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This jungle adventure from Universal Pictures and director James Whale follows an expedition into the South American jungle led by Keith Brandon (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). They're searching for a lost Inca city said to contain valuable treasure. However, they soon encounter two problems: restless hostile natives that don't like these outsiders monkeying with their sacred sites; and a woman (Joan Bennett), a late addition to their party, who attracts the affections of more than one of the men in the party.

This is an infamous flop, regarded by most involved as the low point of their respective careers. I didn't find it nearly that bad, and much better than many other jungle movies that I've seen. Perhaps it was the big budget and large cast that garnered unmet heightened expectations. The script is silly, with a lot of corny dialogue, especially in the melodramatic love scenes. And there's a lot of blatant ignorance about the native culture depicted, but that was part and parcel of these kinds of movies during that time. I still ended up enjoying this a bit, thanks to the cast and the "forbidden temple" setting.

Essentially "Lost Patrol with a Girl"; not enough action to be a true adventure. Nice photography and spotty acting are the main features of Whale's last film. Noble Englishmen exploit grateful natives, finding treasure in an Inca temple. They fight over "the girl" and then are surrounded by savages with poison darts. Good battle scenes at the end. A must for Whale fans, for everyone else it's a moderately amusing time-waster.

Voted the worst picture of the year by the students of Harvard and presumably the winner of the Harvard Lampoon award for 1940 if such was given out back in the day, Green Hell is a great example of what some actors will do for a friend.

Note the credits for producer of this film, the name of the gentleman was Harry Eddington. He and another man Frank Vincent were partners in a talent agency and according to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in his memoirs, Eddington had always wanted to be a producer. He was well liked by his clients and the cast members he assembled were from mostly his free lance clients who did a favor for him. He got Frances Marion to write the script and James Whale to direct and sold the whole business to Universal.

Other than some establishing shots the entire thing was done on the sound stage of Universal. It all looks phony, even the King Kong jungle at RKO was better than this. Of course American movie companies were not shooting abroad in tropical climates at this time. Fairbanks remembers that while the sets were all phony, the humidity due to lack of air conditioning wasn't.

The story is set in South America at the Amazon headwaters where one of those movie lost cities has been found. Rumors of Inca treasure has brought a motley concoction of adventurers on an expedition headed by archaeologists Alan Hale and ramrodded by Fairbanks. Vincent Price is part of the group, but he's killed off before a third of the film is done. But when the native porters bring back medicine to help him possibly survive poison arrows, they also bring back his wife, now his widow Joan Bennett.

And Joan is dressing pretty chic for jungle travel, she's got all the guys panting after her. But when those headhunters who killed off Price come back, it's starting to look more like the Alamo.

Green Hell is a curious concoction that's part Trader Horn, part Rain, a little of the Alamo and a little of John Ford's Lost Patrol. Vincent Price as well as Fairbanks used to cheerfully make fun of this film.

What some people won't do for a friend.

A search for gold in Incan ruins is complicated by the arrival of a pretty lady. This is one of those old movies that you really want to love but it just doesn't work. The sets are terrific and would be reused to great effect by Universal in other films. On paper the cast is excellent. Sadly most are either underutilized or given parts that don't play to their strengths. Why was Alan Hale playing a straight role? The movie would have benefited greatly from one of his fun lighter performances. Doug Fairbanks huffs and puffs his way through the whole thing doing a poor Clark Gable imitation. And that awful part for Joan Bennett - don't get me started!

I've revisited this movie a few times over the years, hoping to find more to like about it. At its best it's a forgettable Saturday afternoon adventure flick. Unfortunately a lot of it is kind of dull and lacking in much style. You'd never guess James Whale directed this.

Started off promising but got bogged down in the middle with the introduction of Mrs. Richardson (Joan Bennett). Warning, spoilers will most likely be in the rest of the review. It seemed kind of pointless to kill off Vincent Price so early in the movie, a lot was made of how mysterious he was. Also, convenient of George Sanders to kill himself just before they get rescued, this prevents any kind of entanglements there might have been if they all had been rescued. The fun thing to do with this film, is that knowing that director James Whale was gay, is to look at the characters in another light. Isn't it strange that everything was going great with the exploring party made up of just men but once Bennett comes along everything goes to hell? Also what was the deal with John Howard and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.? It sure seemed to me that Howard was carrying a torch for Doug. Oh, the mind reels.