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)

African Treasure (1952)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The seventh film in Monogram's series finds Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) trying to stop some diamond smugglers (one played by Lyle Talbot) who are trying to get rich while abusing some local natives. African TREASURE is as cheap as the previous six films but there's very little entertainment to be found here. At just 70-minutes the film seems way too long and even worse is the fact that very little happens throughout the movie. The biggest problem is the actual screenplay that doesn't give the characters anything to do. For the most part we have three or four groups who are constantly wondering around and talking about what they're going to do when they run into one of the other groups. We hear the natives call Bomba the "White Devil" and we get such politically incorrect lines as a jungle girl telling them they don't have to fear him because he's white. Yes, there's a jungle girl here played by Laurette Luez and she tries to bring a love story but even this here falls flat. The only good thing that can be said about the film are a couple fine performances. Sheffield is obviously very comfortable in the role and he has no problem as he at least appears to be giving it his all. Talbot, a classic bad guy, also makes for some fun but one wishes he had more to do. You can look quickly for a young Woody Strode. Outside of these things there's pretty much nothing else going on. We see Bomba fight a fake lion and of course he has to rescue people.

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.

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.