Jungle Goddess

I can't figure out how anybody could make a comment saying they expected more out of the lead actors in this B-feature when the two male leads, George Reeves and Ralph Byrd, gave the exact same performances in this film as they did when playing "Superman" and "Dick Tracy," or any other role they played in their long careers. And the film was made for the express purpose of supplying mid-week and double-feature bill-of-fare for the several thousand small-town and side-street theatres in the U.S. that couldn't afford the rates charged on "The Snake Pit" ( a non-jungle jungle film), which is the one to watch if one is looking for "realism" from films released about the same dates in 1948. Evidently, the ability to look at a film within the context of when it was made and who it was made for---even a low-budget, credibility-lacking, poverty-row potboiler such as "Jungle Goddess"---doesn't exist among the majority of today's television viewers whose sense and understanding of history regarding movies and/or eras in history only dates back to the day-before-yesterday.

Of course, compared to most of the other 1948-produced films, it is a clinker and a clunker, but that is where the comparisons need to be made.

For plot researchers, this one has Greta Venderhorn (Wanda McKay), a young girl, as the only survivor of a plane crash in the "African" jungle at the beginning of World War II, and she is rescued by a tribe of "natives"---no more real than the people populating Camelot---who proclaim her as their "White Goddess." (Gracious, how un-PC.) Six years later, two ex-Army Air Corps pilots, Mike Patton (George "Superman" Reeves) and Bob Simpson (Ralph "Dick Tracy" Byrd), searching for the plane wreckage spot it, and land in an attempt to find the missing girl. It seems that Gloria's father's will stipulates that the person or persons that find his daughter, dead or alive, will receive a large reward.

Well, as fate and screenplay writer Joseph Pagnano would have it, they find the village and Gloria, and learn that she has had all she wants of playing Miss White Goddess of 1948, especially since her father's estate is not going to be depleted none too much by the payments of the reward, so she, Mike and Bob plan to escape and head back for civilization.

BUT...and a big but it is...one of the two men discovers that there is nearby a valuable deposit of ore, and he decides that he wants the ore and the reward and Gloria all to himself (no dummy, he), and conflict rears its ugly head, and the two male leads are soon scuffling on the plank floors of the rear-lot jungle set. Plus, the tribe witch doctor, Oolonga (Smoki Whitfield), isn't all that happy that these two intruders are making off with the White Goddess and the tribe's ore (even if the tribe didn't know they had some valuable ore and Wanama (Armida)is on hand to claim the title of Off-White Goddess with a Spanish accent) and Oolonga is pursuing their oom-gawa, bad-juju white butts with intent to punish. (Hey, lighten up, it's just a b-feature from the late 40's and a film of its time or, at least, the makers thought it was.)

Now, we wouldn't dare disclose whether "Superman" or "Dick Tracy" is the semi-bad and slightly misguided hero, who finally sees the light but catches a chukked spear and dies anyway, because that would be a bell-ringing, light-flashing, five-star SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER...for the few who aren't hip to 1940's cast-order listings.

In this low rent adventure, two aviators search for a missing heiress who vanished in the African jungle at the onset of World War Two. Our intrepid explorers discover she is alive and well and is being viewed by the local natives as some kind of "white goddess".

Many of these old time, low rent, ludicrous jungle flicks are quite entertaining when viewed in the right frame of mind and if the films are lively. However, JUNGLE GODDESS is just bad. It has a few campy scenes, but overall it is very uneventful. About half the film consists of scenes of the lead characters sitting around inside a hut and talking. There is also an overlong and dull flashback sequence. I was disappointed that there was nothing that really stood out as vivid. This film lacks the elements of the type that sometimes make these silly little pictures entertaining; ludicrous native rituals, the heroine being carted off by a gorilla, hero battling with a stuffed lion etc.

A FEW NOTES: George Reeves made two cheap jungle pictures the same year. This and JUNGLE JIM, where he played the villain. The set used for the pub at the start of this film, looks like the one used in UNKNOWN ISLAND, made the same year.

A couple of players known for portraying comic strip heroes George Reeves as Superman and Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy play a pair of post World War II pilots who run a charter aviation company in Africa. Byrd sees a big opportunity now that the war is over for a big financial windfall if they can find a missing heiress alive or dead who was on a flight missing since the first day of World War II.

Wanda McKay turns out to be alive and living with a tribe where she's revered as a white goddess who healed the chief's daughter. That and the fact that blondes are scarce in the jungle make her an object of worship. Reeves and Byrd find her and after that they come to a parting of the ways.

Nothing much to recommend this film other than McKay's legs which are on ample display. She was a poor man's Betty Grable. As for Reeves and Byrd they act like a pair of idiots in heat, especially Byrd.

You'd better be a leg man to appreciate this turkey.

In this dystopian time, I have not made a lot of good choices with all the time I have not been working, and one of the choices was to gang watch all the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. This movie was one of the episodes. So, I watched it. When it was over, I stopped watching. I am sure things happened but all I remember was a Mexican girl who seemed to have a lesbian or bisexual relation with a white goddess while a bunch of Black guys were acting very black for even that time. Oh, and in the end, you get to see a weird plane moving so slowly that it violated several laws of physics at the same time. It is not worth watching even through the eyes of two robots. And be sure to vote. May as well. THE END

The dull, gray story of a Dutch girl(with no accent, mind you)who gets lost in the jungles of Bachman's floral..err..Tanzania. She is found and taken in by the most multi-ethnic 'native tribe' that I've ever seen, including a woman who looks like she put on too much bronzer before she went on set. These people seem to think that she's some kind of 'White Goddess', which is weird since they call the two meaty, wooden white guys who appear to rescue her white devils. These dopes crash in the jungle while looking for this girl, because there's a reward for finding her. One of them, a psychotic with a stupid pencil moustache, pulls out a gun and starts shooting. He kills one of the warriors, and is promptly condemned to death. Which he deserves, but that wouldn't further the plot, would it?

Not that much does. There are long, dry conversations and some tepid flirting between the Goddess and the less looney of the two men, although he manages to patronize her like crazy. Actually, she had managed to hold off the tribe doing her in by keeping up the white goddess front for over six years, plus she learned their language and kept a witch doctor at bay. Sounds like a pretty strong, smart girl, which is why Chunky McWhitey's smug condescension is even more annoying.

They finally all run away together, although why they didn't leave the psycho Snidely Whiplash wannabee behind is beyond me. He eventually tries to kill both of them, and gets stabbed by a warrior after he kills yet another of the tribesmen by 'accident'. The two protagonists get in the plane and fly away, and the woman makes dreamy comments about how when she gets back to civilization she immediately wants to buy a hat. A hat!? Gimme a break, lady!