Green Hell

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.

With a cast that includes some big names (Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joan Bennett) and a couple of guys who usually play fascinating villains (Vincent Price and George Sanders) you'd think this movie would be a lot more entertaining than it is. Also, for an adventure story of men going into the jungle to find lost gold from an ancient civilization might also spark added interest...but that didn't work, either.

Credibility is a big problem here, at least looking at this film 50-plus years after it was made. When you see South American natives that look and sound like they came right off the farm in Kansas, it's tough to take the movie seriously! The sets were pretty hokey, too, and the dialog was really corny.

This was another movie that started off strong and the quickly became horrible and stayed that way.

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.

'Green Hell' does not deserve the contempt it gained at its time, as it does keep up with the spirit of pure adventure. Perfectly discardable are the funny situations that occur between so many males in the presence of a female - which go from stupid jealousy to ridiculous declarations of love. 'Green Hell' can be seen as a crazy denouement with certain points of naivety. By the end the characters are at the doorstep of a new adventure, aware of what they will do until the last of their days: carry on.

I will propose here that some films have merit, and are worth watching even though they are horrible. I mean to exclude laughing at ineptness from the equation.

This is an example. It has three notable items, the first of which is where the allure resides.

— It takes itself seriously. Really, the appeal of competence fades in the light of earnestness. As soon as it appeared, the participants realized it was a disaster, but you rarely know that when you are making the thing. It had name talent and a reasonable budget. The narrative stance has no irony or folds. It was intended to hit straight on, and even if the arrow did not score, it was shot with the intent to kill. And that matters.

— The film world had long since developed a shorthand for black sexual malevolence by depicting the risky jungle. Two touchstones were "Kongo" and "King Kong" both of which exploited the (then) visceral fear from racism. The same is attempted here, but I do not believe that any of the natives are played by blacks. The effect is startling, a now comic understanding of how transference occurs. You have the deep seated fear of sexual arousal out of control in the American populace. Deep, and strong. That gets transferred to an innocent people, only recently by the time of this film. That in turn gets denoted in unambiguous ways by the jungle and jungle people in film. At each step, there is a trailing disconnect, so that by the time you get to this film, the people in the jungle do not have to remotely look native. (It is not Africa, but that is irrelevant.)

— the script has all the elements. Sexual betrayal. Sexual competition (separately). Ancient magic attached to gold. Sexual imagery with phallic structures and blasting through walls to release floods. All the competitors (stereotypes) locked in a small space fighting the inevitability of death. It doesn't work, like "Kongo" does. But there sure as heck are all the parts.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.