Jungle Moon Men

This is another Jungle adventure starring Johnny Weismuller but isn't either a Tarzan or Jungle Jim adventure. Rather confusingly he plays himself in this film. Quite why that is I don't know but essentially he is the same character in all his movies.

The plot is the usual greedy white bad guys seeking an ill gotten fortune in a jungle setting featuring some decidedly unrealistic natives. The Moon Men of the films title are dwarfs dressed up laughably unconvincingly to look like a jungle tribe. Almost certainly the least scary tribe ever committed to celluloid.

Jungle Moon Men ticks every cliché in the Tarzan book but fails miserably to compare to the superior and much earlier Weismuller/O'Sullivan Tarzan films. The support acting is also sadly lacking.

However despite it's numerous faults, I did somehow enjoy this film. Maybe it falls into the so bad it's good category, maybe it's just because I like Weismuller.

With a title like that I just had to see this! But the connection between the moon and the little people with blow-pipes led by Billy Curtis is only vaguely alluded to. It's actually the sun that figures more prominently in the plot, since it represents the great god Ra, from whose lethal rays wicked high priestess Oma has eternally to shelter from in the murkily lit temple over which she rules.

Jean Byron cuts an impressive figure in the usual lady explorer's pith helmet and tight black britches as archaeologist Ellen Marsten - author of 'The Historical Basis of African Civilisation' - and proves remarkably bloodthirsty when let loose on the local wildlife with a bow & arrow, but is subsequently reduced to little more than an onlooker (I wonder what she called the book on which she based her adventures here?) Helen (sic) Stanton, too, as Oma Who Must Be Obeyed, has the makings of a formidable villainess, but is otherwise little used; not helped by an ugly blonde wig and boring dress which between them look as if they had both been lying about in wardrobe at Columbia since the 40's.

Most of the film is set out of doors in the sunshine, which keeps the film pleasant to watch, until we enter Oma's temple, which cameraman Henry Freulich renders suitably noirishly atmospheric. However as a whole, the film felt far longer than 70 minutes.

Johnny Weissmuller plays himself - or a sort of Victor Mature version of himself - as he does his "Allan Quartermain" impersonation guiding the rather determined "Ellen" (Jean Bryon) through the middle jungle in search of a long-lost companion. Deeper and deeper they go, the wildlife gets more and more menacing, the adventure more perilous, the insects more deadly - and this is all without leaving California! Anyway, their quest takes them to an hidden kingdom populated by the even more rare African branch of the oompa-loompa family and where the High Priestess of Ra "Oma" (Helene Stanton) has been happily minding her own business for centuries. In best "She" tradition, though, she falls in love and, well we just know that won't bode well. It's not a terrible film, it's just devoid of any originality as we plod through some library footage of rhinos, tigers, lions etc., en route to a denouement that made the short-ish seventy minute run-time seem quite considerably longer. That might have been down to the largely charm-free Weissmuller who should have just stuck to his loincloth and his vine-swinging yodelling, and to the rather uninspired and verbose writing. Pretty poor, sorry.

Jungle Moon Men (1955)

* (out of 4)

Johnny Weissmuller plays a character named Johnny Weissmuller who must take a female writer (Jean Byron) through the jungles where she's going to do a story about a tribe known as "Moon Men". These people aren't from the moon sadly but instead they worship a princess who just happens to be some sort of relation to an Egyptian Moon goddess. This next-to-last entry in the "Jungle Jim" series dropped that name for some reason and had Weissmuller playing a character with his own name but there's no question what series this film belongs to. I've read very few positive reviews to any of the Jungle Jim movies and many that I have read called this one of the worst. If this is just one of the worst and not the worst then I certainly hate myself for being a completest because I will still search out the other films in the series that I haven't seen even if that means having to torture myself with more madness. It's strange but on a technical level this is perhaps the best of the series that I've seen but this is the major problem. It seems like more money was pumped into this film and it's clear to see that the amount of stock footage has been reduced dramatically. The earlier films in the series at least had a camp value to them because of the amount of stock footage and how poorly it mixed in with everything else going on. With that missing here the camp value is pretty much missing and all we're left with is the bad acting and bad story that all of the films have. I must admit that I was constantly losing my attention span because nothing going on stuck me as the least bit interesting. The entire adventure was a joke because not for a second did I believe anything I was seeing. The so-called drama wasn't there because the entire set-up was just tired and silly. The comic relief was just downright poor and that chimp just gets more and more annoying with each new film. Weissmuller certainly wasn't an actor and his struggles to get lines out are quite apparent here. The supporting cast isn't much better but it's very possible they all realized they were in a Jungle Jim movie and decided to just take it easy. There's very little going on in this picture to make it worth viewing. At 70-minutes it's way too long and there just aren't enough fun moments to make it worth viewing. Certainly only recommended to those who must see each film in the series.

No matter what you expect "jungle moon men" to be, you'll likely be disappointed. Your imagination is probably better than that of the filmmakers. Johnny Weissmuller is playing a character named Johnny Weissmuller here, but twenty years as Tarzan and Jungle Jim doesn't seem to have taught him much about acting. At least Jean Byron as an intrepid author and Helene Stanton as some kind of high priestess are both attractive. That gives you a little something worth paying attention to in this dismal flick.