Jungle Manhunt (1951)

More of the same for Jungle Jim fans here as Johnny Weissmuller's jungle hero gets involved in helping Anne Lawrence (Sheila Ryan) in the search for a missing football star. The backdrop is one of dastardly doings by some nefarious character, who is instigating raids on villages led by the Skeleton Men. Cue Jim involved in a good quota of close call dramatics.There's the usual cheap moments; bad rear projection, giant prop boulders that move when someone touches them, but these are the kind of things we tend to afford affection for these days. From drowning perils to big lizard, to fisticuffs and sexual tensions, Jungle Manhunt, without reaching the higher end of the franchise, never falters in its prime objective to entertain without pretension. 6/10

the most interesting thing about the movie is the performances. There mostly pretty bad. Johnny Wessimieser may have had one really goodgreat movie but here hes barely wood-perhaps because he actually has to talk in the movie he acts as if he is afraid of it . Everyone Else to Bob mMller as a football player is also bad-the natives the villain everyone is pretty much terrible. That said Shelia Ryan, is pretty great in the movie-either that or she is just head or heals better then anyone else in the movie that it just looks great. Shes spunky, generally funny and has a good late 40s sense of power and accomplishment even if she just mostly gets dragged around in the film. its not in any means a good movie, yet i can't hate it.

***SPOILERS*** Unintentionally funny, aren't they all, Jungle Jim, Johnny Weissmuller, movie where he together with news photographer Anne Lawrence, Sheila Ryan, are searching the jungles of darkest Africa to find lost, for some nine years, professional football player and the estranged husband of actress Jane Russell Bob Miller played by real football hero Bob Waterfield. It's during this time that a series of deadly raids are conducted against a number of native villages lead by a mysterious white man using men dressed up in Halloween skeleton costumes as his shock troops.We and Jungle Jim later find out that the white man doing all this damage is industrial chemist Mitchell Heller, Lyle Talbot, who uses the natives his men kidnapped as slave labors in his hidden cave in the jungle to create from igneous rocks synthetic diamonds! Diamonds that are so genuine that their easily mistaken for the real thing! The one drawback to this operation on Heller's part is that those working in his "Diamond Mine" don't last too long dying within a few days of deadly radiation poisoning. Always needing new manpower to get the job done Heller has his men raid the local villages to get him new recruits or workers.It's after being taken hostage by Heller's men it's non other then Jungle Jim's faithful jungle companion Tamba the Chimp who rescues Jungle Jim and makes it possible for him together with Bob Miller throwing, quarterback style, bomb laden coconuts and mango's to put an end to Heller's grandiose plans in his efforts to corner the worlds diamond markets! With Heller now on his own with his Skelton Men running for cover he makes a run for it himself, with a safe box filled with synthetic diamonds, towards the hill country surrounding the village. Only to end up falling some 200 feet, without a parachute, from a cliff he was hanging on by a branch, that broke, to his death.As usual Jungle Jim got the best deal in the movie in not only being the person,together Bob Miller, who saved the day and the native villagers from the evil Mitchell Heller and his feared Skeleton Men but also ended up with the real hero in the movie the cute and cuddly Tamba the Chimp. As for football hero Bob Miller he had to settle for second best in ending up getting the girl, not his real life wife Jean Russell, the sexy newsreel photographer Anne Lawrence.

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.