Good start, but then it gets ruined

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

During the 1930s and 40s, Johnny Weissmuller starred in a series of excellent Tarzan films for MGM. However, by the late 40s, Weissmuller's handsome good looks were giving way to middle age and MGM tired of the films. So, Weissmuller went looking for work and was hired to essentially play Tarzan in some very low-budget films. But, since they didn't own rights to Tarzan, the films were marketed as Jungle Jim films--Jim being a comic character which was much cheaper to license! Plus, Jim isn't exactly a jungle savage-- allowing the now paunchy Weissmuller to wear more clothes. While I love Weissmuller's Tarzan flicks, the Jungle Jim ones are not especially good...but at least they helped the aging actor to pay the bills.Here in "Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land", our hero is approached by a sexy scientist to go to some legendary land where there are giants. Jim knows better and refuses--especially since it involves ivory. But then he eventually is forced to go on this expedition-- one where you'll see all sorts of stock footage and crappy 'creatures'. One of my favorite is just before he agrees to go--- when Jim struggles with a vicious hippo--a hippo that clearly is rubber AND while he's supposed to be under water, Weissmuller clearly isn't and footage of water is superimposed over the scene! Talk about crappy!! There's also a wolfman sort of guy! Why? Who knows?! And then there's the Indian elephants (in Africa) with tusks taped onto it (you can see them wiggling about). The bottom line is that if you like crappy jungle films, then you will like this one. If you think it in any way approaches the quality of the classic Tarzan films, then are you in for a rude awakening! Rather awful overall...and a bit dull.

Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (1952) ** (out of 4) Insane entry in the series has Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) given "truth serum", which makes him give away the location of the "giant people", a wolf man like tribe, which lives deep in the jungle. A group of mean people want to use them to locate some elephants so that they can be killed for their ivory. This eighth film in the series is only the third one that I've viewed but I'd be really scared if any of the others were as crazy and goofy as this one. I'm really not sure why they didn't call this JUNGLE JIM MEETS THE WOLF MAN because that's pretty much what it is. The "giant people" are more like missing link creatures but you can't help but look at them as werewolves in the sun. The creature make up is actually pretty good and a lot more believable than what we saw in Columbia's THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE, which was also directed by Landers. We also get several other outrageous scenes including one where Jim fights a hippo at the bottom of a river. The hippo is incredibly fake looking but this adds to some of the goofy charm. The funniest sequence is the one where Jim must fight a black panther, which features the worst stuffed animal I've ever seen. Stock footage is added in of course but this just makes the stuffed creature look even worse and seeing Weissmuller fight it was just hilarious. In the end this is a pretty bad movie but it's just so crazy that you can't help but find yourself entertained.

**SPOILERS** Pretty and determined lady anthropologist Dr. Linda Roberts, Angela Greene, just survived a deadly hippo attack that wiped out her entire expedition only to be spotted and attacked by a ferocious and hungry black leopard. Luckily for Linda the big cat is killed by the jungle man himself "Jungle Jim", Johnny Weissmuller, who came both running and swimming to her rescue. Mr."Jim" or James Bradley which is actually "Jungle Jim's" real name, taken from the newspaper comic strip where the character originated from in the late 1930's, is not at all willing to help Linda find the forbidden land beyond the "Valley of the Elephant". It's there where the legendary "Giant People" are said to be inhabitants of. Linda is certain that the "Giant People" are the illusive "Missing Link" that can finally connect man to the world of primates.What makes Jim change his mind is when he learns that a number of native ivory poachers together with Americans Doc. Edwards, William Tanner, and his girlfriend Denise, Jean Willes, are also looking for the secret land of the "Giant People"! Not for reasons of research in order to prove Darwin's' theory of Evolution but to trap all the elephants in the area and slaughter them for their precious ivory tusks!"Jungle Jim" in trying to stop Doc & Danise together with their partner in crime the native Chief Zulu, Frederick Berest, from corralling the elephants gets himself into far more trouble then even he ever expected to be in. Jim gets into a life and death struggle with one of the "Giant People", the seven foot tall Clem Ericson, who was held together with his mate, the over six foot tall Irmgard Helen H. Raschke, captive by Doc & Denise. It's in his fight with he "Giant Man", who had Jim on the ropes, that Jim is saved by his pet monkey Tamba who brains the big guy with a rock. Jim is later knocked out could, from behind, by Doc who together with Denise framed Jim for a murder that he was totally Innocent of! That of Fred Lewis, George Eldridge, who in attempting to stop both Doc and Denise from carrying their dastardly plan ended up getting killed, by Doc, for his treat to report them to the local authorities.Jim now a wanted man in the Fred Lewis murder has to not only prove his innocence, before he's tracked down and shot by the local native police, but at the same time stop Doc & Denise, with the help of Chief Zulu and his tribesmen,from wiping out, in order to get their hands on their ivory tusks, the entire local elephant population!This turns out to be a job far too big for "Jungle Jim" to handle himself. But with the help of the now on the loose "Giant Man" and his pet chimpanzee Tamba and of course the threatened with extinction elephants themselves "Jungle Jim" does managed to pull it all-and thus save the day- off!

"In the Forbidden Land" seems to me to have a weaker and less focused screenplay compared to the other JJ episode I've seen (the one where he goes looking for a missing football player). Or maybe seeing another one helped me realize just how perfunctory and by-the-numbers this series really was. But the performances were about the same, and the effects and sound stages and liberal use of stock footage and white actors was about the same. Johnny himself still looked reasonably fit (for a 1950s actor who didn't know anything about modern theories of resistance training or nutrition) in his one extended shirtless scene, which is always good for a viewers' morale.Goofy mistakes and second rate production elements abound, of course. A hippo attacks a canoe and eats one of the paddlers (aren't hippos herbivores?).Jim alternates fighting a stuffed panther with stock footage shots of a real one snarling at the camera. "Giant people" from a lost tribe turn out to resemble werewolves (rather than "missing links"). Asian elephants are outfitted with tusks and ear prostheses in an effort to resemble African elephants (at least they knew the difference). There's random footage of "Tamba" the chimp being "cute" that has no connection to almost anything else in the plot and is just there because, hey, people expect a chimp sidekick for Johnny. And every one in the plot is rock stupid. The final third of the plot involves Jim being framed for murder (apparently the commissioner was supposed to think that Jim shot himself full of pentathol and clubbed himself unconscious) but not being allowed to explain what happened because they've gagged him. (The stated reason is that they don't want him to "call for help from his animal friends". The real reason is that the plot twist wouldn't last for 30 seconds if Jim was allowed to speak).Still, if you choose to watch a "Jungle Jim" adventure in this day and age, you either want to relive the experience of being 8 years old and watching a Saturday afternoon matinée, or else you are an archivist and collector of all similar things from that era. In either case, you parked your brain at the door at the beginning of the film. (I'm not sneering - I enjoy certain pop culture items from my childhood far more than they deserve on their actual merits.) So here you are: enjoy!