Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
filippaberry84
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Kayden
This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
Spikeopath
More of the same for Jungle Jim fans here as Johnny Weissmuller's jungle hero gets involved in helping Anne Lawrence (Sheila Ryan) in the search for a missing football star. The backdrop is one of dastardly doings by some nefarious character, who is instigating raids on villages led by the Skeleton Men. Cue Jim involved in a good quota of close call dramatics.There's the usual cheap moments; bad rear projection, giant prop boulders that move when someone touches them, but these are the kind of things we tend to afford affection for these days. From drowning perils to big lizard, to fisticuffs and sexual tensions, Jungle Manhunt, without reaching the higher end of the franchise, never falters in its prime objective to entertain without pretension. 6/10
jcsymmes
the most interesting thing about the movie is the performances. There mostly pretty bad. Johnny Wessimieser may have had one really goodgreat movie but here hes barely wood-perhaps because he actually has to talk in the movie he acts as if he is afraid of it . Everyone Else to Bob mMller as a football player is also bad-the natives the villain everyone is pretty much terrible. That said Shelia Ryan, is pretty great in the movie-either that or she is just head or heals better then anyone else in the movie that it just looks great. Shes spunky, generally funny and has a good late 40s sense of power and accomplishment even if she just mostly gets dragged around in the film. its not in any means a good movie, yet i can't hate it.
Michael_Elliott
Jungle Manhunt (1951) * 1/2 (out of 4) Seventh film in the popular series has a football star (real football player Bob Waterfield) going missing in the jungle so a reporter (Sheila Ryan) hires Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) to go searching for him. Soon they find a wild skeleton man tribe as well as various dinosaurs. I wasn't expecting too much going into this film but I was still left disappointed because I've become of a fan of director Landers who is probably best remembered for the Karloff/Lugosi film THE RAVEN. The director has also directed films in series such as Boston Blackie, The Whistler and various other "B" movies. He can usually turn trash into good fun but that's not the case here. This is only my second film in the series and I'm already starting to get bored with it. There are still many campy moments here including one very embarrassing goof that happens towards the start of the film. After Jim rescues the reporter she goes to look at his profile and tells him to turn his head to the right but he ends up turning it to the left. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed for ol' Johnny and this scene almost made you forget his bad but campy performance. Waterfield isn't too bad in his role and we've also got camp favorite Lyle Talbot playing a mad scientist. The dinosaur sequence, lifted from ONE MILLION B.C., is extremely silly as is another scene, lifted from yet another movie, where an octopus and shark fight in the middle of the jungle!
classicsoncall
I was getting a little worried, almost an hour into the picture and Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) still hadn't tangled with a wild animal yet, but at 58:08 he makes short work of a shark - no battle actually, he just stabs it! That was right after the shark beat up on an octopus, so maybe he was too tired to fight. What's curious to me was how a shark and an octopus found their way into an African river. Besides the battle of sea creatures, we're also treated to a tussle between a pair of dinosaur impersonating lizards, one of which had a dimetrodon fin attached to it's back. Pretty cool stuff for a kid watching this stuff back in the 1950's, because after all, I was one of them.As for the movie's main plot, you really have to pay attention to let the whole thing sink in. An evil scientific genius (Lyle Talbot) discovers that boiling igneous rock will release the liquids and gases in it's magma composition, and when common sugar is added, a residue of carbon from the burned sugar is held suspended by the magma. Then when the whole solution is immersed in cold water, what's left is re-crystallized into synthetic diamonds - Whew! When I tried it, I only got a hot, wet rock. You know, I think they made all that up.There must have been a reason each Jungle Jim movie offered a different female lead, this time it was Sheila Ryan as spunky photographer Ann Lawrence. They're out to find a former All-American football player who went missing in the jungle some nine years earlier. The opening film credits state 'Introducing' Bob Waterfield, a real life pro player and coach for the Los Angeles Rams. The 'introduction' tag is usually meant to herald an up and coming new star, but in this case, Waterfield's performance was decidedly less successful than his football career. At least Rick Vallin turns up one more time as yet another tribal chief named Bono, causing me to wonder where the current rock star Bono's name actually came from - Hmm. And say, you know who else gets an opening film credit - Tamba The Chimp!! I got a kick out of an early scene when Miss Lawrence first meets Jungle Jim when he saves her from drowning. Admiring his features, she asks him to 'turn your head to the right', to which he turns his head left! Having seen about a half dozen Jungle Jim films recently, I have to admit that once viewed, they're largely forgettable, but at least when they're on they offer a lot of fun, even if some of it is just plain goofy. This one though, I must say probably had the best ending of one so far. Not only does Ann Lawrence get to kiss Jim's co-hero Bob Miller (Waterfield), but Tamba gets to plant one on Jungle Jim himself!