PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Bomba The Jungle Boy Volume 1

Volume 1 of the Warner Archive Collection Bomba The Jungle Boy has 6 of the dozen Bomba films. They come on 3 DVDr discs and there are no extras. Johnny Sheffield plays Bomba in all the films which were released from 1949 to 1955. Johnny had played Boy in 8 of the Tarzan pictures. He retired from acting after after the Bomba series. The Bomba character was introduced in a series of books, 10 set in South America and 10 set in Africa, written by ghost writers under the pseudonym Roy Rockwood. I've read 5 or 6 of the South American series in the last 6-7 years. They turn up cheap enough used that I pick one up when I see it, usually about 3 bucks at HPB, I guess, no one hardly wants them anymore. I have thought it was odd that I don't see the African series at all. I could find them on ABE Books but then I'd have to start paying more than I want for them.

Hardly anyone wants to buy the movies either, or they wouldn't be in the Archive. I've seen them on Turner Classic Movies but how often do they turn up on there, every 2-4 years, I don't know. Even then people aren't running to vote for them on the IMDb. They sure don't have many votes: 209 on the 1st, 103 on the 2nd, 126 on the 3rd, 110 on the 4th, 102 on the 5th, and 114 on the 6th. I'm giving them all a 6, they might not all be that good but most of them are better than a 4 or a 5.

Monogram produced the movies and set them in Africa. Monogram wasn't a big studio and their budgets were small. There's plenty of stock footage, I've seen some of the same footage used in multiple pictures. During the first picture, they shot a bunch of shots of Johnny swinging through the jungle on vines. They used multiple cameras to film the same shots from multiple angles and used that footage in all the pictures in the series. You get to recognize some of the shots from picture to picture. Still, the first picture made a good bit of money, $500,000 on an $85,000 cost, and it would have made sense to continue with the series.

Eventually the series wound up in the Warner Archive, now I have them to enjoy. I'd already seen 3 of the series, all in this set, but I'm watching them all in order. It's been a while since I've seen them, so I've mostly forgotten everything anyway.

Bomba, The Jungle Boy 1949Written by Jack DeWitt and directed by Ford BeeBe. Jack might be most well known for A Man Called Horse and its sequels. Ford started writing in 1915 and directing in 1921. He retired in 1955. I've seen a good few of his films but nothing from the silent era.

It seems most of the visitors coming to Bomba's jungle area have a young lady about Bomba's age traveling with them. In the first of the series a wildlife photographer and his daughter are looking for critters to film. They get into trouble, Bomba rescues the daughter while the father and his men are looking for her. There are plenty of dangers but Bomba knows his jungle lore and he keeps the daughter safe. It's no Tarzan but it's good light hearted entertainment.

Bomba On Panther Island 1949 Ford Beebe is back in the director's seat and this time he's written the script. Nothing like two checks per movie.

Bomba's tacking a killer black panther when he encounters a brother and sister building an agricultural station. The brother is a real asshole but the sister is nice. Their maid is said to have the spirit of the panther in her and the locals are scared of her. Those locals aren't too keen on Bomba either. Then the brother nearly burns down the jungle. Bomba saves the day. Things go back to normal in the jungle when the white people leave. You just can't take white people anywhere.

The Lost Volcano 1950 Ford returns to write and direct another thrilling Bomba The Jungle Boy adventure.

That kid is Tommy Ivo, I'd just seen him in a couple of Durango Kid pictures last Wednesday, he's playing the same annoying kid here. He just never listens and is always getting into trouble. Tommy gets kidnapped by the guys on the left side of the picture. They want the gold and jewels that Tommy knows about. Bomba comes to save his ass and toss the baddies out of the area.

The Hidden City 1951 Carroll Young provided the script this picture and Ford Beebe is the director. Carroll wrote 5 Tarzan pictures and Jungle Jim.

Bomba is the one getting rescued this time. He gets hurt when the Emir of Hidden City sends men to kill him. What a dick, huh. Bomba falls in the river and gets pulled out by a young woman. She nurses him back to health and in one of those fairy tale stories it turns out she's really the true queen, not that dickish Emir. That guy really is a cock. Well all be glad to see the back of him. Bomba will set things right.

The Lion Hunters 1951 Ford's back rockin' the script and directing.

Some white people are kidnapping lions and Bomba is bugging the hell out of them by letting their stock go. You sort of feel sorry for the old guy who thought he'd invest his last buck trapping lions in zoos and it's all gone to shit. He should have bought himself a nice little bar somewhere. At least he doesn't end up like the greedy guy who he hired to help him trap the lions. That guy got his. Keep an eye out for Woody Strode as Walu.

Elephant Stampede 1952 Again Ford gets two paychecks for writing the screenplay and directing.

It's guys killing elephants that are plucking Bomba's nerve this film. That one guy is pretty much a scum bag. He'll kill anyone to get what he wants. Bomba is shot at repeatedly but he manages to keep from getting shot too much. He puts an end to the elephant hunting. The elephants used in the film are Asian elephants, they're easier to train, fake large ears are used to cover up their normally smaller ears. Movie magic, huh!

Well, all told I enjoyed the series. The stories are simple, the movies are short, they're nice to watch without having to think about them much.

Warner Brothers Horror/Mystery Double Features

Here's another Warner Brothers Archive Collection, Warner Brothers Horror/Mystery Double Features, featuring horror and mystery titles from the 1930s and 1940s. I'd seen some of them before, on Turner Classic Movies, it's probably what sent me looking for the DVDs. I ordered this set ages ago and it got buried on the To Be Watched shelves. It surfaced recently and got seen. Here's a list of the films, 2 to a disc. All of the films are short, ranging from 54 to 71 minute, they don't waste much time on padding. All of these films were under the First National Pictures banner when they came out. The company started in 1917, under another name, and in 1929 they were absorbed by Warner Brothers. They made films under the First National Pictures heading until 1936.

 

Find The Blackmailer 1943 This is based on a magazine story called Blackmail With Feathers by G T Fleming-Roberts, the screenplay was written by Robert E Kent and the director was D Ross Lederman. Robert E Kent has a good number of writing credits including Rock Around The Clock and Don't Knock The Rock (both of which I just coincidentally picked up on clearance DVD yesterday),  Zombies On Broadway, Charlie Chan In Reno, a couple of the Great Gildersleeve films, a couple of the Dick Tracy films, a Philo Vance, and so on.

Jerome Cowan is a private eye, he gets hired to find a talking raven. He finds the owner of the bird, dead. There's a mix of larceny and comedy going on. Jerome likes to quip and he cam take a punch. There's a politician getting blackmailed, a dead guy, a crooked lawyer, a pretty and sexy actress, some thugs, all the things that make a mystery fun.

The Smiling Ghost 1941 Stuart Palmer wrote the original story and he co-wrote the script with Kenneth Gamet. They had some help from Philip Wylie on the story and Ben Markson and Ralph Spence on the screenplay. Lewis Seiler is the director. Stuart Palmer is the creator of Miss Hildegarde Withers. I've read several of his books and seen many of his movies.

Wayne Morris a goofy guy who's out of work. He's got bills piling up and he puts an ad in the paper looking for any work that's legal. He's offered a $1000 to play the fiance of Alexis Smith for a month. Wayne thinks it's a bit goofy but he's a goofy guy who needs that 1000 samolians. That's a lot of money for a month in 1941. Turns out Alexis has a history of short lived husbands. She's gotten rich on the insurance and been dubbed the Kiss Of Death Girl by the news media. Lucky for Wayne he's got his valet, Willie Best, and spunky reporter Brenda Marshall on his side. They keep him from being victim number four. It's pretty much a comedy with bit of mystery and horror. The New York Times said it was predictable and inane. Sometimes that's what you need in a film. I liked it and I'd already seen it once before. I always like Willie Best, he always delivers on his roles, even if he's just playing a similar character.

Sh! The Octopus 1937 The movie is based on two plays, The Gorilla by Ralph Spence and Sh, The Octopus by Ralph Murphy and Donald Gallaher. George Bricker smashed the two plays together into the screenplay and William McGann directed. If the previous movie was a goofy comedy this is the same but with goofy turned up to 11. It's like George took all the gag scenes out of the two plays but didn't spend any time linking them all up. Still, I got a kick out of it.

That Hugh Herbert, Marcia Ralston and Allen Jenkins above. Hugh and Allen are a couple of bumbling detectives who are after the notorious criminal the Octopus. The script quickly puts everyone in an old lighthouse. The boat disappears and the lot of them are trapped. There's a dead body hanging from the underside of the light and a real octopus keeps attacking. The gags keep coming so you don't have much time to think about the plot holes. No matter. I had a laugh. Someday I'll watch it again.

 

The Hidden Hand 1942 Here's another film that was based on a play. Rufus King wrote the play Invitation to a Murder, Anthony Coldeway and Raymond L Schrock wrote the screenplay, Benjamin Stoloff is the director.

A rich old lady just happens to have a criminally insane brother. She arranges for him to escape prison and dresses him up as her butler. That's them on the left above. The rich old lady has invited her relatives for a reading of her will. Then the killing starts. Willie Best is the scaredy cat chauffeur. There's oodles of gags and plenty of slapstick. I'll certainly want to watch it again.

Mystery House 1938 This time the movie was adapted from a novel, The Mystery Of Hunting's End, by Mignon G Eberhart, Sherman L Lowe and Robertson White wrote the screenplay and Noel M Smith was the director. I don't care much for the poster above, the one below is better but no winner.

Dick Purcell isn't much interesting but Ann Sheridan certainly is. It's a locked room mystery with a dead CEO and a secluded hunting lodge filled with suspects. William Hopper, Paul Drake on the Perry Mason show, is one of them. There will be some more killin's before they get to the end of the movie. Ann plays the nurse of the CEO, she'll play the same character in the next movie, and Aline MacMahon played the same character in a 1935 movie called When The Patient Slept. I haven't seen that. I did enjoy Mystery House and would watch it again.

The Patient In Room 18 1938 Mignon G Eberhart wrote the novel with the same title, Eugene Solow, Robertson White wrote the screenplay and Bobby Connolly and Crane Wilbur directed. Ann Sheridan is a nurse again and this time she's working in a hospital. Patric Knowles is there for rest cure. Someone steals $100,000 worth of radium and kills a patient. Then the head doctor is murdered. Pool Patric has to solve the case and keep him and Ann from getting murdered. Not quite as funny as some of the other films int he lot but still entertaining.

All of them were worth seeing and the set's a nice addition to my pile of movies. I'll be wanting to watch them again.

Friday Night Movies 682

First up the 1989 horror film Warlock. It was written by David Twohy and directed by Steve Miner. Twohy would go on to write and direct the Riddick series and Alien 3. Julian Sands is an evil wizard who lives in 1691 Boston. He's been captured by Richard E Grant and awaits killing after a trail. That's a big mistake, the court should have dragged him from the court and chopped him up in the street. Julian manages to escape into the future and the magical whoosh pulls Richard along. Julian crashes through the window of a house that has Lori Singer and and a guy, who's dies soon after we meet him, living there. Richard shows up after Julian has gone and teams up with Lori to go after Julian. The evil warlock is after the three parts of the Grand Grimoire so he can destroy creation with a magical word. What a dick, huh. Richard and Lori stumble along and eventually save the world. I thought it was alright, I'd seen it back in 1992 and remember liking it more than I did this time. There are two more sequels and all are in a single set. I considered buying one but after seeing the movie again, I probably won't bother. Maybe if it was cheap, say a fiver.

Our second movie was the 1944 action fantasy Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves. It's got a screenplay by Edmund L Hartmann that doesn't follow the original story very much. Arthur Lubin is the director, he's later direct 131 episodes, out of 145, of Mister Ed. He directed The Incredible Mr Limpet and the first 6 of the Francis the Talking Mule movies. He's had plenty of work over the years and usually does an OK job, here he's kind of weak. The movie has a nice look to it but it drags along. We all enjoyed Andy Devine as the prince's protector. I watched the 1940 Alexander Korda film The Thief Of Bagdad recently and that was a more entertaining film.

 

The Prince Of Thieves 1948

I found a nice used copy of The Prince Of Thieves for cheap and picked it up. It's a 1948 adaptation of an Alexander Dumas novel called Le Prince des voleurs. It's a novel about Robin Hood. The screenplay is by Charles H. Schneer and Maurice Tombragel. Charles would later produce several films with Ray Harryhausen. It's directed by Howard Bretherton and produced by Sam Katzman. Jon Hall, Patricia Morison, Adele Jergens, Alan Mowbray and HB Warner are in the cast. It's a Cinecolor process film. Sadly, it's drawback is that it can't reproduce green well. Kind of bummer for the traditionally green Robin Hood costumes.

The story is about Robin putting a stop to an arranged marriage so that another arranged marriage can take place. Lady Christabel is betrothed to Sir Allan Claire. He's been away with King Richard fighting and when he returns home he finds Lady Christabel is now betrothed to a nobleman in league with Prince John. No one likes those dicks so Robin and the Merrie Men kick some noble ass and everything is OK.

It was fun enough but not a great Robin Hood film. Jon Hall is a passable Robin but he won't be my favorite. Still, I liked it enough to want to see again and I liked it more than the Kevin Costner film of the same name. I won't even both to have a copy of that movie.