Jungle Gents (1954)

So much average

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Blistering performances.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

In many of the later Bowery Boys films, the plots involve Sach developing some sort of strange superhuman power--one that seems to disappear before the next film. Some examples of Sach's powers in films are super strength, the ability to predict numbers at gambling and mind reading...but the strangest has got to be here in "Jungle Gents". It seems that due to a sinus infection and his medication, Sach has the weird ability to sniff out diamonds with his nose!! Soon the boys and Louie find themselves in Africa...looking for lost diamonds. Talk about a strange, contrived plot!!!A major strike against the film is the lack of originality. Sure, being able to smell diamonds IS original...but Sach developing super powers eventually became a cliché because this plot device was used so often. Of course, you don't expect Shakespeare or a Truffaut picture when it comes to the Bowery Boys!! There is also a strike against the extensive use of what is obviously stock footage...which you'd expect in a low-budget B-movie. You also get a giant stuffed lion which attacks Sach. In other words, it's not particularly distinguished and is like most of their later films...a bit lame. For better films, try to find the earlier Bowery Boys as well as the East Side Kids pictures.By the way, the director and co-writer, Edward Bernds, also directed quite a few of the Three Stooges films...including the really lame later ones. He also did several of the Blondie and Dagwood pictures. So, he would appear to be in his element working here with the Bowery Boys.

Sach's special power this time is smelling diamonds and the special location the boys are headed to is Africa. Yeah it's time for another misadventure of everybody's favorite group of morons, The Bowery Boys. This is the thirty-fifth entry in the series, of which I'm generally a fan. However, it's pretty obvious not much thought was put into the stories. But that's not the end of the world, provided Leo Gorcey still has some funny malapropisms and Huntz Hall can find new ways to contort his face. I found Huntz flat-out annoying in this one. Leo has some funny lines, though. As usual, Bernard Gorcey is the highlight as the lovable Louie. David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett are hanging around in the background. Laurette Luez is the obligatory pretty girl this time around. Look out for Clint Walker at the end. It's enjoyable enough for what it is but, like many of the later Bowery Boys films, the first half is the best. So if you start watching it and aren't laughing within the first twenty minutes or so, you're probably not going to.

***SPOILERS*** Taking medication for his allergies Sach's already prominent schnoz becomes super sensitive in being able to sniff out things especially cut and uncut diamonds.With this unusual talent Sach together with his fellow "Bowery Boys" Slip Chuck & Butch as well as sweet shop owner Louie Dumbrowsky are recruited by diamond prospector Grimshaw and his ailing partner, in surviving an attack of jungle fever, Trader Horn to travel to Africa known as the "Dark Condiment" to track down a diamond mine that's been lost to history as well as mankind for some 10 years! That's until Sach's super sensitive schnoz got a whiff of it!Sach as you would have expected screws things up by using the secret map where the hidden diamonds are supposed to be located for fuel to light a campfire! This first class moron then leads his diamond safari in circles around the jungle for days until it's discovered that the substituted map that he's using is actually an advertisement for womens brassieres! Feeling like a jerk Sach later tries to commit suicide only to screw that up by missing his head with a shotgun that was aimed only inches away from it!As things turned out Sach surviving his own stupidity, by trying to kill himself, really lifted the movie "Jungle Gents" up a lot when he's then saved from being eaten by a wild 450 pound lion by Tarzana the jungle girl who ends up killing the King of Beasts single-handed and not as much as getting a scratch on her! While all this is happening ex-Nazi concentration camp doctor Goebel, obviously related to the late Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbles, and his partner Dan Shanks are tracking down the Bowery safari in order to get their hands on the diamonds to use them to undoubtedly start up a new Nazi movement in darkest Africa!***SPOILERS**** It always surprised me in how Sach always gets the girl and how Louie can leave his sweet shop in the Bowery unattended by going on these adventures with the "Bowery Boys" and still be able to pay the rent? Sach's schnoz does in fact sniff out the diamonds but only after Dr.Goebel and Shanks sniff him out at the secret diamond mine in the African jungle. It's then that the giant ghost, that the local natives are sacred stiff of, that guards the diamonds comes to Sach's and the "Bowery Boys" rescue which was totally unnecessary since the "Boys" together with Tarzana had no trouble at all putting the two nogoodniks away on their own!It's at the end of the film with the "Bowery Boys" together Louie Dumbrowsky on a riverboat about to leave for home sweet home in the Bowery to the jeers and delight,in finally getting rid of them, of the local native population that Sach decided to stay with his new found girlfriend "kiss Kiss" Tarzana in the African jungle. That's until Tarzana's mate Tarzan himself, played by the six foot six inch tall Clint Walker, unexpectedly shown up making Sach quickly change his mind!

After a diamond heist, Huntz Hall (as Sach Jones) sniffs out some booty, which leads police to believe he's an accomplice. Actually, pill-popping Mr. Hall has acquired the power to smell the presence of diamonds; then, he is released. To wit, leader Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) decides to take Hall and "Bowery Boys" David "Condon" Gorcey (as Chuck) and Benny "Bennie" Bartlett (as Butch) to the "dark condiment" of Africa. There, they search for a fortune in lost diamonds, and mingle with natives… "The Bowery Boys" and "Africa" do not mix. A good rest would have been preferable to this moronic, cheap, and clammy movie. The "lion scenes" are startlingly ineffective - look at them for an example of what NOT to try on a small budget. Gorcey appears alternately tired and angry. Hall is stuck with absolutely humorless material. Curvy Laurette Luez plays a luscious jungle girl in modest one-piece, Woody Strode collects a paycheck, and Clint ("Cheyenne") Walker has a memorable film cameo debut as "Tarzan", just before the curtain closes on "Jungle Gents".** Jungle Gents (9/5/54) Edward Bernds ~ Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Bernard Gorcey