La déesse de la jungle

Show 203 of the popular Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's typical of many 40's Hollywood movies in which the white characters play God to the native Africans. Of course, the Africans with lines are played by white actors in dark makeup (sometimes in blackface.) It gets its proper roasting in MST3K.

What century was this film made in? The racial attitudes in this snooze-fest are unbelievable. Yeah sure. Any self-respecting black tribe in Africa will bow down at the first white person who walks along. Ridiculous.

There's very little plot here: Pilots look for girl, find her, try to escape. The end. For the life of me, I don't know why this film was made. There's absolutely no point, and it would fail as an action/adeventure film because there's so little action (and some pathetic insertions of stock footage).

I would expect better from the two lead actors.

Wow, you'd think that even B movies would at least TRY to get the facts straight. There were quite a few things wrong with this one, but here were the most annoying for me:

1. Our heroes looking at African animals from the air with binoculars, yet when we are shown the "binocular" view, it's taken from ground level.

2. Huge airplane cockpits. 1940's airplane cockpits were incredibly cramped arrangements that were crammed with instruments, yet the cockpits shown here are massive, with not a dial, switch or gauge to be seen. Convenient for filming perhaps, but completely unreal. Not to mention planes that change models in mid-flight.

3. Indigenous species. The padding in this film included stock footage of the animals supposedly seen on the ground in Africa. These included a cougar and an orangutan, neither of which are native to Africa.

4. While the "Dutch", English-speaking "Jungle Goddess" of the title was in Africa, she taught a local African woman broken English. Yet when the woman spoke the broken English, it was with a Mexican accent. Riddle me that one, Batman!

This one was pretty bad all the way through, with two thoroughly unlikable and annoying male leads. And at just an hour long it still had 20 minutes of padding. If you've only got 40 minutes worth of script, you don't have enough of a story to even make a movie, so why try?

A couple of players known for portraying comic strip heroes George Reeves as Superman and Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy play a pair of post World War II pilots who run a charter aviation company in Africa. Byrd sees a big opportunity now that the war is over for a big financial windfall if they can find a missing heiress alive or dead who was on a flight missing since the first day of World War II.

Wanda McKay turns out to be alive and living with a tribe where she's revered as a white goddess who healed the chief's daughter. That and the fact that blondes are scarce in the jungle make her an object of worship. Reeves and Byrd find her and after that they come to a parting of the ways.

Nothing much to recommend this film other than McKay's legs which are on ample display. She was a poor man's Betty Grable. As for Reeves and Byrd they act like a pair of idiots in heat, especially Byrd.

You'd better be a leg man to appreciate this turkey.

Thats about the only point of interest of this turkey. To be honest, I've only seen the MST3K version, but it is still easy to deduce that this is a total clunker, with horrendous use of stock footage, dialouge that can induce a grand mal seizure, cheap, CHEAP cardboard back drops, and terrible acting all make this movie, one to avoid. Although, I do recommend watching the MST3K version.