L'amazone de la jungle

Heck! It was different time altogether. What made for excitement in 1947 is merely amusing, boring, or fascinating depending on your attitude towards films and movies.

I watched it. I enjoyed it despite the amazing plot holes. The first thing you will note that the movie takes place mostly in Africa even though the Amazon is in South America. Oh, but this is about a strange white women's tribe living the jungle so they must be Amazons. Oh, and the white women's tribe is mysterious in its nature even though the origin is very well known and no-one ever decided to go rescue the survivors of the shipwreck. I can't figure it out so it is best not to try.

Stock footage runs amok. It doesn't always match or even come close in the continuity of details department or even in film granularity. One hilarious example occurs when the lead actress looks through a telescope at the wildlife and notes how they are all in a hurry. Then we are treated to stock footage of a herd of gazelles jumping away - in slow-mo. Ha ha! We must have been shown footage of 5 or 6 different tribes of people which were lumped together in this film to represent one tribe. We even were privy to stock footage of trees which are not native to Africa - but there they are growing on the landscape. It's pretty awkward but no-one probably noticed in 1947. That wasn't the point back, I suppose. This movie is here to entertain or fill time. It does both.

The acting is surprisingly competent enough by most although there seemed to be an abundance of inappropriate smiling, especially by the lead actress who gets a good share of close-ups. Yeah, she's pretty. But for a woman who has lost her fiancé to the jungle she just doesn't seem very upset. She is simply determined to go on with the safari even though her feelings for her fiancé are seriously challenged by another man in her party.

Meanwhile, her fiancé has fallen for the 'Amazon' queen but has decided to be a rat and not tell anyone. Apparently he thought no-one would care if he simply vanished along with the rest of his earlier safari party.

Meanwhile the Amazonians get the blame for all the mysterious deaths in the region. They are determined to remain secret and keep their territory safe from outsiders - except for the one lone male which the Queen keeps for herself. Considering how awesome this tribe of white women must be since they can overwhelm a safari without much problem - you never see more than 3 of the white women tribe. In fact, they put up no defense whatsoever during the eventual incursions into their camp by the antagonists - except for a well-timed blowgun incident.

Meanwhile the Queen says she will kill to keep her man but we can still be friends. Huh?? Others have noted and I will reinforce - this is not a movie to get all serious about. These are the movies I saw when I was young and it is really quite lame - but still it has a charm. It tries to be fun and succeeds a few times.

The ending moans and groans. But at least it's happy and doesn't set you up for a sequel.

Rainy day fodder when you are not so critical. Bring a pillow.

It called Queen of the Amazons, its in black & white, and its shot in 1947. You should know exactly what you are about to watch.

And if you watch to the end, you get to see a wonderfully bad stunt double replacement. In fact, one suspects on the day of shooting, they realized the mistake of booking two stunt doubles for the hero, and none for the baddie, but we still went ahead anyway with the shoot.

OK - there is lots of stock footage, and plenty of time devoted to filming tricks performed by the monkey and bird, and any logic test would fail the plot; yet, its not a 'bad' film.

I strangely enjoyed Queen of the Amazons, its much like the comfy Saturday afternoon black and white films I use to watch on TV 25yrs ago - it has a secret appeal to the 12 year old inside. It has a good pace, which stops you dwelling too long on the improbable of how they managed to justify the next piece of stock footage, or that the lion attacks involve the person holding onto the lion so he doesn't get away.

But, I think my main reason for enjoying this was Patrica Morison; the feeling you are watching someone who is better than the material she has been given, but still gives the best within crippling limitations.

I saw this on the TreeLine 50 SciFi DVD boxset - - so, invite a few like minded friends over for drinks and nibbles, sit back, and enjoy some old fashion brain fodder.

I saw this film on the science fiction classics DVD set, but knew that there would likely not be much science fictional in it -- after noting that it also contains "prehysterical" women or the Sons of Hercules films. There was a "bugologist" and some lessons in anthropology, which were quite fictional, even some unexpected dancing and poetry. It was fun, if like me you happen to like these kind of movies with corny, old-fashion, happy endings -- especially after a hard day's work thinking. The monkey and the raven did seem to be the most interesting actors, especially the monkey.

There is even a serious side. It certainly reminds one of how things have changed since then in that then it was against the law to sell ivory without giving the colonial power its cut, while now it's supposedly illegal to do so to anyone at all.

One of Edward Finney's most well-known films, Queen of the Amazons is the story of a young woman (Patricia Morison), her guide, father-in-law, an absent minded professor, a cook and a man scorned who all go on safari to hunt down her missing fiancé. The film includes a number of subplots ranging from the romance to murder mystery, and somehow, it is all linked up to illegal ivory smuggling. The safari, inexplicably, launches from colonial India, and the search takes up more than half the story.

Most of the story is driven by transitional scenes between stock footage of African wildlife, jungle scenery and well-acted action scenes including animal attacks. The script, which takes on the responsibility for drawing everything together and driving it along, is not really up to the task. Dialog is used to establish virtually everything the stock footage can not. Besides the bland camera-work, the often laughable stock footage, and the over-taxed script, the directing and editing are good. There are a few continuity errors, but not as many as some reviewers have claimed. After all, this is Queen of the Amazons (who were written about by ancient Greeks 1500 years before Europeans arrived in South America) not "Queen of the Amazon" (a river named after the Greek stories). One, however, is worth watching out for. Pat Morison is examining some stock footage of African Savannah animals running away through binoculars. Just as she says "why are they running away so fast?" we see a herd of gazelles in the binoculars - running in very slow motion.

The cast performs very well given the limitations of the script and story. The only acting disasters belong to the nevertheless likable Amira Moustafa (who had a remarkably short career). Many of the other actors were veteran character actors, or on their ways to becoming so.

What the film fails to do, despite a fairly strong effort, is to generate any sense of drama or urgency. Nevertheless, it is not a complete mess, and the stock footage is actually quite nice!

Wife looking for her husband who disappeared on a safari finds her first clue in Akbar India, which leads to another safari in Africa. Her husband turns out to be living with a white woman named Zeta in the jungle, and he's not really interested in leaving.

This low budget movie is surprising in that it really makes you feel that you're in the jungles of India and Africa. The African footages are beautiful and for that alone, this movie might be worth a watch. It also has the most scenes with tiger and lion actually wrestling a man - something we don't see n more modern movie.

Acting and the entire mood of the movie is good. It's very watchable even if the premise of the story is little unbelievable.

Although low budget, this movie is lot better than many modern fantasy movies that their artificial props takes away from the atmosphere.