The Jungle

Most films about prehistoric animals almost always feature dinosaurs. This is one of the few films I know of that deals with prehistoric mammals. In this film the menace is woolly mammoths that are driving elephants out of the countryside and into villages wrecking havoc and death. While the basic idea is interesting, the film itself is slow going. The American version which is only a little more than an hour long is padded with lots material designed to use up footage. Its seems it takes the party almost forever to encounter the mammoths. The final confrontation is exciting but it takes too long. The only other point of interest is that this is the earliest American/Indian co-production that I am aware of.

Indian princess Marie Windsor takes over her father's kingdom as he dies. The principal issue facing her is reports of elephants trampling crops. Advisor Cesar Romero has tried to deal with them by sending a hunting expedition of ten men, including his brother and hunter Rod Cameron. Only Cameron has returned, and he claims they aren't ordinary elephants. They're mammoths. There's scoffing, and Romero, Cameron and Miss Windsor lead an expedition to hunt down the marauding beasts.

It's shot in India. Director William Berke and DP Clyde De Vinna, a long-time specialist in shooting in exotic locations, are the only Hollywood people involved in the shoot. The rest, cast and crew, are local talent, and quite good (even if I don't care for V. Dakshinamoorthy and G. Ramanathan's repetitive score). The images are enhanced by sepia toning, and there are things like a bear fighting a tiger and a mongoose tackling a cobra for people who want a sense Kipling's India. For a rather simple and often cliched story, it shows a great deal of ambition for the Lippert organization.

This is one strange film from Lippert Pictures. They spent a lot of time and trouble to take a film crew over to India with three Occidental players in Marie Windsor, Cesar Romero, and Rod Cameron. A lot of very nice background footage of India is sadly wasted on a rather unbelievable story.

Today's computer graphics might have been able to come up with more convincing Ice Age type mammoths who are terrorizing contemporary elephants who are in turn running for their lives and trampling a lot of humans in the process in Marie Windsor's kingdom. The mammoths we see here look like today's pachyderms dressed up in raccoon coats.

In any event Marie who has been learning western ways is summoned hastily back to her Indian kingdom after her father died. She has enemies herself who are opposed to any modernization and want to kill her which forms a subplot to this film.

Ruling in her place until she got home was prime minister Cesar Romero who hired white hunter Rod Cameron to solve a problem of raiding elephants. Cameron was the lone survivor of an expedition where Romero's brother was killed and Cameron comes back with this tall tale about prehistoric mammoths.

One thing is for certain. Mammoths were Ice Age creatures who died off when the earth's general climate warmed up. No way would they be living even in a remote area of the Indian jungle. But I guess no one thought of that in making The Jungle.

Indian Princess Marie Windsor, along with Indian something-or-other Cesar Romero and American hunter Rod Cameron go off in search of prehistoric mammoths who are terrorizing regular elephants. Windsor is almost believable as an Indian, although her bindi disappears halfway through the movie. We do get a gratuitous shot of her in a bathing suit, so I can't complain. I had a hard time wrapping my head around Romero wrapping a turban around his head, but at least his acting is acceptable. Cameron, on the other hand, is extremely dull. There seem to be several subplots going on, but I couldn't keep up with most of them. One of the more ridiculous scenes is a knife fight between Romero and Cameron, which involves a lot of pointless pointing. The film was shot entirely in India, so there is some interesting scenery, and the supporting cast of local actors is decent. The mammoths, which don't appear until the final few minutes, are a letdown. Since they are barely onscreen, it's hard to tell what kind of "makeup" was used, but my guess would be large shag rugs.

Understand the limitations of the time, and this probably had a low-budget, but for me way too much of this movie consisted of... travel along a path stop and watch an animal fight or attack... sometimes with the same animals multiple times. Made it a bit dull for me.