Captive Girl (1950)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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).

...And what an imposing figure she is too, seen right after the opening credits, looking strangely imperious as she stood out looking over her "kingdom". On first glance, I found myself checking the credits to make sure "she" was a woman, and although little information was available on Anita Lhotse, I found out indeed she was, a former swimming champion who once dated Clint Eastwood. But for this fourth of the Jungle Jim series, she's presented as an evil figure, indeed referred to as a witch, although it's insinuated that she was lost in the jungle as a child (a la Tarzan) yet according to native legend without the big heart of Johnny Weismueller's earlier character. Indeed, she has a very masculine face, a severe hair style, and enough muscle tone to make Xena, Warrior Princess jealous. Like Tarzan too, she has the ability to call wild animals, but seemingly, it's not to help somebody in distress.Weismueller is joined by another former Tarzan, Buster Crabbe, quite different here as a villain searching for lost treasure. He's the type of white man that makes the natives hate all white men, even though Jungle Jim is clearly on their side. Accompanied by his puppy and baby chimp pals (who seemingly understand English), Jim finds out the truth about "the white witch", and comes across another lost city filled with a mystery of its own. In silly "native headdress", Rick Vallin hunts all of the white characters, bringing them altogether for the ultimate showdown. Silly fun for those who can stomach such nonsense, it's a fun time filler with plenty of thrills, unintentional laughs, and a not quite leading lady who only pretends to whistle to her animal pals and doesn't utter a word. Not surprising she only made one film, it's also a relief that Columbia didn't spin off a series featuring her.

I was a kid when this movie came out. In fact, it was shown as the feature during one Saturday matinée. The way the local Bijou ran Saturday matinées was that they always started at 12:30 PM. There would be a few cartoons, a comedy short (Three Stooges, Laurel & Hardy, Little Rascals, etc), another few cartoons, a serial chapter (Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers, etc), then topped off with the feature film. One interesting thing about our Saturday matinées was that in all of the movies, no matter if they were adventures (like "Captive Girl"), a western or sci-fi movie, the good guys always won. But, the way that the Bijou ran the show, there was no "theme." But, if you were a kid like I was, you didn't care. As long as the good guy winning, we were happy. And we were home in time for dinner."Captive Girl" uses cheesy sets, phoned in dialog, stock footage and good looking actors. This movie brings back fond memories of my youth.

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.