The Lost Jungle

I'm not going to criticize the movie. There isn't that much to talk about. It has good animal actions scenes which were probably pretty astonishing at the time. Clyde Beatty isn't exactly a matinée idol. He's a little slight and not particularly good looking. But that's OK. He's the man in that lion cage. We know that when he can't take the time away from his lions to tend to his girlfriend, he will end up on an island with her and have to save the day. Someone said earlier that it is a history lesson. The scenes at the circus are of another day, especially the kids who hang around. I didn't realize that even back in the thirties, they sailed on three masted schooners. It looked like something out of 1860. I guess that's the stock footage they had. No wonder the thing got wrecked. They're always talking about fixing her up. There's even a dirigible. It tells us a little about male female relationships at the time, a kind of giggly silliness. But if you don't take it too seriously, you can have fun watching it.

For those of you who did not grow up in the days of old-time circus and traveling shows, you may not know the name Clyde Beatty. Beatty is hailed as one of the worlds most famous animal trainers. My father, who is ninety-six, and still in sound mind, saw Beatty in Raleigh, NC back in the thirties and both of us truly enjoyed this movie. The animal scenes were wonderful and reminiscent of the old circus. Supported by Syd Saylor, a noted and well educated actor and comic, added the light touch in just the right places. This film came as one of the offerings in a 50 pack DVD collection and is one of the few really classics in the bunch, but it was worth the cost of the collection to see and have this movie. Clyde did all the 'stunts' himself and his talent in animal training is relished. Enjoy this for what it is, a fun adventure featuring a true American talent.

Wow, this is one action-packed nerve-jangling movie from start to finish.

Completely contrived of course, but that's not a bad thing in this case and I feel it does have great historic value.

With regard to being contrived, I mean, really, first you have amazing scenes of wild cats fighting in a cage, wild cats that are never found together in nature, then, lo and behold, our friends end up on an uncharted island where, unlike everywhere else in the world, those same wild cats just happen to live (and of course, fight) together naturally. Or, I don't know, maybe their cages fell from a plane on the way to the circus? But seriously, there are few movies that cause your hair to stand on end for real. I have been around lions and with some, their roar travels an amazing distance. Two people I know mistook a lion's roar for what they seriously thought was a big metal bridge being hit by strong winds! I think certain sections of this movie/serial WOULD have perhaps fit the science fiction genre if they had used weird-looking hybrid species of wild cats on the uncharted island. That would have made it more intense and even more unusual, as well..."Tiglons and ligers and bears, oh my." 8/10.

This is not a bad little serial. It has few of the standard serial cliches that bug me, especially not the cliffhanger endings that end up happening completely differently at the start of the next episode (watch the original Captain America serial to see a LOT of that).

Clyde Beatty is a nice enough guy, though obviously not an actor...but then few of the real-life celebrities that did movies and serials in the 30's & 40's were (Red Grange, Frank Hawks, Sammy Baugh...though Houdini pulled it off back in 1919). There are a lot of animal action shots, which is a pleasure to watch. Clyde has this stupid hypnotic eye power over the beasts at a couple of points in the story, but those moments are easily ignored.

All in all a nice little serial...fun, good locations, good guys, bad guys, wild animals, lost treasure...sounds good to me!

"The Lost Jungle" features world famous animal tamer, Clyde Beatty. While mostly forgotten today, he was quite possibly the greatest animal tamer of all time and he was the first to be the featured headline act in a circus and the first to own his own circus. Beatty only appeared in six movies...including this 12-part movie serial.

For the most part, I think this serial could be "Clyde Beatty and His Pal Deal with a Bunch of Jerks!". Why? Because instead of the usual villains that populate serials (such as spies, masked villains and the like), Beatty has to mostly deal with jerks who try to kill him. One is his assistant, Sharky, a know-it-all who is jealous of Clyde and tries several times to get him killed. Additionally, when the dirigible Beatty is on crashes, two more homicidal jerks (Krby & Flynn) try to kill Clyde because he knows they killed an explorer to take his treasure! In many cases, he escapes death by fighting with various wild animals, though he also engages in a few fights with his enemies. Along to help him is his sidekick (Syd Saylor) and 1001 animals from the circus where Beatty worked in real life.

So is it any good? Well, yes and no. Nearly all serials are a bit cheesy and you can't judge them by the standards of a typical movie. But despite a few silly portions of the film (the island they crash onto has animals from all over the world on it!), the action is pretty good and usually it's actually Beatty fighting off animals and doing stunts. Not great...but not bad either.

By the way, if you do watch, note Mickey Rooney as an extra in part 1.