Voodoo Tiger (1952) User Reviews

Stay away from Voodoo Voodoo bad medicine!

[sol-kay · 5/10 · 12 June 2006]

**SPOILERS** Jungle Jim, Johnny Weissmuller, gets involved with a fugitive Nazi Karl Werner aka Col. Heinrich Schultz, Michel Fox, as well as a gang of hoodlums out to get him. Not because of Schultz's war record but because of him having hid over $2,000,000.00 in art works that he smuggled out of Europe after the war and hid somewhere on the African Continent.

Before we ever even get to know about Schultz there's this Voodoo jungle cult headed by their witch doctor and head man Mr. Wombulu,Charles Horvath, worshiping a magical Voodoo Tiger in darkest Africa. The natives and Wombulu himself looking as if their from the Amazon Jungle of South America instead of native Africans looking more Hispanic or native South American Indian then dark and indigenous African warriors and tribesmen. That has you so confused at times that you don't exactly know just what part of the world the film is supposed to be taking place in? The movie "Voodoo Tiger" has a tiger escape from a plane that crash-landed in the jungle that was part of a act with it's master the beautiful exotic dancer Shailimar,Jean Dean. The confused natives thinking that she's some kind of Voodoo Goddess who then uses her influence with them to keep Jungle Jim and his fellow white-men and one woman museum curator Phillis Bruce, Jean Byron, from being killed by them. For once Jungle Jim isn't upstaged by his pet chimp Tamba with Tamba being given very little screen time by the films director. He doesn't what his big star former Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller to end up, like in most of the movies with Tamba co-staring in. Having Weissmuller looking like a monkey with Tamba not only getting the best lines, and laughs, but in many cases the girl as well.

Being taken prisoner by Wombulu's Voodoo men as well as the local head hunters Jungle Jim & Co.are slated to be sacrificed to the Voodoo Tiger but to gave Jungle Jim a chance to strut his stuff he's put into a lions cage and given the choice to live if he can defeat the wild and savage beast or end up as it's supper if he loses. The lion, who was obviously drugged to keep him from mauling the jungle man, in his fight with Jungle Jim looks as if he'd rather go to sleep and doesn't even try to put up any fight at all. Jungle Jim easily puts the lion away, like an alligator wrestler puts away the big reptile by rubbing it's stomach, in no time at all. Wombulu going against his word, by not letting Jungle Jim and friends go free, has Jim makes a run for it together with the white captives held by the Voodoo head hunters into the open jungle. The tiger meanwhile is always getting into fights with local jungle animals, like crocodiles buffalo's and leopards, before he just gets so sick and tired of being used by the Voodoo men and head hunters that he attacks them. The tiger has the entire Voodoo cult run for their lives thus giving Jungle Jim & Co. a chance to escape.

Everything turns out right for the good guys, Jungle Jim & Co., in the end with the bad guys getting caught by the natives and run through with spears and Schultz being captured by Jim and friends and being forced, or obliged, to reveal where the stolen art works and painting are. The big hero of the flick after Jungle Jim of course Maj. Bill Green, Robert Bray, ends up getting the girl Phillis but Jungle Jim does him one better he ends up getting the monkey; Tamba.

Who do the Voodo?

[girvsjoint · 7/10 · 14 January 2021]

First of all you must remember that Jungle Jim movies were made for kids, so they don't need to make sense! Having said that, I can still enjoy them over 60 years later, they're fun, they take me back to happier times at the old Saturday Arvo matinees. Johnny Weissmuller always looked impressive and delivered his lines competently enough, there was usually a pretty girl or two in the cast, a fair share of action and the monkey for laughs! What more could a kid of any age want? No real voodo in this one , but a menacing looking tiger make up for that! I enjoyed it, and I don't care who knows it!

"It's called the Valley of the Head Hunters!"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 5/10 · 12 November 2018]

Although tigers aren't found in Africa in this film there is an African voodoo tiger cult. This could be for two reasons explains Phyllis Bruce a researcher from the British Museum no less. One, tigers were introduced to Africa by westerners or two, in ancient times tigers did live in Africa and some of them yet survive. The only actual tiger in the film is one belonging to Shalimar the exotic dancer and when she and other chorus girls are involved in a plane crash the tiger escapes. Also involved in the story are head hunters, a trio of villains and an ex-Nazi hiding out as a trader but who knows the location of lost Nazi gold. So this Jungle Jim film has lots of plot and Jim in his usual way, aided of course by Tamba the chimpanzee unravels the strands.

Johnny Weissmuller in his ninth outing as Jungle Jim leads a mainly uninteresting cast though the film is livened up at one point by Jean Dean giving her all in a voodoo dance. Praise must also go to the tiger itself which in the course of the movie battles a crocodile, a water buffalo and a leopard. In conclusion, apart from Ms. Dean and the tiger it's an uninspired entry in the Jungle Jim canon.

Stay away from voodoo and dreadful movies!

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 6 June 2017]

This is the type of film that i feel deserves a badly written review, simply because it's so bad itself that to describe it defies logic. There's the right amount of intrigue, and a truly dreadful, convoluted script in a film that turns both deadly in the threats that Jungle Jim faces and deadly boring in the way it presents its overly convoluted and unbelievable story. The film opens on the attempted sacrifice of a native tribesman and Johnny Weismueller's interference and discovery that this cult like African tribe is worshiping the effigy of the Asian tiger, more or less making us believe that this cult is turning the cursed into the ferocious wildcat.

Jungle Jim's life us spared at that point by the film's villain James Seay who spends the remainder of the film trying to kill him along with native leader Charles Horvath. It's interesting that a mysterious jungle woman is named Shalmar, the name of Bela Lugosi's villain in "Chandu the Magician". It's not the serial like plot that bothers me, just the snail like pacing and the fact that it heads way past silly into completely insipid. The film seems to take plot points of old serials and other comic strip like twists to become beyond comprehensible. The film's photographer female lead (Jean Bryon) is presented without motivation or purpose, simply a combination of every Jungle Jim leading lady up to that point. Jean Dean gets a silly native dance that doesn't do anything to hide the fact that she's about as jungle born as tubby Weismueller himself.

Vodoo Tiger

[searchanddestroy-1 · 6 December 2023]

Not the worst of the JUNGLE JIM series. Not the best either. For me, the most interesting are the villains, most of the time evil white explorers, greedy, ruthless, who stop at nothing to obtain, reach their goals: get richer at all costs, no matter the harm for the poor tribes. That's what I look for in such bland, lame but fun movies. I was not bored with this film from the director Spence Gordon Bennet, the former serial specialist at Republic pictures in replacement of William Witney. Good action scenes for this kind of features. The fast pace helps a lot, and that's where the Bennet's talent is the most obvious. Good little movie.