Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald

Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A German expedition through Africa turns up a beautiful blonde girl (Marion Michael) who the locals think is a goddess. The crew kidnap the girl and take her back to the press who has a field day with her and soon it turns out she might be the long lost daughter of a very important man.

This is a pretty strange film that I'm sure was loved by teenage boys back in the day. This Tarzan-wannabe was filmed in German but it was sold throughout the world and in many locations it played matinees to where kids could watch it. They would have loved that because of the beautiful blonde in the lead plus the fact that she wasn't very many clothes and at times we see a few slips of nudity. Obviously, it's easy to see why so many teens from this period have such a fondness for the film.

As it stands today, the film is pretty weird because it starts off as a Tarzan rip-off but then it quickly turns into some weird drama where people are fighting over who actually owns the title character. I'm really not sure why they decided to leave the jungle because that's where all the fun was. These early scenes contain shots of the wildlife and it was rather fun seeing the young girl in her natural location.

All of the fun gets sucked out once we get back to civilization and the girl get taught how to speak English and how to be proper. This stuff is just told in such a boring way that you can't help but wish they were back in the jungle. Michael certainly has the appropriate look for the role and she's certainly fun to watch. Hardy Kruger is fun as the lead male and we also get Reggie Nalder playing a bad guy.

LIANA, JUNGLE GODDESS really isn't that good of a film. I'm sure when you watch it in life will determine how much entertainment you actually get out of it. For me personally, the film is harmless fun at the start but it slowly grows more boring as it moves along.