African Treasure

AFRICAN TREASURE (Monogram, 1952), written and directed by Ford Beebe, marks the seventh theatrical entry to the "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" series starring Johnny Sheffield. Starting off his movie career playing a jungle boy with his introduction as Boy in TARZAN FINDS A SON (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1939), starring Johnny Weissmuller, Sheffield has come a long way with his jungle adventures from youngster in the "Tarzan" series (1939-1947) to adolescent in his very own series as "Bomba" (1949-1955), a character created by Roy Rockwood in the "Bomba" books. Now basically a young adult in his early twenties, Sheffield is no stranger to this routine material as a juvenile-like Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, coming to the rescue to anyone in danger as well as assisting his animal friends from greedy hunters. For this segment, Bomba, accompanied by his monkey, Kimbbo, swing vines into action from tree to tree, swims underwater, communicates with the animals in their own language as well as doing drum talk beat messages to natives across the jungle.

Unlike the previous entry of THE LION HUNTERS (1951) where Bomba appears in the opening scene, his character isn't introduced until nearly ten minutes into the story. AFRICAN TREASURE starts its initial ten minutes with Deputy Andy Barnes (Leonard Mudie) at his outpost station being served breakfast by his native servant, Eli (Smoki Whitfield) before Pat Gilroy (Lyle Talbot), a lion hunter, arrives by rowboat, asking Baarnes for his assistance to the village of Mangula where he can acquire native guides. Andy receives shortwave radio news from the commissioner in Nairobi regarding the last hunting expedition consisting of Professor Catesby, a geologist, to meet with Pedro Sebastian and others, who have mysteriously disappeared. In the meantime, Bomba (Johnny Sheffield), having rescued Lita (Laurette Luez) and her native guide, Tolu (James Adamson) from the attack of a vicious lion, finds that Lita is searching for her missing father, Pedro Sebastian (Marton Garralaga). About the time Bomba comes to the abandoned native village to find bodies and skeleton remains of Catesby and safari, Barnes receives his mail delivery consisting of a poster of Gilroy as a wanted fugitive and notorious diamond smuggler, Roy De Haven. Because of this discovery, Gilroy forces Barnes to take him by boat to the village of Nomgola. About the same time, Lita is abducted by Greg Wainwright (Arthur Space), who takes her to her father, where he and others are held prisoners by him and Hardy Moss (Lane Bradford) as they are at a secret location known as Mountain of Diamonds being forced to mine the crater of diamonds. As Eli plots on rescuing Barnes from Gilroy, Bomba remains at a distance watching over Lita, her father, and the enslaved prisoners before Wainwright entraps them inside a cave to be buried alive following a forced landslide. Woody Strode (The Native Mail Boy); Kermit Pruitt and Sugar Foot Anderson also appear in smaller roles.

Standard production routinely told in 70 minutes with some material geared mostly for juvenile audiences. Commonly shown on commercial television in the 1960s and 70s, and available on DVD, AFRICAN TREASURE and others in the Bomba adventures can be see occasionally on Turner Classic Movies where it's been showing since 2010. Next in the series: BOMBA AND THE JUNGLE GIRL (1952). (** diamonds)

Another Bomba the Jungle Boy movie starring Johnny Sheffield. Here our junior Tarzan is battling diamond smugglers who are forcing natives to work as slaves. Laurette Luez plays the daughter of one of them. She's certainly a looker. Not that Bomba would notice. Lyle Talbot plays the leader of the diamond smugglers, who first enters the picture posing as a hunter and fooling stupid Andy (Leonard Mudie). At this point Mudie has become a series regular. Woody Strode has a bit part as a jungle mailman (!). The jungle telegraph stuff is the highlight of the picture and that's saying something since most people will probably find it pretty ridiculous. There's the expected rear projection and stock footage, used to cheap effect. Bomba's fight with a lion is probably the weakest in the series up to this point. At its best the Bomba series was nothing special and only of interest as middling adventure stories. This is not the series at its best. Actually, this is one of the worst. Even at just 70 minutes the movie drags and feels like it takes forever. Of some minor interest for series fans but nothing here for casual viewers.

"African Treasure" is the 7th of 12 Bomba the Jungle Boy films, which were made by Monogram films in the late 40s and into the 50s. It's better than most I've seen and holds up a bit better over time.

A group of ruthless diamond smugglers have kidnapped folks and are using them to mine for diamonds in the jungle. Bomba comes to the rescue and saves the day.

While the plot is very simple and the conclusion foregone, the movie works a bit better than usual because unlike most jungle films of the era, this one is NOT filled with ill-suited stock footage of animals. Too often, when they are used in movies of the 1930s-50s, the animals often aren't even African ones and the footage is quite grainy. For some reason, the filmmakers decided not to use such footage and it makes for a better movie. Now I am NOT saying "African Treasure" is any sort of classic but it does play reasonably well and is enjoyable.

Perhaps he's not into girls, or maybe he's already got a thing going with Kimbbo the Chimp (it can get lonely in the jungle), but Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) shows absolutely no interest in smokin' hot babe Lita Sebastian (Laurette Luez), even when she says that she doesn't know how to repay him for his bravery. I'd have a few ideas! Bomba's certainly no Tarzan, that's for sure.

Speaking of Tarzan, this adventure for Bomba isn't on a par with even the weakest of the Johnny Weismuller classics, in which Sheffield played the yodelling vine-swinger's adopted son, Boy. It's not Sheffield's fault - he does what he can with the weak material: no, the fault lies with Ford Beebe, whose direction is as bland and uninspired as his script (he also pads out his film with dreary stock footage). I've seen four other films by Beebe thus far, and 'Mediocre' seems to be his middle name.

The dismal plot sees Bomba help Lita to rescue her father, who is one of a group of unfortunates forced by diamond hunters to work in a mine in a crater in the jungle. The film is so dull that the highlights (lovely Luez aside) are a monkey wearing a napkin and the chimp throwing a rock. While I'm usually a sucker for a tussle with a stuffed lion, Beebe even manages to suck the fun out of that. The film's dumbest moments are Bomba using a tree as a makeshift jungle drum (try that next time you're in the woods to see how stupid it is) and finding a submerged tunnel through which he can swim into the crater unseen - how fortuitous!

3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for Luez.

Bomba the Jungle Boy is back again and in this film is stopping diamond smugglers who are posing as scientist. Ho hum. If you've seen one Bomnba film, you'd essentially seen them all. FUN FACT: The great Woody Strode makes an early film appearance here playing an uncredited native.