Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Dreadfully Boring

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Vera Ralston (Christine) is hunting in the Amazon jungle and comes across pilot George Brent's crashed plane and crew. Brent falls in love with Ralston but she doesn't want to get involved and disappears to Rio. A meeting with an old friend of Vera's parents gives Brent an insight into her past but there is some serious craziness to follow.Woah! I wasn't expecting that. The film starts with drama in the Amazon as we are amongst a group of individuals avoiding capture from local head-hunters. We get a plane crash and a drumming soundtrack that is very tense. And then the drumming stops. Uh-oh, they're in trouble. It's a good beginning. However, the film then turns into love story nonsense as Brent pursues Ralston. He is very corny and somewhat creepy in his persistence and you feel the film is really going downhill. Then ...wham....the film goes somewhere completely different. So, book that visit to the Amazon jungle - things might get weird for you. It's got me thinking about that TV programme "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" where celebrities go into the jungle and bore everyone senseless. They are allowed to take a luxury item with them, so what would it be? If I ever get asked and agree to take part, I know my choice....it's got to be a pair of comedy breasts.

Of all Republic's directors, John H. Auer was the most consistently stylish and imaginative. This is a good but by no means outstanding example of his work, exemplified by arresting camera movements (the swift tracking shots through the jungle after the rescue), sharp cutting, long takes, deep focus compositions and fast-paced dialogue. Where Auer fails in this film is with his cast. Admittedly Vera Ralston gives one of her best portrayals in a dramatic film. In addition, she is lovingly photographed and stunningly costumed. Certainly, she looks the part! Less at home is George Brent. He looks far too old for a romantic lead. He is often seen from unflattering camera angles, the photographer taking few pains to disguise his double chin, receding hair-line and wrinkled neck. What is worse, Mr Brent's awkwardness in the role increases as the film progresses. In the climactic scenes, his performance is totally unconvincing. He even handles the off-screen narration with a lack of assurance that detracts from the effectiveness of the fade-out. True, the script is at its weakest in the final scenes — some might even describe it as absurd — and Auer has a habit of intercutting two tracking shots of people coming together, an otherwise fine idea which he turns into a distraction by filming the shots in the studio in front of an obvious process screen!Brian Aherne is almost as uncomfortable in his role as Mr Brent. He too is reasonably convincing in his earlier scenes and an almost total failure later on. Despite his billing, his part is very small. This and the unsuitability of the role doubtless influenced his decision to leave Hollywood. He did not return for five years.This was one of Constance Bennett's last films (her fourth last actually). She too is unflatteringly photographed and though she is in the film quite a bit her part is unglamorous. Aside from Miss Ralston, Fortunio Bonanova has the film's most dramatic piece. He handles it with some skill, the episode with the wounded panther owing as much to his chillingly delivered commentary as it does to Auer's sharp cutting and deft camera (and Miss Ralston's hair- raising screams)!A long-time associate of Republic boss Herbert J. Yates (who financed Auer's "The Crime of Dr Crespi" back in 1935), Auer was associate producer on all his latter-day Republic assignments and his influence might justly be said to pervade every aspect of his films. He contributed to the script, closely supervised the art direction (his films usually have considerable location footage, but this one is an exception — aside from a few small shots, chiefly at the climax, it was lensed entirely in the studio, making use of stock material for the establishing shots of the jungle in the pre- credits sequence, the brief flashes of Rio, the races, etc.). On his thirties' films Auer usually had the services of Republic's ace cinematographer Jack Marta, but here he has Reggie Lanning, never a first-class photographer, whose indifferent day-for-night shooting in the car chase sequence and failure to dim his lighting on players who are heavily made up, destroys much of the film's illusion.Auer was more fortunate on other aspects of the film. The editing especially, where the thrilling sequence prior to the headhunters' attack is built up by increasing the tempo of the cutting; and also the rapid montage of Rio stock footage turned over like the pages in a book. Another editing highlight is at the very end when the whole film is reprized in less than 30 seconds!Taking a cue from RKO producer Val Lewton, the headhunters are never actually shown. Rather we sense their presence through Auer's expert handling of atmosphere and his brilliant use of sound effects — the drums rising to a crescendo, and then the stillness.In the Lydeckers, Republic had the best special effects men in the business. There are two superlative examples of their work in this film: the plane crash which is utterly convincing thanks to their meticulous attention to the smallest details (notice the light moving down the length of the model plane, a realistic touch which ties in with the cut to the full-scale studio mock-up as Brent opens the door); and Judy's car hurtling over the cliff with its brilliant use of a subjective camera.Production values are always high in Vera Ralston's vehicles (after all, she was the boss' wife!). The sets are many and varied, large and lavishly appointed, and there is no stinting on dress extras.

This odd, hard-to-see romantic fantasy (I finally tracked it down in a poor TV dupe from a trader) is a curio at best, without the atmosphere, charm or casting to pull off the very silly concept it plays with a very straight face. Vera Ralston plays the mysterious jungle-dwelling woman who bewitches Brian Aherne when his plane accidentally crash-lands in the area. Flashbacks eventually reveal the cause of her skittishness as a sort of supernatural curse that has already caused tragedy. Everyone seems to be punching the clock here, including the director. The big problem, of course, is Ralston: As usual, she's asked to play a character whose charms fascinate everyone, and as usual those charms seem very elusive to the viewer. The Republic Studio executive who married and tirelessly promoted her as a star despite the public's complete lack of enthusiasm must truly loved her to be so blind. She's not the worst actress ever to grace the screen, but she is wooden and not as attractive as the film insists she is. Constance Bennett has a humiliating role that is perhaps a typical 1948 notion of a "sympathetic" part for an actress of a certain age who's no longer a star: She's a professional woman whom Aherne treats as a best friend, though of course she's hopelessly in love with him. He's completely oblivious to that, natch, because he's so besotted with the younger, beautiful Ralston—something that seems particularly humiliating here because frankly the latter isn't all that beautiful. (She's more the kind of woman one might call "handsome," in that she has good features but little humor or vivacity to light them up.) The bones of the story might have been ideal for more florid, "exotic" treatment, like a Maria Montez vehicle. But the execution is surprisingly talky and flat, too pedestrian even to have much camp value. Too bad, because its mix of romantic sentimentality and kitsch fantasy should have made for something more memorable than this fairly dull "B" (though by Republic standards it was probably close to an "A").

I saw this movie as "Drums Along the Amazon" when I was a boy of about 15 to 17 in England. I am 66 now and I have never had the opportunity to see it since and neither have I ever forgotten it. Why? Because it is a haunting film that captured the imagination....maybe looking for that certain something in the jungle of life that always seems to just elude us.As I remember, Vera Ralston played an excellent part as Christine Ridgeway. She definitely commanded the film more so than George Brent.