Jungle Manhunt

This is one of the better Jungle Jim entries.Although still low-budget with the usual stock footage it has some good things goibg for it.First of all,Johnny Weissmuller looks quite fit and shows off his physique twice in the film.He looked better here,than in his last Tarzan film.Sheila Ryan as Ann the lady photographer is a beautiful and spunky co-star.She looks lovely in a sarong in a scene where she is getting cozy with the lost football player,Bob Waterfield.(a real-life player).Also along for the ride are Rick Vallin as Jim's native friend,Tamba the Chimp and that great B-actor Lyle Talbot as the villain.A predictable JIM adventure,but still a lot of fun.

Jungle Manhunt (1951)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Seventh film in the popular series has a football star (real football player Bob Waterfield) going missing in the jungle so a reporter (Sheila Ryan) hires Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) to go searching for him. Soon they find a wild skeleton man tribe as well as various dinosaurs. I wasn't expecting too much going into this film but I was still left disappointed because I've become of a fan of director Landers who is probably best remembered for the Karloff/Lugosi film THE RAVEN. The director has also directed films in series such as Boston Blackie, The Whistler and various other "B" movies. He can usually turn trash into good fun but that's not the case here. This is only my second film in the series and I'm already starting to get bored with it. There are still many campy moments here including one very embarrassing goof that happens towards the start of the film. After Jim rescues the reporter she goes to look at his profile and tells him to turn his head to the right but he ends up turning it to the left. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed for ol' Johnny and this scene almost made you forget his bad but campy performance. Waterfield isn't too bad in his role and we've also got camp favorite Lyle Talbot playing a mad scientist. The dinosaur sequence, lifted from ONE MILLION B.C., is extremely silly as is another scene, lifted from yet another movie, where an octopus and shark fight in the middle of the jungle!

Football player Bob Miller (played by football player Bob Waterfield) gets lost in the jungle and is searched for by a female reporter who teams up with Jungle Jim. She wants to make a mint by taking photographs of him - Jim reminds her of the dangers of doing things for money.

They subsequently stumble upon a crazed doctor who has been kidnapping villagers to work in a radioactive mine, where he has discovered a way of making diamonds out of mineral rocks.

Starts out in its usual manner, full of peril with skeletal men and it's appears that it'll be a routine, yet watchable adventure, then in the last thirty minutes or so the throttle increases and it's just one cliffhanger to another with Jungle Jim taking on a Bond-like villain named Dr Heller, who likes to tell his prisoners ( Jim, Miller and the sexy Shiela Ryan) his plans. Just like a Bond villain. There's an octopus' fights, dynamite being stuck in a shark, cave holding diamonds getting flooded - they are mainly stock footages but it's done expertly. The plot is much stronger than usual with limited lengthy animal interludes, and the idea of a football player leading an inhabitants and helping them is a wild idea . It's a fun piece of hokum, not to be taken seriously, but enjoyed for its outlandish approach.

I seen Jungle Manhunt around two or three years ago and quite enjoyed it. I obtained a copy of it from the same source as I get the Bomba movies from.

A footballer is lost in the jungle and Jungle Jim and a party are sent to find him. Among the dangers they face along the way are prehistoric monsters fighting which are actually the usual stock footage from One Million BC.

As usual, Jungle Jim is played by Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller and the rest of the cast includes real life footballer Bob Waterfield as the lost footballer, Sheila Ryan and Lyle Talbot (Plan 9 From Outer Space).

Watching Jungle Manhunt is a good way to spend just over an hour one afternoon or evening. Enjoyable.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

the most interesting thing about the movie is the performances. There mostly pretty bad. Johnny Wessimieser may have had one really goodgreat movie but here hes barely wood-perhaps because he actually has to talk in the movie he acts as if he is afraid of it . Everyone Else to Bob mMller as a football player is also bad-the natives the villain everyone is pretty much terrible.

That said Shelia Ryan, is pretty great in the movie-either that or she is just head or heals better then anyone else in the movie that it just looks great. Shes spunky, generally funny and has a good late 40s sense of power and accomplishment even if she just mostly gets dragged around in the film.

its not in any means a good movie, yet i can't hate it.