Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942)

the audience applauded

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The only jungle the characters in this colorful adventure come from is the jungle known as Hollywood, with scantily clad blonde hunk Richard Denning twitching the hearts of the women left without their men during World War II (and probably quite a few men too who were unable to enlist in the army for obvious reasons) and gorgeous Dorothy Lamour given some of the campiest situations and dialog that any actor ever had to say. "He fell out of a tree like a ripe coconut", Lamour says describing Denning, and later proclaims, "I don't have the tail of a fish, but I can swim!" She not only swims but sings here too, but she's definitely no threat to the yet to be discovered Esther Williams. Tigers, chimpanzees (creating havoc to the tune of "Waltz of the Flowers"), alligators (chasing Jack Haley across a stream with snapping jaws) and various other wild life of the jungle support Denning and Lamour in this delightful piece of escapism where Lamour is brought to San Francisco, believing that she might be the heir to an estate.This brings to my mind the Elaine Stritch Song "Civilization" where she sang, "Bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't want to leave the Kongo", but in Lamour's case, she was the child of American parents who happened to be killed in the jungle, leaving her to be raised by the wild animals including a huge tiger. This part of her story is seen in flashback, and of course, Lamour is quite lovely in her sarong, even if not the strongest of actresses. Of course, this is a Hollywood version of "Jungle Book" with a female heroine instead of Sabu, and it is very ironic that Lamour and Sabu were never paired, her being under contract to Paramount and he being under contract to Universal and paired with the similarly exotic Maria Montez.There's plenty of action as the jungle scenes feature Lamour re-visiting to find evidence supporting her claim and the group dealing with unfriendly natives, various unfriendly wild animals (especially a rather temperamental elephant) and of course, the presence of white men out for their own interests and no interest in the land. There's Jack Haley for comedy ("Hey, where did Gogo go?"), Elizabeth Patterson for imperious judgments, and a legion of spider moneys, exotic birds, black panthers and the visual treat of Lamour's cave which comes complete with its own swimming pool. This is one of those delightful "Oh so bad it's good" adventures that have quite a cult following, although this and many of Lamour's other similar films have not reached the same status of Maria Montez's outrageous output. The shocking ending has a battle between tiger and elephant that ends sadly, one of the few times on film where the elephant is the villain, not the jungle cat. All this and the gorgeous theme song too, although simply played as instrumental rather than sung as it had been famously done a decade before by Jeanette MacDonald.

I too saw this movie as a youngster (8 or 9 years of age)and I remember the climatic scene. Dorothy Lamour's pet tiger was killed in it by the rogue elephant and I had just lost a pet cat. I cried, but I recovered in time to see the elephant beast fall to its death. I still have the theme song on an LP record. I would love to see this movie again but I have never seen a listing for it in the years I have had cable TV. This was the second Dorothy Movie in which she portrayed a jungle heroine with a pet tiger. The other being The Jungle Princess and the tiger also gets killed in that one while trying to protect her. It seems a shame that I can watch The Range Riders with Eddie Dean on cable TV but I cannot see Beyond the blue horizon.

I remember the scene of the elephant crashing through the bamboo wall and falling to its death. I also remember the following: The song in the movie is also called "Beyond the Blue Horizon". Dorothy Lamour had a "pet" tiger. she told Jackra that the tiger would swim in the water with her, which he did not believe. Eventually in the movie, the tiger does swim in a pool with Miss Lamour and Jackra finally believes her. Also, in the movie they called the elephant "the block".Recently I was reminded of this movie while I was watching a TV program called "Raising the Mammoth". In this true story program, they show an expedition that has found a mammoth frozen in the ice and are attempting to dig it out. They referred to the mammoth as "the block". I was wondering if the word "block" refers specifically to a mammoth or other prehistoric elephant/mastodon, etc.

Probably my rating is more sentimental than objective. I saw the movie when I was eleven years old in 1942, having developed a significant crush on Dorothy Lamour from her earlier movie, "The Fleet's In". Still, the movie was highly enjoyable and featured a lovely song entitled "A Full Moon and an Empty Heart" which I still occasionally play on the piano even now. I have never been able to get a recording of this song, nor have I been able to get a copy of the movie on videotape.