Bomba contre les chasseurs de lions

The Lion Hunters have come to Africa to do just as the title of the picture says they do. But what they don't know is that the lions are both held as sacred by the Masai tribe and that the area they've chosen is the home of the legendary Bomba the Jungle Boy. He just doesn't like white folks trapping or killing his animal friends as a matter of general principle.

Between the two of these facts, white trappers Morris Ankrum and Douglas Kennedy haven't a chance. Especially Kennedy whose hubris gets the better of him. It's always interesting in these B films how the villains never know when to quit.

Johnny Sheffield is allowed a little puppy love here in the person of Ann E. Todd who is also Ankrum's daughter. She's checking the well built Sheffield out, but he's got his mind on his animals.

The Lion Hunters never gets off the Monogram back lot with plenty of stock jungle footage supporting a hackneyed plot.

Lion Hunters, The (1951)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The fifth of twelve films in Monogram's "Bomba, The Jungle Boy" series, which Ford Beebe featured Johnny Sheffield as Bomba but he's probably still best remembered for playing Boy in the original MGM Tarzan series. In this entry Bomba is saddened when he comes across a lion that has been seriously wounded and must be put to rest. Soon Bomba learns that lion trappers are in the area and he must try and convince them that lions were meant to be free in the jungle. This is the first entry in the series that I've seen so I can't judge the entire thing but this movie here was pretty bad from start to finish. There's no doubt that this thing was meant to be a poor man's Tarzan and I'm going to guess that they did pretty well at the box office for so many films to be made but that doesn't mean we get quality. The biggest problem is the screenplay, which for an adventure film doesn't contain too much excitement. For the most part Bomba simply talks and talk and then talks some more about how lions are friendly creatures and that they should be left alone. It goes without saying but the talk of lions being nice creatures made for a few laughs as did many of the special effects including an embarrassing sequence towards the end when Bomba and his lady love are stuck in a tree with a lion jumping up at them. The fake claw being used to poke at them was downright hilarious as were some of the other effects when men are fighting the lions. Another problem are the performances with Sheffield coming off extremely bland in the role. He's certainly trying to recapture what Johnny Weissmuller did with Tarzan but the poor guy doesn't come close. He just doesn't contain enough energy to really be interesting and the screenplay certainly doesn't do him any favors. Douglas Kennedy pretty much steals the film as the crazed hunter as he's so over the top during certain scenes that you can't help but laugh. Ann E. Todd plays the love interest and is absolutely horrible. The early scenes she's acting as if she's a 12-year-old girl, which is rather confusing since she is playing an adult. The way she talks and tries to carry herself is just downright annoying to watch. Woody Strode has a brief role as one of the natives. As bas as this movie is, I'll admit to being a completest so I'll check out the other eleven as soon as they appear on TCM but I'm certainly hoping for better.

I already said it yesterday, when you have seen a BOMBA movie, you have seen all of them. But it's not a default, it's charming, enchanted, naive, fun, agreeable to watch if you watch them with the "proper" eyes. The topics are all close to nature, animal defense, against colonialism, the villains are most of the time White ones, as in any Tarzan or Jungle Jim feature. You like it or don't. No locations, only celluloid jungle and many footage stock shots about animals. You can easily see a jungle setting and the next scene you are deep into savannah.... You see a gorilla in the forest just before seeing an elephant in thee bush, or even a giraffe.....But that belong to the charm of this film series, firget any realism. It is destined to kids, adult kids. Or kids adults. Ford Beebe was a serial director and then westerns and adventures B pictures. He had no ambition but good skills with a camera.

Hunters are trapping and killing lions in Bomba's jungle. Bomba has feelings on this. Fifth entry in Monogram's series is pretty weak with an especially talkative Bomba this time around. The pluses are the animals, particularly the lions, and Sheffield's earnest performance. Morris Ankrum and Douglas Kennedy play the lion hunters. Kennedy is the heavy, which was hardly new territory for him. Ankrum's the nicer one. Ann E. Todd plays his tomboyish daughter who takes a liking to Bomba and vice versa. This was Todd's final movie before an early retirement. Woody Strode appears briefly as a native. This is a fairly standard Bomba movie. Which is to say it's an unremarkable B jungle adventure for kids. Still, a decent time-passer on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

***SPOILER*** It's when "Bomba the Jungle Boy", Johnny Sheffield, spots a fatally wounded lion in the African bush he's forced to put the big cat down, with his spear, in order to take it out of its misery.

Knowing that the lion, who was shot, was the victim of big game hunters Bomba tracks down the campsite where a number of captured wild African lions are being held captive in bamboo cages. It's then that Bomba does what he does best releasing the lions into the wild. But what Bomba did was also outrage big game lion hunter Marty Martin, Douglas Kennedy. A mad and determined Martin now plans to put an end to Bomba rescuing his fine furry friends as well as Bomba himself.

The collegiate looking Bomba despite his living in the wild all his life is no fool in knowing what Martin is planning to do and stymies him at every turn. Bomba also gets very friendly with Martin's partner Tom Forbes', Morris Ankrum, cute and adorable 19 year old daughter Jean, Ann E. Todd, who despite her dad hunting and trying to capture the big cats, and put them in cages for the rest of their lives, sees Bomba's attempt to rescue them as the right and only "human" thing to do.

With a frustrated Martin getting nowhere in capturing the big cats, by Bomba always turning them loose, he decides to use the local Massai Tribesmen to get the job done for him. That's after the Massai Chief Lohu's, David Richards, nerdy 16 year old son in trying to prove that he's a man ends up getting mauled by a charging lion who in return gets shot by Martin together with the fleeing for life young man!

It's then that Martin tries to pull a fast on on the dead son's dad, the Massai Chief, by tricking him into letting him capture all the lions in the area in order to prevent them from devouring his entire tribe! Of course all this backfires on Martin's part with the lions set on him and his safari by the Massai Chief after finding out that it was Martin not the lion who killed his son. With Martin together with who he still has left, most of the natives on his safari deserted him, having their guns and rifles stolen from them by the Massai's their left to take on the Kings of Beasts with only their bare hands!

Average "Bomba the Jungle Boy" flick with the boyish Johnny Sheffield at the top of his game swinging from jungle vines fighting hand to paw combat with a ferocious lion and spending most of his free time, when he's not saving his jungle friends from game hunters, sitting on a tree branch and shearing a banana with his monkey companion. Bomba also goes so far as saving the villainous Martin's neck from being snapped off by a crocodile which in fact still doesn't get Martin to see Bomba's way; In him leaving the jungle animals, mostly lions, alone. Martin finally gets it, and gets it good, when he's forced to take on the lions that he's been hunting by the Massai tribesmen letting them loose on him in the final moments of the movie!

P.S If there were any two actors who were ever meant to co-star with each other in a movie it had to be Johnny Sheffield and Ann E.Todd. Both Sheffield and Todd were born within three months of each other in 1931 and who's careers spanned, Todd from 1938 to 1954 and Sheffield 1938 to 1955, almost the exact same time period!