Fury of the Congo (1951)

Fresh and Exciting

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The bad white man is back, after the mysterious okongoe for something in their system that apparently makes a fabulous narcotic. OK, that's a strange premise on its own, but the way that this "Jungle Jim" series is presented is a lot more intelligent than the previous four entries in the series, minus the very good first entry. Unfortunately, it's missing the unintentional humor in those films, and that makes this a bit slow at times. OK, there is the obviously painted mule made to look like a zebra and a slithering spider like creature the size of a man (no rival to the creepy ones of "Cat Women of the Moon"), plus a scary sandstorm that comes out of nowhere. Of course, there's also the obligatory fall into quicksand, a staple of practically every entry in the series. Sherry Moreland is the lucky starlet out of a tribe of Amazon like women to be the female lead, although I would say her creative discovery of makeup among non jungle plants seems quite ingenious.

The 6th of Johnny Weissmuller's forays into Jungle Jim's khaki shorts proves to be a damp squib. It's low on ideas and crudely constructed by director William Berke. OK, lets not beat around the jungle bush, for the very young film fan there is more than enough here to keep them rooted to the sofa. From hilariously bad spider designs to recycled animal fights, there's no denying that young eyes can enjoy whilst feasting on their burgers. Hell, the plot even has some intelligence to it, even if it's a touch bonkers as drug lords seek to extract narcotic tinged glands from the Okongo, a half horse/zebra/antelope thingy that the makers have made up. But this is all told one of the weakest of the series and feels old hat as regards familiarity breeding contempt. 4/10

For this low budgeted film, the sixth in Columbia Pictures' Jungle Jim series, based upon a long-running comic strip of Alex Raymond, creator also of "Flash Gordon" and others, Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) is able to save an about to drown aircraft pilot, Ronald Cameron (William Henry) whose plane has crashed and sunk beneath a pond into which Jim is about to plunge. Cameron, who might not be the police inspector whom he claims to be, is tracking a missing biology professor who had been field researching an unique beast, the "okongo", that the script's pages describe as some type of hybrid between an antelope and a zebra. While local natives venerate this creature, "evil white" hunters plan to capture the entire herd because the okongo's digestive system transmutes, in some mysterious fashion, its favourite food plant into a powerful and, to be sure, potentially lucrative narcotic drug. These "evil whites" force the men of the local tribe to assist them in locating the okongos, leaving the tribeswomen to call upon Jungle Jim to stop the invaders from absconding with the entire host of the beasts. As champion of the females, Jim confronts numerous perils, from both human and animal adversaries. These include a savage fight to the death at close quarters with a leopard (utilizing footage with a stunt double used regularly for previously released Jungle Jim adventures), a struggle with a "giant desert spider" (obviously a garden hose garnished with palm fronds), and a group of the hostile white men to whom Jim is simply an inconvenience (although one spotlessly attired, whose clothing bears not the least sign of the brutal combat with the leopard, or of the ground-hugging opposition offered by the oversize spider, from which no living being could have reasonably been expected to escape). The film is shot in Southern California locations that bear scant resemblance to the scenario's purported African Congo. Nor does the assorted collection of Central Casting extras, comprised in the main of flabby Filipinos and Hispanics, match the expected appearance of indigenous Africans. These worthies, all barefoot, move with ever so much care through the locations' hard-rock strewn terrain during the course of the work's repetitive scenes of the varying characters who are tirelessly walking for no ostensible purpose. There is yet more for a viewer to chuckle over here: the okongos are only ponies stabled at Corriganville, an often used site for Western movies, and have stripes painted sloppily over their flanks; in order for Jim to be trusted by female members of the tribe, he must know the "tribal sign", and he of course does; his omnipresent pet chimpanzee, here named Kanga, in a clearly unplanned adaptation from the script, swings by way of vine, knocking Jim into a mud puddle, that is then labelled as "quicksand". There is a good deal more of such foolishness, but no advantage is to be gained by flogging a dead okongo for this haphazardly edited, listlessly directed affair that relies upon stock footage and scoring with the entire assemblage of players chasing each other about to no design during the movie's closing one quarter of an hour, or so.

I obtained a copy of Fury of the Congo from the same source as the Bomba movies I have.In this one, Jungle Jim, a native woman and another man who is pretending to be their friend and is actually a hunter go and track down a group of hunters who have kidnapped all the native men. These hunters are after a rare breed of horse, the Okongo and want the native men to help them to kill the Okongoes as they are a source of a kind of drug. During the expedition, Jim and his companions face several dangers including dust storms and, best of all, a giant desert spider. The hunters are captured at the end, some of them killed and the native men are reunited with their wives. The Okongoes are safe and well too.As always, Johnny Wiessmuller plays Jungle Jim and the rest of the cast includes Lyle Talbot and William Henry.Fury of the Kongo is worth a look at if you get the chance. Quite hard to get hold of.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.