Captive parmi les fauves

Swimming champions Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe duel it out in Captive Girl part of Weissmuller's Jungle Jim series. Crabbe was in better shape however because we get to see him stripped down where Weissmuller even in his swimming scenes is clothed.

Crabbe is only one of two villains. The other being John Dehner ludicrously made up in blackface to play the tribal witch doctor. This may have been the nadir of that career, but Dehner soldiered on as he kept a straight face throughout the film.

Weissmuller as the legendary Jungle Jim has been hired to go to India presumably to find and locate an evil jungle witch, a white girl roaming the jungle there with a tiger as a companion who has been running a small terrorist campaign against Dehner and his minions who've been ruling his tribe in the absence of Chief Rick Vallin who has gone off to white man's missionary school. Now Weissmuller and Vallin are traveling together, Weissmuller to find the mysterious white girl with the tiger and Vallin to reclaim his legacy.

Crabbe is a treasure hunter who is after the loot that the white girl's parents found presumably as archaeologists back in the day before they disappeared.

The white girl is Anita Lhoest, swimming champion of the Forties who looked real good in some tiger skin bodywear. They gave her minimal and I mean minimal dialog, less than Weissmuller and Crabbe had back when they were playing Tarzan. This was Anita's one and only film and why no one thought of her for Sheena, Queen Of The Jungle who knows?

I saw these films as a lad and looking at it now I see how ludicrously bad some of these Jungle Jim films were. Positive camp.

When Johnny Weissmuller started getting too old to play Tarzan, he put on some khakis and returned to the African wilds as Jungle Jim. The Tarzan films allowed Weissmuller to disguise the fact that he wasn't all the great of an actor, since Tarzan only spoke in broken English, but with him now being required to deliver normal dialogue reveals him as a painfully wooden actor.. However, Weissmuller does have screen charisma and that's enough to carry this routine jungle adventure that has a dash of sex appeal, with it's story about Jungle Jim saving a jungle girl captured by an evil witch doctor, while also fighting a treasure hunter played by Buster Crabbe (who also played Tarzan in the 1930s).

Captive Girl (1950)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Johnny Weissmuller is back as Jungle Jim and this time he's trying to locate an evil white woman roaming the jungles. She actually turns out to be a good guy but the real bad people are a tribal witch doctor (John Dehner) and a fortune hunter (Buster Crabbe) seeking gold. CAPTIVE GIRL is mildly interesting because it features former Olympic gold medal winners and former screen Tarzan's Weissmuller and Crabbe going up against one another. You'd think that the producers would have taken advantage of this and done something fun with it but they don't. In the end this fourth installment turns out to be another very weak one and it's clear that there really isn't much hope for this series. The ultra low-budget is obvious because the majority of the screen time is either stock footage or quick cutaway shots to Jim's dog and a monkey that is constantly following him around. This here is probably the only reason to watch the film because throughout I noticed that the monkey would start being mean to the dog and then we'd get a fast edit to something else. They say working with animals is something directors hate and I'm going to guess that they had a lot of trouble here as the two co-stars obviously didn't get along well. Weissmuller fits the role nicely, as usual, but also as usual his line delivery is pretty much not there. Crabbe does what he can with his role as the bad guy and I'm sure character actor Dehner didn't like appearing in this type a role at this point in his career. Anita Lhoest plays the white girl and while she's cute that's about all she's able to do.

The main interest of this fun but tepid adventure flick is the face off between two former TARZAN characters and also two former swimming elite champions, Olympic level. I watched it only in that purpose. For the rest, you can watch any JUNGLE JIM or BOMBA or a poor TARZAN movie. Many chimp or any other animal tricks, footage, tribal scheme and the unavoidable White bad guy: Buster Crabbe; as you'll later have for TARZAN a film where Gordon Scott - Tarzan - fights against Jock Mahoney - another former Tarzan role - in TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT. So, if there is one JUNGLE JIM to see I presume that's this very one. Npw, that's up to you.

This is a funny movie that is completely unbelievable. Had I seen this movie in the early fifties, I would have believed it is realistic. It is light entertainment at the most, but the Jungle Girl Anita is one fine "Honey", I think I love her. To my consternation this beauty made only ONE movie. History is abundant with horse faces making multiple flicks, why not a beauty like Anita? Oh well, That's life, but this movie is not about life.