Jungle Drums of Africa

Jungle Drums of Africa, a 1953 Republic serial, was a last ditch stand to get the youngsters back into the theater for Saturday matinées and away from that "new kid on the block," television. Clayton Moore, on hiatus from "The Lone Ranger", and Phyllis Coates, who had played Lois Lane on TV's Superman were well known to youngsters at that time. The serial line of battling hostile natives and foreign agents seeking to get oil deposits for their country was stretched out to 12 chapters and padded with footage from previous Republic jungle serials. One scene where Phyllis Coates is being sucked through a wind tunnel was taken from "Perils of Nyoka," one of Republic's better jungle serials. In his autobiography, Clayton Moore agrees that the serial was the worst serial he had ever done. Moore had been the hero of "Perils of Nyoka" which had an exotic storyline and fast paced action. Moore blamed television for part of the serial's demise because youngsters did not have to wait until next week to find out how the story turned out. The storyline of Jungle Drums dragged out and there was no tempo. The same artificial scenery of trees and rocks were used in almost every set. The Lone Ranger TV production would experience the same situation as characters always seemed to be meeting in front of the same papermache rock. Although the natives were played by African-American (or to use the Fifties term Negro) actors, Moore said that there was no tension between the races. They were just actors doing a job and there was no need to make an issue about the way the parts were being played. At this time, Republic was producing two new serials each season and re-issuing two of their previous serials to meet contractual agreements of four serials a year.

Alan King and Bert Hadley are representatives from an American Oil company who are in the African jungles looking to seek a concession from Chief Douanga for mining uranium on the land of Douanga's tribe. Kurgan, a trading post operator, is working on the behalf of an unnamed government seeking the uranium and employs Regas, an American, and Naganto, a witch doctor with Douanga's tribe who has been losing his influence thanks to the work of Carol Bryant, missionary's daughter who doubles as doctor for the tribe. Alan, Carol, and Bert battle to get their mining done while disrupting Kurgan's plots to kill them or drive them from the territory. The serial has a reputation of a formulaic Republic 50's entry with generic plot and abundant stock footage. This is not the case since there is a lot of new material especially when it comes to the cliffhangers (which have very good resolutions). Glenn is excellent as Naganto, and there is a lot of action here, but terrible gunfights since no one can hit the broad side of a barn. Moore and Coates seem to be going through the motions here, which gives the serial its drawback, as well as a climax in the quicksand which goes on too long. Rating, based on serials, 7.