Such a frustrating disappointment

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

More Jungle Jim silliness had him searching for football hero Bob Waterfield. Komodo dragons, men in Woolworth Halloween costumes and other assorted ridiculousness pad out this programmer, the seventh in a series. It's like an edited 1930's serial with a fat Tarzan without the loincloth, an adorable chimp and a brave but vulnerable to danger photographer (Sheila Ryan) on the hunt for the missing football hero and finding much more. An evil leader (Lyle Talbot) sends out men in cheap five and dime skeleton outfits to do his evil bidding, a plot twist that comes out of nowhere and has little impact on the plot other than for some violent native attacks and explosions. The Saturday matinée kiddy crowd went crazy for these types of films that aren't at all challenging, yet filled with action, adventure, unnecessary romance and silly humor. The bad guys are one dimensional, Wakefield a handsome athlete (yet a lousy actor) and the animals either manipulated to be easy to defeat or just so darned adorable. When Ryan dones a sarong, it sets series lead Johnny Weismueller up for more unconditional romance that will end upon the film's closing titles. Cheesy fun, especially with two magnified lizards fighting and a later stock shot of a giant octopus duking it out with a great white shark. Every now and then, I'll return to these for a passable time filler that you'll never catch on anybody's "best of" list.

I had long been curious about the "Jungle Jim" movie series after reading about it in the Leonard Maltin movie guide. So when Turner Classic Movies scheduled three of the movies one afternoon, I decided to give them a look.After watching them, I can understand why there's been little effort to resurrect this series into the minds of modern moviegoers. To be sure, there are some unintentionally hilarious things about this series. There is the frequent use of stock footage, which may not have been obvious to '50s viewers, but is very obvious today. Much of the outdoor footage is obviously not shot in the wilds of Africa, but on the desert landscape of California. Jungle Jim, on the flimsiest of excuses, goes swimming at least once in every movie, and the underwater footage is obviously filmed through the glass window of a tank. I saw the same stone staircase in *all* of the Jungle Jim movies I watched.While there are some laughs to be found in these movies, there are also some unlaughable parts. Weissmuller was starting to show his age, sometimes looking significantly older than the age he actually was. And there's the treatment of natives in the movie. Despite the fact that the movies take place in Africa, the natives are played by Caucasians! (Though considering their simple-minded nature and willing to be bossed by Jungle Jim, people of African descent might actually be thankful.) As for THIS particular Jungle Jim adventure, like the others I watched, I found it to be (overall) somewhat dull and talky, though the use of stock footage from ONE MILLION B.C. and a shark/octopus fight (in a river in Africa?????) did provide some needed laughs. But at the end, I felt like I hadn't seen anything new. As I said in my summary line at the beginning of this review, if you've seen one JUNGLE JIM movie...

The "Jungle Jim" series is apparently where Johnny Weissmuller's career went to die after he got too fat to play "Tarzan" anymore. He's actually in fairly trim form for this in his two shirtless scenes, but it's also pretty obvious that he's sucking in his gut. (I don't blame him; if I were over 30 and had to be shirtless on film, I'd suck in my gut too). But most of the time he still cuts a pretty dashing figure in his "Jungle Jim" outfit, so he has that going for him. One thing is clear from this: Weissmuller was no actor. When he can't hide behind the monosyllabic grunts of the Tarzan role, he can barely deliver his lines in a professional manner. But that's OK, because hardly any else here is an actor either. If you doubt this, just consider the part of the villain played by Lyle Talbot. Talbot, never more than a "C" list actor (he had some parts in Ed Wood movies if memory serves me) effortlessly makes absolutely everyone else in the move look and sound wooden and stilted by comparison, and Talbot has some of the most ridiculous dialog in the movie. The plot, such as it is, isn't bad. It offers action, intrigue, a little suspense, some disguised social commentary, and a typical "Quest". It even has an element of the fantastic. There's a totally gratuitous dinosaur fight, with stock footage lifted directly from "One Million B.C." and an even more superfluous octopus/shark fight which makes no sense at all, except as an excuse for Jim to show how tough he is. (I wasn't even aware that shark and octopus were enemies in the wild, and what are they doing in Africa??). And there's a jungle laboratory where enslaved natives dig in the mines for a villain who creates diamonds out of igneous rock. So no, it's not H. Rider Haggard or Edgar Rice Burroughs, but it is meaty Saturday afternoon matinée fodder. Jim defeats the villain by being manly and dashing (and judo throwing bad guys over his hip or shoulder over and over) , but he doesn't get the girl, because Jim don't play that - the other manly and dashing white guy in the film (a real life football player playing a missing football player; he's even more wooden than Johnny ) gets her while Jim beams approval. For what it was, it was a pleasant trip back to the matinées of my youth. If I had a chance to see another "Jungle Jim" movie on a slow weekend night, I just might.

I seen Jungle Manhunt around two or three years ago and quite enjoyed it. I obtained a copy of it from the same source as I get the Bomba movies from.A footballer is lost in the jungle and Jungle Jim and a party are sent to find him. Among the dangers they face along the way are prehistoric monsters fighting which are actually the usual stock footage from One Million BC.As usual, Jungle Jim is played by Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller and the rest of the cast includes real life footballer Bob Waterfield as the lost footballer, Sheila Ryan and Lyle Talbot (Plan 9 From Outer Space).Watching Jungle Manhunt is a good way to spend just over an hour one afternoon or evening. Enjoyable.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.