Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald

Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A German expedition through Africa turns up a beautiful blonde girl (Marion Michael) who the locals think is a goddess. The crew kidnap the girl and take her back to the press who has a field day with her and soon it turns out she might be the long lost daughter of a very important man.

This is a pretty strange film that I'm sure was loved by teenage boys back in the day. This Tarzan-wannabe was filmed in German but it was sold throughout the world and in many locations it played matinees to where kids could watch it. They would have loved that because of the beautiful blonde in the lead plus the fact that she wasn't very many clothes and at times we see a few slips of nudity. Obviously, it's easy to see why so many teens from this period have such a fondness for the film.

As it stands today, the film is pretty weird because it starts off as a Tarzan rip-off but then it quickly turns into some weird drama where people are fighting over who actually owns the title character. I'm really not sure why they decided to leave the jungle because that's where all the fun was. These early scenes contain shots of the wildlife and it was rather fun seeing the young girl in her natural location.

All of the fun gets sucked out once we get back to civilization and the girl get taught how to speak English and how to be proper. This stuff is just told in such a boring way that you can't help but wish they were back in the jungle. Michael certainly has the appropriate look for the role and she's certainly fun to watch. Hardy Kruger is fun as the lead male and we also get Reggie Nalder playing a bad guy.

LIANA, JUNGLE GODDESS really isn't that good of a film. I'm sure when you watch it in life will determine how much entertainment you actually get out of it. For me personally, the film is harmless fun at the start but it slowly grows more boring as it moves along.

An expedition discovers young topless Liane (Marion Michael) cavorting around the jungle, where she is worshiped by the locals as a goddess. They bring her back to Germany, where her rich grandfather lives. There, she must remain fully clothed, as another relative intrigues and murders to prevent Liane from inheriting the family fortune.

I saw this movie at my neighborhood theater around the time it was released in the USA (1959). It was on a double bill with "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which was the only reason I was in the theater that day. Imagine my surprise and fascination when Liane first made her appearance, swinging on that rope flashing her bare breasts! I was eleven years old, and it was the first time I had ever viewed a woman's breasts. I'm guessing that they were only on screen for a few seconds, but to me it seemed like forever.

Once removed from its jungle setting, the movie becomes rather pedestrian and uninteresting. Still, because of its promising beginning, "Liane Jungle Goddess" has made a lasting impression on my life. Indeed, it has made me the man I am today. I would rate it "5" for the cinematic experience and "10" for the breasts.

It's clear that this movie's target audience is 14-year-old boys. "Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald" ("Liane, Jungle Goddess" in English) has little purpose beyond showing off Marion Michael's body, especially the upper half. And boy is there something to show off! I understand that Marion Michael was known as Germany's answer to Brigitte Bardot. As expected, the movie got treated as an adults-only movie upon its initial release (although you can bet money that a number of boys went to see it and it helped them become men).

Obviously the movie has a colonial mentality in its depiction of the Africans. That's to be expected. We can understand that and simply luxuriate in all the shots of Marion Michael swinging from the vines wearing as little as was allowed.

Not your typical Tarzan-type movie, but two movies condensed into one. The first is the movie promised by the poster: a female Tarzan type cavorts in nature, eventually to encounter our Tall Blond Hero, Thoren. There is also the camp's doctor -- a woman in love. She's much more attractive than Liane, which the 3rd wheel character points out, and this is our subplot. The main plot, of course, involves returning to civilization to inherit a fortune -- taking us out of the jungle and ending any nudity by the 30-minute mark.

Marion Michael is quite convincing at being what she actually is: an athletic young woman. Despite what other reviewers say, her body exposure here merits maybe a PG-13 rating; we rarely see more than a beach movie would show, and always momentarily. Irene Galter is even better as Doctor Woman, which in most she-Tarzan-type films would have remained a subplot to the end -- but they find something different to do with it here. Peter Mosbacher is nicely sympathetic as the 3rd-wheel friend/coworker. Overall, it's nicely shot, and the dialog tends toward reasonable intelligence, with only the occasional lapse into plot-convenience.

This would have worked much better as two distinct films: the first 30 minutes expanded full-length for jungle-escapism; the remaining hour fleshed out as a dialog-driven suspense story. There was a sharp point to be made about the difference between attraction to a naked jungle girl vs the civilized doctor woman, which the script only glancingly comments on -- but it does make that comment. This is where LIANE JUNGLE GODDESS carries a little more value than the usual jungle film. But if that doesn't hold our interest -- then Yes, there's a few carefully-filmed scenes of nearly-naked young girl in the first third, and the remaining hour mercifully does not spend too much time redoing Pygmalion.

"Liane, Jungle Goddess" is a slight film but one that pubescent boys would generally love. This is because in this Tarzan knockoff, the queen of the jungle is a good looking teenage girl from runs around topless (and wearing little else) during the first portion of the film. It's the sort of film that they simply couldn't have made in the US at the time due to censorship laws and I wasn't surprised that it was a German film (dubbed into English).

When the film begins, you see the usual stock footage of Africa--for the most part. It is less grainy and looks good, but it's also random--with Toucans (a South and Central American bird) and natives with blowguns (they use them in the Pacific and South America) in Africa! This sort of thing isn't that unusual in a 1940s and 50s jungle epic--and as I mentioned above, the quality of the footage is pretty good otherwise.

A group of explorers learn that there is a white teen living in the jungle amongst 'those savages', so they kidnap her and take her back to civilization. A problem arises, however, when an unscrupulous man contemplates harming Liane because she might be the heir to a family fortune--and he's counting on having this money for himself.

For this sort of movie, "Liane" is actually pretty good. While it's not a must-see or even a very good movie, it's a mildly enjoyable B-movie that has slipped into the public domain (and can be downloaded from the link on IMDb). My only serious reservation is that the actress playing Liane was only 16 and I worry that pervs might watch the film for all the wrong reasons. 12-18 year-old pervs are welcome...old creepy guys watching it are not!

By the way, I was really surprised when one of the characters was referred to as 'Mr. Goehring'. Considering it was made only a little over a decade after the war, I certainly was not expecting to hear this name in a German film!