnny Sheffield. Starting off his movie career playing a jungle boy with his introduction as Boy in TARZAN FINDS A SON (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1939), starring Johnny Weissmuller, Sheffield has come a long way with his jungle adventures from youngster in the "Tarzan" series (1939-1947) to adolescent in his very own series as "Bomba" (1949-1955), a character created by Roy Rockwood in the "Bomba" books. Now basically a young adult in his early twenties, Sheffield is no stranger to this routine material as a juvenile-like Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, coming to the rescue to anyone in danger as well as assisting his animal friends from greedy hunters. For this segment, Bomba, accompanied by his monkey, Kimbbo, swing vines into action from tree to tree, swims underwater, communicates with the animals in their own language as well as doing drum talk beat messages to natives across the jungle.

Unlike the previous entry of THE LION HUNTERS (1951) where Bomba appears in the opening scene, his character isn't introduced until nearly ten minutes into the story. AFRICAN TREASURE starts its initial ten minutes with Deputy Andy Barnes (Leonard Mudie) at his outpost station being served breakfast by his native servant, Eli (Smoki Whitfield) before Pat Gilroy (Lyle Talbot), a lion hunter, arrives by rowboat, asking Baarnes for his assistance to the village of Mangula where he can acquire native guides. Andy receives shortwave radio news from the commissioner in Nairobi regarding the last hunting expedition consisting of Professor Catesby, a geologist, to meet with Pedro Sebastian and others, who have mysteriously disappeared. In the meantime, Bomba (Johnny Sheffield), having rescued Lita (Laurette Luez) and her native guide, Tolu (James Adamson) from the attack of a vicious lion, finds that Lita is searching for her missing father, Pedro Sebastian (Marton Garralaga). About the time Bomba comes to the abandoned native village to find bodies and skeleton remains of Catesby and safari, Barnes receives his mail delivery consisting of a poster of Gilroy as a wanted fugitive and notorious diamond smuggler, Roy De Haven. Because of this discovery, Gilroy forces Barnes to take him by boat to the village of Nomgola. About the same time, Lita is abducted by Greg Wainwright (Arthur Space), who takes her to her father, where he and others are held prisoners by him and Hardy Moss (Lane Bradford) as they are at a secret location known as Mountain of Diamonds being forced to mine the crater of diamonds. As Eli plots on rescuing Barnes from Gilroy, Bomba remains at a distance watching over Lita, her father, and the enslaved prisoners before Wainwright entraps them inside a cave to be buried alive following a forced landslide. Woody Strode (The Native Mail Boy); Kermit Pruitt and Sugar Foot Anderson also appear in smaller roles.

Standard production routinely told in 70 minutes with some material geared mostly for juvenile audiences. Commonly shown on commercial television in the 1960s and 70s, and available on DVD, AFRICAN TREASURE and others in the Bomba adventures can be see occasionally on Turner Classic Movies where it's been showing since 2010. Next in the series: BOMBA AND THE JUNGLE GIRL (1952). (** diamonds)