Forbidden Jungle

A straightforward and honest translation to the screen of the sort of story popular in the jungle-themed pulp magazines of the Thirties and Forties, a spin off of the Tarzan craze that started during the Great War with the publication of ERB's famous book. I'm that context, this film is well done and entertaining, though by modern standards it is terribly dated in terms of acting and production.

Basic story line is a hunter has been hired to locate a young male who had gone missing with his parents many years earlier in the deep dark jungle. The parents had died, but there were reports of a young male being sceen hanging out with monkeys. Sound familiar. The hunter happens to bring with him a tiger that he had captured in India - so you can guess where this will go.

The movie runs for just over an hour, so one would think they would be able to fill in the time with a good story. Unfortunately, a lot of the movie was filled with fun time with cheeky monkeys, playing with animals, stock footage, animal fights and a crazy gorilla, though the man in the gorilla suit was not too bad.

If you have an hour to kill, and you do not mind a cross between Tarzan and The Jungle Book; pull up a chair, and turn on YouTube. Make sure you have some snacks.

Other than Tamba and Crash Corrigan, there is no reason to watch this. As a San Fernando Valley kid of the 50's, one of life's greatest thrills was going to Corriganville, way out in Chatsworth. Crash was usually there which meant he wasn't too busy acting in movies but at the time us kids were just happy to see him and other movie stunt people get sot and fall from roof tops into hay filled wagons.

Actually, his acting ability was a bit under-rated as can be seen by the wonderful job he does here in Forbidden Jungle. I may watch this movie again since it's possible there were aspects of it that were a bit too complex to understand the first time around.

Tom Burton is a slightly paunchy, often sweaty, baby faced "world's greatest animal hunter" who goes off to a closed stage dressed to look some what like a jungle and inhabited by circus animals and stock footage is searching for a very scrawny, greasy haired ,long lost jungle boy rumored to have been raised by the beasts of the jungle so he can collect his massive reward!! After all, as Tom always says, money is the most important thing in his life. Watch this movie to find out if it in fact is! I gave this flick 6 growls out of 10. It's definitely not the best of it's type but good for a few laughs at least.

I'd never heard of this one when I came upon it at my local DVD rental outlet via the cheap Alpha edition; since I wasn't even familiar with any of the personnel involved, I didn't have much confidence in the film being any good – but still told myself I'd get to watch the thing someday based solely on its intriguing title and lurid poster (a gorilla carrying a scantily-clad woman)!

However, I was laughing myself silly all the way through it – starting from the very opening shot, given the incredibly obvious studio-bound look of the jungle! The film was clearly a very cheap production and one that was poorly scripted and made into the bargain: not only is it padded with relentless stock footage (most of which is irrelevant to begin with, especially the would-be comic antics of a trio of monkeys) but it's truly bottom-of-the-barrel fare on a par with the Ed Wood films, though hardly as zanily inspired. Suffice to say that it makes the classic (but often juvenile and clichéd) black-and-white Tarzan films look like works of art in comparison!

Anyway, the narrative involves a search for a mysterious jungle boy (sounds familiar?) by a rugged hunter: amusingly, he's seen countless times wiping his brow from the heat and fatigue while trekking through the jungle – even if it's the natives who do all the hard work…including carrying a caged tiger he brought over from India! Of course, some rich man from the civilized world is claiming kinship with the boy – but, as it transpires, the hunter-turned-missionary who raised him all these years is also a relation. The hunter is bewildered by what he sees – cue recurring daft monologues about how he's only in it for the money (an attitude which, needless to say, has changed by the end of the film…especially after the jungle boy has saved his life and he's had his health restored by a young girl, one of the natives at the mission!).

The last third of the 66-minute running-time, then, is taken up by scenes in which, let loose by the mischievous monkeys, the tiger is seen almost battling – so ludicrous is the blending of stock footage and pitiful 'special effects' – (yet winning, every single bout and in no time at all!) an assortment of jungle creatures i.e. panther, wildebeest, gorilla and python. The film should perhaps truly rate a BOMB – but I hadn't watched a vintage 'amateur hour' piece such as this in a dog's age that I managed to have a modicum of fun at it regardless