Jungle Manhunt (1951) User Reviews

"When there's trouble in the jungle, it's everybody's business."

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 25 April 2007]

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!

Forgettable, but mildly enjoyable if you don't expect too much

[lemon_magic · 5/10 · 27 April 2007]

The "Jungle Jim" series is apparently where Johnny Weissmuller's career went to die after he got too fat to play "Tarzan" anymore. He's actually in fairly trim form for this in his two shirtless scenes, but it's also pretty obvious that he's sucking in his gut. (I don't blame him; if I were over 30 and had to be shirtless on film, I'd suck in my gut too). But most of the time he still cuts a pretty dashing figure in his "Jungle Jim" outfit, so he has that going for him.

One thing is clear from this: Weissmuller was no actor. When he can't hide behind the monosyllabic grunts of the Tarzan role, he can barely deliver his lines in a professional manner. But that's OK, because hardly any else here is an actor either. If you doubt this, just consider the part of the villain played by Lyle Talbot. Talbot, never more than a "C" list actor (he had some parts in Ed Wood movies if memory serves me) effortlessly makes absolutely everyone else in the move look and sound wooden and stilted by comparison, and Talbot has some of the most ridiculous dialog in the movie.

The plot, such as it is, isn't bad. It offers action, intrigue, a little suspense, some disguised social commentary, and a typical "Quest". It even has an element of the fantastic. There's a totally gratuitous dinosaur fight, with stock footage lifted directly from "One Million B.C." and an even more superfluous octopus/shark fight which makes no sense at all, except as an excuse for Jim to show how tough he is. (I wasn't even aware that shark and octopus were enemies in the wild, and what are they doing in Africa??). And there's a jungle laboratory where enslaved natives dig in the mines for a villain who creates diamonds out of igneous rock. So no, it's not H. Rider Haggard or Edgar Rice Burroughs, but it is meaty Saturday afternoon matinée fodder. Jim defeats the villain by being manly and dashing (and judo throwing bad guys over his hip or shoulder over and over) , but he doesn't get the girl, because Jim don't play that - the other manly and dashing white guy in the film (a real life football player playing a missing football player; he's even more wooden than Johnny ) gets her while Jim beams approval.

For what it was, it was a pleasant trip back to the matinées of my youth. If I had a chance to see another "Jungle Jim" movie on a slow weekend night, I just might.

Good Jungle Jim Adventure

[davjazzer · 6/10 · 24 February 2007]

This is one of the better Jungle Jim entries.Although still low-budget with the usual stock footage it has some good things goibg for it.First of all,Johnny Weissmuller looks quite fit and shows off his physique twice in the film.He looked better here,than in his last Tarzan film.Sheila Ryan as Ann the lady photographer is a beautiful and spunky co-star.She looks lovely in a sarong in a scene where she is getting cozy with the lost football player,Bob Waterfield.(a real-life player).Also along for the ride are Rick Vallin as Jim's native friend,Tamba the Chimp and that great B-actor Lyle Talbot as the villain.A predictable JIM adventure,but still a lot of fun.

If you've seen one JUNGLE JIM movie...

[Wizard-8 · 13 June 2009]

I had long been curious about the "Jungle Jim" movie series after reading about it in the Leonard Maltin movie guide. So when Turner Classic Movies scheduled three of the movies one afternoon, I decided to give them a look.

After watching them, I can understand why there's been little effort to resurrect this series into the minds of modern moviegoers. To be sure, there are some unintentionally hilarious things about this series. There is the frequent use of stock footage, which may not have been obvious to '50s viewers, but is very obvious today. Much of the outdoor footage is obviously not shot in the wilds of Africa, but on the desert landscape of California. Jungle Jim, on the flimsiest of excuses, goes swimming at least once in every movie, and the underwater footage is obviously filmed through the glass window of a tank. I saw the same stone staircase in *all* of the Jungle Jim movies I watched.

While there are some laughs to be found in these movies, there are also some unlaughable parts. Weissmuller was starting to show his age, sometimes looking significantly older than the age he actually was. And there's the treatment of natives in the movie. Despite the fact that the movies take place in Africa, the natives are played by Caucasians! (Though considering their simple-minded nature and willing to be bossed by Jungle Jim, people of African descent might actually be thankful.) As for THIS particular Jungle Jim adventure, like the others I watched, I found it to be (overall) somewhat dull and talky, though the use of stock footage from ONE MILLION B.C. and a shark/octopus fight (in a river in Africa?????) did provide some needed laughs. But at the end, I felt like I hadn't seen anything new. As I said in my summary line at the beginning of this review, if you've seen one JUNGLE JIM movie...

But which man is being hunted?

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 6 October 2012]

A little romance entered Jungle Jim's life in Jungle Manhunt. Not for Johnny Weissmuller mind you at least in the Tarzan films he had Jane. No the romance came for Sheila Ryan who came with camera in hand as a news reporter looking for a football player who disappeared in a presumed plane crash several years earlier. And Ryan's in need of a guide.

The guy that Ryan is seeking is Bob Waterfield the Frank Tarkenton of his day. Waterfield was probably the best quarterback of his day, a very popular guy and also one of the first Christian athletes though he was far from Tim Tebow. At the time this film was made he was starring for the Los Angeles Rams. And Waterfield was also half of a very big celebrity couple of himself and Jane Russell.

Anyway rumors of a white man leading a native tribe on various raids to capture men and kill all the others in peaceful tribes bring Weissmuller into the local war. Ryan tags along to see if it could be Waterfield.

Instead it's Lyle Talbot playing a foreign scientist with a bit of cheesy accent who is enslaving the men to work in his uranium mine where they're prone to die real soon. Weissmuller finds the mine, finds Talbot and along the way finds Waterfield.

Jungle Manhunt was fascinating to watch various acting styles employed. Lyle Talbot did what was required of him and overacted outrageously for the kid trade the target audience was and for posterity because he knew how corny this film was and knew also it would be a camp classic. Ryan was a good actress and did what was required of her to look both feminine and competent in the man's world even though she did need rescuing by Weissmuller from drowning. Weissmuller who in his first Tarzan film just got a grunt or three and some jungle gibberish for dialog, graduated to where he could handle dialog if not great at least competently. Poor Waterfield as an actor, he was great quarterback.

I have to say this particular Jungle Jim feature was enjoyable even if I did laugh in the wrong spots.

Enjoyable Jungle Jim adventure

[chris_gaskin123 · 7/10 · 19 April 2005]

I seen Jungle Manhunt around two or three years ago and quite enjoyed it. I obtained a copy of it from the same source as I get the Bomba movies from.

A footballer is lost in the jungle and Jungle Jim and a party are sent to find him. Among the dangers they face along the way are prehistoric monsters fighting which are actually the usual stock footage from One Million BC.

As usual, Jungle Jim is played by Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller and the rest of the cast includes real life footballer Bob Waterfield as the lost footballer, Sheila Ryan and Lyle Talbot (Plan 9 From Outer Space).

Watching Jungle Manhunt is a good way to spend just over an hour one afternoon or evening. Enjoyable.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

There's something rotting amongst the search for a pigskin hero.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 5 June 2017]

More Jungle Jim silliness had him searching for football hero Bob Waterfield. Komodo dragons, men in Woolworth Halloween costumes and other assorted ridiculousness pad out this programmer, the seventh in a series. It's like an edited 1930's serial with a fat Tarzan without the loincloth, an adorable chimp and a brave but vulnerable to danger photographer (Sheila Ryan) on the hunt for the missing football hero and finding much more. An evil leader (Lyle Talbot) sends out men in cheap five and dime skeleton outfits to do his evil bidding, a plot twist that comes out of nowhere and has little impact on the plot other than for some violent native attacks and explosions.

The Saturday matinée kiddy crowd went crazy for these types of films that aren't at all challenging, yet filled with action, adventure, unnecessary romance and silly humor. The bad guys are one dimensional, Wakefield a handsome athlete (yet a lousy actor) and the animals either manipulated to be easy to defeat or just so darned adorable. When Ryan dones a sarong, it sets series lead Johnny Weismueller up for more unconditional romance that will end upon the film's closing titles. Cheesy fun, especially with two magnified lizards fighting and a later stock shot of a giant octopus duking it out with a great white shark. Every now and then, I'll return to these for a passable time filler that you'll never catch on anybody's "best of" list.

Attack of the Skeleton Men

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 21 May 2012]

***SPOILERS*** Unintentionally funny, aren't they all, Jungle Jim, Johnny Weissmuller, movie where he together with news photographer Anne Lawrence, Sheila Ryan, are searching the jungles of darkest Africa to find lost, for some nine years, professional football player and the estranged husband of actress Jane Russell Bob Miller played by real football hero Bob Waterfield. It's during this time that a series of deadly raids are conducted against a number of native villages lead by a mysterious white man using men dressed up in Halloween skeleton costumes as his shock troops.

We and Jungle Jim later find out that the white man doing all this damage is industrial chemist Mitchell Heller, Lyle Talbot, who uses the natives his men kidnapped as slave labors in his hidden cave in the jungle to create from igneous rocks synthetic diamonds! Diamonds that are so genuine that their easily mistaken for the real thing! The one drawback to this operation on Heller's part is that those working in his "Diamond Mine" don't last too long dying within a few days of deadly radiation poisoning. Always needing new manpower to get the job done Heller has his men raid the local villages to get him new recruits or workers.

It's after being taken hostage by Heller's men it's non other then Jungle Jim's faithful jungle companion Tamba the Chimp who rescues Jungle Jim and makes it possible for him together with Bob Miller throwing, quarterback style, bomb laden coconuts and mango's to put an end to Heller's grandiose plans in his efforts to corner the worlds diamond markets! With Heller now on his own with his Skelton Men running for cover he makes a run for it himself, with a safe box filled with synthetic diamonds, towards the hill country surrounding the village. Only to end up falling some 200 feet, without a parachute, from a cliff he was hanging on by a branch, that broke, to his death.

As usual Jungle Jim got the best deal in the movie in not only being the person,together Bob Miller, who saved the day and the native villagers from the evil Mitchell Heller and his feared Skeleton Men but also ended up with the real hero in the movie the cute and cuddly Tamba the Chimp. As for football hero Bob Miller he had to settle for second best in ending up getting the girl, not his real life wife Jean Russell, the sexy newsreel photographer Anne Lawrence.

Jim, Jim, Jim of the Jungle

[hitchcockthelegend · 6/10 · 11 May 2014]

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

Worth Noting

[jcsymmes · 8/10 · 6 October 2012]

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.

"You first cousin to a baboon, you!"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 7 November 2018]

Another Jungle Jim film with two plot strands that come together. One, an American reporter Anne Lawrence is searching for a downed air pilot Bob Miller who was a famous US football player. Two. a mad doctor heads a warlike tribe and uses them to capture men to work in his underground mine that manufactures synthetic diamonds. A lively enough film with men in skeleton suits, burning villages, 100 foot lizards, battling natives and a fight between a shark and an octopus. Jungle Jim sorts it all out in the end.

Johnny Weissmuller as Jim strolls jauntily through his role. Real life football player Robert Waterfield plays the lost football player Bob Miller and prolific actor Lyle Talbot plays the villainous Dr. Heller but they are not very interesting. Better value is sassy Sheila Ryan as the intrepid reporter and of course Tamba the chimp playing himself. One of the better Jungle Jim films.

Johnny Weissmuller in one of his Jungle Jim roles, rogue Chemist turns sugar into perfect diamonds.

[TxMike · 6 December 2013]

I found this movie playing on the 'Movies!' TV network. It was great fun watching it, because it hit theaters in 1951 when I had just started first grade. By today's standards, being in black and white and with sometimes cheesy special effects, it is a primitive movie. But it represents that era very well. I enjoyed watching it.

After Johnny Weissmuller, former Olympic swimming champion, had made a number of Tarzan movies, he became Jungle Jim in a series of movies, this being one. The actual setting for this movie is never stated but it looks to be either the jungle of Africa or the jungle of South America. Some of the scenic shots show very dark-skinned indigenous people, while most of the characters look like they could be from the Americas. Nevertheless it was shot in the Simi Valley area, many of the scenes looked like terrain from some of the western movies of the 1940s and 1950s. But hang a few Palm fronds onto Oak trees and presto, it looks like the jungle.

Weissmuller as Jungle Jim was about 46 during filming and looked his age, although in good shape for his age. There are several scenes where he has to swim, either to rescue a damsel in distress or for underwater activities.

The story involves a lady journalist traveling to find an American athlete and war veteran lost over the jungle some 9 years earlier. When Jungle Jim saves her, he helps her with the search. In the process they find the lost aviator, who had taken up with a village and taught them techniques like irrigation and blacksmith skills. Plus their village had a sidewalk!

But they also encountered a ruthless, rogue Chemist who had discovered a particular radioactive ore that when processed a certain way could turn plain sugar into perfect, valuable diamonds. (That is about as likely as is cold fusion.) So together, the two men and the lady must defeat this guy to save the people and prevent the world market being flooded with diamonds.

Bob Waterfield was the lost aviator, Bob Miller, wearing an authentic WW2 A-2 aviator jacket, and Sheila Ryan was the lady journalist, Anne Lawrence.

A mite better than the usual Bungle - I mean JUNGLE - Jim!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 3 November 2017]

Johnny Weissmuller (Jungle Jim), Bob Waterfield (Bob Miller), Sheila Ryan (Ann Lawrence), Rick Vallin (Bono), Lyle Talbot (Dr Mitchell Heller), William P. Wilkerson (Maklee chief), and "Tamba", the chimpanzee.

Director: LEW LANDERS. Screenplay: Samuel Newman. Based on the comic strip Jungle Jim by Alex Raymond. Photography: William Whitney. Film editor: Henry Batista. Art director: Paul Palmentola. Set decorator: Sidney Clifford. Music directed by Mischa Bakaleinikoff. RCA Sound System. Producer: Sam Katzman.

Copyright 24 September 1951 by Columbia Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: October 1951. U.K. release: 31 December 1951. Australian release: 1 February 1952. 66 minutes. Censored to 64 minutes in Australia in order to qualify for a General or Universal exhibition certificate.

SYNOPSIS: A woman photographer enlists the aid of Jungle Jim in her search for an American who was lost in an Army flight over Africa nine years before. — Copyright summary.

The story's about a sinister doctor who recruits slave labour from neighbouring villages to make synthetic diamonds. — Picturegoer.

NOTES: Number 7 of the 16-picture "Jungle Jim" series.

COMMENT: Surprise! Surprise! This entry doesn't start with the usual parade of stock library footage which a pretentious off-camera commentary tries vainly to make seem relevant and pertinent to the Boys' Own Paper adventures that follow.

Instead we are treated to a bit of smart action footage employing quite a few native extras in a brisk attack scene. And after that follows the stock material — fishing — with Jungle Jim looking on and even waving to the library fishermen. The heroine then canoes into the picture via a process screen. Naturally, she falls into the water, thus enabling the producer to use the same underwater shot of Jim swimming to the rescue that figures in at least four of his other adventures.

Rescue completed, the action stops dead for a long dialogue scene in which our heroine bores us all silly with much tedious filling-in of background information.

Fortunately, once all this is out of the way, the picture regains momentum. True, we do take time out for a slow fight between two lizards — supposedly huge prehistoric beasts, of course — plus a more interesting encounter between a giant squid and a shark. But at least we're spared extensive monkey antics.

Aside from the vigorous handling of the action spots, the direction is not only thoroughly routine but over-uses close-ups. All the same, production values are bit higher than the series' average, though it's a pity more was not made of the intriguing skeleton men.

Johnny Weissmuller is his usual reticent self, Miss Ryan rates as a mildly pretty but unappealing heroine — and the same could be said for Waterfield's hero (admittedly, he doesn't have much of a role). Lyle Talbot's villain seemed to me somewhat unnecessarily restrained.

Jungle B.C.

[Michael_Elliott · 30 May 2009]

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!

Not bad at all, but a MARK OF THE GORILLA copy.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 3 January 2024]

A pretty interesting little film, not the worst of the Jungle Jim series. Nothing that great, exciting, but it proposes something unusual, compared to the other ones, some touch, I can't explain without spoiling it. This football player character offers an unpredictable element. But the overall Jungle Jim franchise remains for the fans of this movie series. There are villains and that lousy but so charming lame atmosphere won't deceive those who follow those Sam Katzman productions movies. Lew Landers was not a new comer for this kind of plots, he is very comfortable for such cheap and agreeable junk. And, as also in MARK OF THE GORILLA, there is two giant lizards fighting each other; nearly the same fight !!!!! The villain meets the same fate in this film as in MARK OF THE GORILLA, and you also have here a fight between Jungle Jim and an octopuss in the river. Again like in MARK OF THE GORILLA. An octopuss in Africa !!!! That's why I like Jungle Jim.