Disturbing yet enthralling

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Jungle Jim is asked by a girl Li Wanna from the hidden city of Zom to persuade some men to leave the city alone. The ruler of Zom gives Jim some diamonds to help persuade the men who include a sea captain and the local bar owner but once seeing the diamonds their lust for more treasure increases. Incident follows incident until the very lively climax. If you like jungle movies this has it all; a lost city, cute animals, a pretty jungle maiden, familiar stock footage, men in gorilla suits and a brawny hero.The brawny hero Jungle Jim being played of course in his pleasant way by Johnny Weissmuller. He's basically like Tarzan but he wears clothes instead. He does get to fight a lion and a crocodile like Tarzan but also fights a couple of sharks which Tarzan wasn't prone to do. Supporting him nicely is the gorgeous Elena Verdugo as Li Wanna. Jimmy The Crow plays Caw-Caw the Crow and outshines the rest of the cast. Not the best jungle movie but it kept me entertained.

***SPOILERS*** One of the better "Jungle Jim" movies has Jungle Jim, Johnny Weissmuller,have it out with a bunch of greedy fortune hunters who are trying to find out the the city, loaded with diamonds & gold, beyond the mountain range Dzamm is located. It's the son Chot, Paul Marion, of the emperor of Dzamm Zoron, Nelson Leigh, who almost lets the cat out of the bag. That by Chot falling helplessly in love with the niece Norina, Myrna Dll, of the head fortune hunter Captain Rawlins, Rulph Dunn, and bringing her presents strutted with diamonds from the city. That has Norina turn the screws or charms on Chot in getting him to tell her where the city of Dzamm is located.Jungle Jim gets into the act or movie by saving Chot's sister princess Li Wanna's, Elena Verdugo, life from first being eating by a man eating crocodile and then lion almost before he had a chance to introduce himself to her! While keeping the jungle safe for it's less dangerous inhabitants Jungle Jim also saved his gorilla friend Zimba, actually a guy in a monkey suit, and chimpanzee companion, who's in fact the real deal, from another ferocious lion attack. That act of heroism on Jungle Jim's part would later figure or be rewarded in the movie exciting final and hair raising sequence.It's Emperor Zoron who at first tries to placate Captain Rowlins and his partner Calhoun, Joseph Vitale, with a bag of precious and uncut diamonds delivered by Jungle Jim that only wets their greedy appetites to find out where they came from:The city of Dzamm. Holding Jungle Jim and princess Li Wanna hostage these greedy diamond hunters and their motley crew of drunken, with both booze and greed, sailors make their way to Dzamm knowing that the peace loving population there being totally against the use violence are nothing but a bunch of wimpy pushovers. ***SPOILERS*** Breaking into the the Emperor Zoron's golden palace Captain Rawlins Calhoun & Co.have the run of the place like a bunch of kids in a toy or candy store grabbing everything, diamonds jewels gold & silver, that isn't nailed down. It's just when things looked at their worst that Zimba and his band of hairy and unkempt mountain gorillas came to the people of Dzamm as well as Jungle Jim and Princess Li Wanna's rescue. Heart lifting final with the monkeys or gorillas doing in the greedy and power drunk fortune hunters saving Jungle Jim most of the trouble of doing it himself. There was a sad note in the movie in that Chot who by getting up enough courage and not being a pacifist saved both Jungle Jim and his sister Princess Li Wanna's lives when they were being hostage by the fortune hunters. But that was the price he had to pay for revealing the secret of the city of Dzamm to his love Norina. As things transpired in the movie Norina in fact wasn't around, she was murdered by Calhoun, or lived long enough to see it anyway.

Johnny Weissmuller's second appearance of Jungle Jim concerns him protecting the secret and treasures of an ancient civilized tribe called Zhamm who have built a hidden city. The son of the chief has been paying court to a girl in another place giving her trinkets made of precious metal. That gets the antenna treasure of Joseph Vitale and Ralph Dunn raised.Fortunately for the good guys Jungle Jim performed an intervention when he takes sides against a lion attacking a gorilla and her baby. He also takes out a crocodile and a shark as well during the course of the film. That wins him the gratitude of the gorilla community and in the climax they prove to be of invaluable help.The Lost Tribe is high camp all the way, gloriously bad cinema, but kind of fun.

The Lost Tribe (1949) * 1/2 (out of 4) The second film in the Columbia series has a group of white folks showing up in the jungle to do whatever it takes to locate a hidden city where an unnumbered amount of diamonds are. Of course things take a violent turn so Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) must step in and put a stop to it. I'm viewing this series out of order but to date this here is without a question the worst I've seen and that's saying quite a bit because in all honesty the entire series has been pretty bad. I'm really not sure where to start but we could discuss the poor acting, the laughable rubber crocodiles or perhaps we could discuss the really bad stock footage. We could discuss all of the horrible things but what would be the point of that? Instead I'll bring up the one classic thing that makes the film worth sitting through and that's a scene towards the middle of the picture where we get a lion going up against a gorilla, which is of course just a man inside an outfit. The fight between the two was pretty exciting and I must say that it had such a campy feel to it that I couldn't help but think that the entire film should be better known to fans of bad cinema. While watching the fight I had to wonder what the guy inside the outfit was thinking. Sure, the lion was trained to work with actors but if I was inside that suit I'd be worried that the lion would think he was going up against something real. Either way, thankfully both the lion and gorilla give the best performances in the film and they keep it from being a complete bomb. Good job boys!