It's time to play count the pith helmets, something I started at the opening credits that indicated a bunch of white explorers in an exotic setting. And what do you know, Lola Lane, one of the four daughters, comes out, wearing a pith helmet. She's a pretty ballsy lady, too, organizing a search party and taking the road to Zanzibar, minus Hope and Crosby. On the way, there's a storm that leaves them stranded, encounters with seemingly cannibal like tribes and chases by some wild animals. An angry volcano tops everything off. The only thing missing is a Maria Montez like jungle queen.
Stock footage of various African tribes, wildlife and vintage jungle footage is quite different from the footage filmed with Lane and James Craig, a sort of poor man's "African Queen". The main plot is completely unrealistic, a fantasy island of 40's cinema that must have enthralled adolescent boys. What results is a severely funny film that might have intended not to be so funny but ends up hysterical anyway. It's part documentary, part Saturday matinée adventure, and fascinating in spite of being a return to the type of films that Frank Buck and the Johnsons had put out a decade before to explore improving film technology.
Stock footage of various African tribes, wildlife and vintage jungle footage is quite different from the footage filmed with Lane and James Craig, a sort of poor man's "African Queen". The main plot is completely unrealistic, a fantasy island of 40's cinema that must have enthralled adolescent boys. What results is a severely funny film that might have intended not to be so funny but ends up hysterical anyway. It's part documentary, part Saturday matinée adventure, and fascinating in spite of being a return to the type of films that Frank Buck and the Johnsons had put out a decade before to explore improving film technology.