Captive Girl (1950)

When Johnny Weissmuller started getting too old to play Tarzan, he put on some khakis and returned to the African wilds as Jungle Jim. The Tarzan films allowed Weissmuller to disguise the fact that he wasn't all the great of an actor, since Tarzan only spoke in broken English, but with him now being required to deliver normal dialogue reveals him as a painfully wooden actor.. However, Weissmuller does have screen charisma and that's enough to carry this routine jungle adventure that has a dash of sex appeal, with it's story about Jungle Jim saving a jungle girl captured by an evil witch doctor, while also fighting a treasure hunter played by Buster Crabbe (who also played Tarzan in the 1930s).

Swimming champions Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe duel it out in Captive Girl part of Weissmuller's Jungle Jim series. Crabbe was in better shape however because we get to see him stripped down where Weissmuller even in his swimming scenes is clothed.Crabbe is only one of two villains. The other being John Dehner ludicrously made up in blackface to play the tribal witch doctor. This may have been the nadir of that career, but Dehner soldiered on as he kept a straight face throughout the film.Weissmuller as the legendary Jungle Jim has been hired to go to India presumably to find and locate an evil jungle witch, a white girl roaming the jungle there with a tiger as a companion who has been running a small terrorist campaign against Dehner and his minions who've been ruling his tribe in the absence of Chief Rick Vallin who has gone off to white man's missionary school. Now Weissmuller and Vallin are traveling together, Weissmuller to find the mysterious white girl with the tiger and Vallin to reclaim his legacy.Crabbe is a treasure hunter who is after the loot that the white girl's parents found presumably as archaeologists back in the day before they disappeared.The white girl is Anita Lhoest, swimming champion of the Forties who looked real good in some tiger skin bodywear. They gave her minimal and I mean minimal dialog, less than Weissmuller and Crabbe had back when they were playing Tarzan. This was Anita's one and only film and why no one thought of her for Sheena, Queen Of The Jungle who knows?I saw these films as a lad and looking at it now I see how ludicrously bad some of these Jungle Jim films were. Positive camp.

What girl no matter her age can resist anything that has both Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabb in it? Just seeing Johnny Weissmuller in anything is reward enough. He was absolutely captivating in all of the Tarzan movies. He was also fun in the Jungle Jim television shows too. It is time well spent even if the movies and plots may seem weak. Better than what is out there now. At least the men are attractive and worth looking at. What is interesting is that both Johnny and Buster were competitive in the Olympics. And then they were competitive in the movies. Another neat movie with both of them in it is Swamp Fire. More competition but all for the love of a lady. These are just fun escapism movies back when men were men and women were lucky!

This is a funny movie that is completely unbelievable. Had I seen this movie in the early fifties, I would have believed it is realistic. It is light entertainment at the most, but the Jungle Girl Anita is one fine "Honey", I think I love her. To my consternation this beauty made only ONE movie. History is abundant with horse faces making multiple flicks, why not a beauty like Anita? Oh well, That's life, but this movie is not about life.