Liana, la figlia della foresta

Not your typical Tarzan-type movie, but two movies condensed into one. The first is the movie promised by the poster: a female Tarzan type cavorts in nature, eventually to encounter our Tall Blond Hero, Thoren. There is also the camp's doctor -- a woman in love. She's much more attractive than Liane, which the 3rd wheel character points out, and this is our subplot. The main plot, of course, involves returning to civilization to inherit a fortune -- taking us out of the jungle and ending any nudity by the 30-minute mark.

Marion Michael is quite convincing at being what she actually is: an athletic young woman. Despite what other reviewers say, her body exposure here merits maybe a PG-13 rating; we rarely see more than a beach movie would show, and always momentarily. Irene Galter is even better as Doctor Woman, which in most she-Tarzan-type films would have remained a subplot to the end -- but they find something different to do with it here. Peter Mosbacher is nicely sympathetic as the 3rd-wheel friend/coworker. Overall, it's nicely shot, and the dialog tends toward reasonable intelligence, with only the occasional lapse into plot-convenience.

This would have worked much better as two distinct films: the first 30 minutes expanded full-length for jungle-escapism; the remaining hour fleshed out as a dialog-driven suspense story. There was a sharp point to be made about the difference between attraction to a naked jungle girl vs the civilized doctor woman, which the script only glancingly comments on -- but it does make that comment. This is where LIANE JUNGLE GODDESS carries a little more value than the usual jungle film. But if that doesn't hold our interest -- then Yes, there's a few carefully-filmed scenes of nearly-naked young girl in the first third, and the remaining hour mercifully does not spend too much time redoing Pygmalion.