African Treasure (1952)

Roy Rockwood's creation, Bomba, the Jungle Boy, returns for his seventh cinematic adventure--amusingly, this one as cheap and padded with stock footage as were the previous six! As the mythical "white devil" who swings from the vines and talks to the animals, Johnny Sheffield seems to know much more English this time, and he's allowed to have affectionate feelings for the requisite native girl involved in the proceedings. Still, the premise here (diamond poachers in an abandoned crater using kidnapped natives to sort out the stones from clay and help smuggle them out) doesn't allow for much animal action or boy-girl romance. Instead, we get the greedy, murderous white men ordering the natives around mercilessly, while Bomba sends urgent messages back to the village via drum calls (when Bomba takes out two sticks and starts pounding away on hollowed branches, this entry almost becomes a "Bomba" parody). The murky underwater photography, as well as a fight between Bomba and a lion, are both bottom of the barrel, however Sheffield still manages to hold the screen with his youthful appeal. *1/2 from ****

African Treasure finds Johnny Sheffield as Bomba the Jungle Boy looking to help his native friends who've been taken prisoners and forced to mine diamonds in a secret location that some smugglers know about. Arthur Space and Lane Bradford keep the prisoners and another criminal played by Lyle Talbot holds Bomba's friend, Commissioner Leonard Mudie prisoner as well. The odds don't look good for Bomba.But of course with his knowledge of jungle ways Sheffield does triumph in the end. Like Tarzan, Bomba has a chimp to make chumps out of the bad guys and save him in a tight spot. Like Tarzan, Bomba's learned the value of friendship with the animals though he does get into a fight with a lion here.This particular Bomba entrée has got more than it share of pulp adventure sequences that would have kept its young audience glued to their movie seats. It will keep you in your Laz-E-Boy chairs as well.

***SPOILERS*** Things didn't seem quite right for British Province Colonial Commissioner Andy Barnes, Leonard Maudie, when American big game hunter Pat Gilroy, Lyle Talbot, showed up, by boat, unannounced at his outpost deep in the African jungle. It's later in the movie when Barnes gets a post office wanted poster, from the Jungle Mailman, of escaped criminal Roy DeHaven that he realizes that both Gilroy and DeHaven are one and the same person! But by then DeHaven got the drop on Bearns and took him hostage in order to get, also by boat, to the Nujuli Crater where his two partners in crime Greg, not Laural, and Hardy, Arthur Space & Lane Bradford, are digging for the crater's mother load of diamonds with the help Pedro Sabastian, Martin Garralaga, and the Nomgola villagers. It was Pedro & the Nomgola villagers that Greg & Hardy took hostage after wiping out almost the entire Nomgola village and the members, including Prof.Catesby, of the Catesby Expedition who were staying there!Now where does the star of the movie Bomba, Johnny Sheffield, the Jungle Boy come into the picture? He's swinging on the jungle vines with his good friend and companion Kimbobo the Chimp when he spots this gorgeous young teenage girl and her guide walking through the dangerous jungle underbrush! Being attacked by a 500 pound male lion Bomba puts the big cat away without as much as breaking into a sweat. It's then that Bomba gets the lowdown from the girl Lita, Laurette Luez, in what she was doing there risking her life in the very inhospitable jungle!Lita's father-Pedro Sabastiant-was a member of the doomed Catesby Expedition who was taken prisoner together with the survivors of the Nomgola village massacre by Greg & Hardy to mine the diamonds at the Nujuli Crater! It's now up to Bomba the save Pedro and the villagers before Greg & Hardy have them buried alive after they mined all the diamonds for them. That's in order to keep them for talking to the police or the British Colonial Commissinor, Andy Bearns, about Greg & Hardy as well as the guy who's to fence the precious stones Roy DeHaven! It's Later that DeHaven is apprehended by the local natives lead by Berns' loyal native butler Eli, Smoki Whitefield, who stopped him from getting to Greg & Hardy before he and his hostage Bearns could make it to his boat. Bomba doesn't waste any time going into action but Greg & Hardy are a lot tougher then what he, and we in the audience, thought that they were. Getting himself easily clubbed beaten and tied up by the bad guys, which wasn't like him, Bomba has to rely on his good friend Kimbobo to pull his chestnuts out of the fire. Kimbobo does that by pelting Greg & Hardy with rocks and coconuts whenever they happened to get the best of his friend Bomba. It's later that Bomba, with the help of Kimbobo the Chimp, finally puts both Greg & Hardy in their place and behind bars. That's when they tired to make their escape by boat with the diamonds before Bomba and his jungle friends, monkeys exotic birds big cats and elephants, get a hold of them! Which in fact they, or at least Bomba & Kimbobo, did!P.S Check out former L.A Rams football great Woody Strode in a cameo part, if you blink you'll probably miss him, as the Jungle Mailman.

Andy Barnes (Leonard Mudie) gets word by short wave that two of the three geologists who passed through his district some weeks before were known diamond smugglers, and that nothing since has been heard of the trio. And he also learns that a hunter, Pat Gilroy (Lyle Talbot), who has just arrived at the compound is really an escaped convict named Roy DeHaven.Obviously, time to call in Bomba the Jungle Boy (Johnny Sheffield). He is summoned via the jungle drum wireless-telegraph, and Barnes asks Bomba to go to the cheesy back lot set and try to locate Gatesby, the geologist who was with Greg (Arthur Space) and Hardy (Lane Bradford.)Bomba finds the body of Gatesby but...lucky him and the viewer---he also finds Lita Sebastian (Laurette Luez), who is out in the jungle looking for her father, Pedro (Martin Garralaga),a Portuguese guide, and the cheesy jungle set now looks better than it did.Through the help of jungle drums and his animal friends, all stock footage except Kimbbo the Chimp, Bomba leads Lita to where her father, and a large number of natives, are being held as slaves by Greg and Hardy, who have found diamonds in the crater of an extinct volcano, known locally as The Mountain of Diamonds. Lita is captured by Greg, but Bomba has summoned help and Gerg and Hardy flee but not without first staring a landslide on the enslaved workers.Bomba has a lot of work to do before he can restore order to this jungle.