Wallaby Jim of the Islands

This is an adventure tale with an upbeat tone that makes up in part for its mostly routine characters and situations. The setting is reasonably interesting, and the story has enough to keep the viewer's attention most of the time.

George Houston is "Wallaby Jim", the charismatic leader of a group of tough seamen searching for pearls in the South Pacific. His trusted associate Norman has put the whole operation in jeopardy with his gambling problem, even as Jim's crew has uncovered a potentially rich source of pearls. Jim's unscrupulous rival Richter decides that the time is right to move in and take over. It gets melodramatic, and largely predictable, but rarely dull - there is a bit of everything: fighting, romance, singing, and comic relief. It doesn't always fit together, but it holds your attention most of the time.

While there's nothing noteworthy here, it's all watchable and not bad as light entertainment.

By any reasonable standard, "Wallaby Jim of the Islands" is a terrible movie. It's characters are more like characters from a Popeye cartoon than from real life, the film is jam-packed full of awful and weird songs and the plot is about as exciting as staring at a marshmallow for 90 minutes.

The film is set in the South Seas, where Wallaby Jim is a manly man. He meets a woman and it's obvious they're destined for each other. However, in the intervening time, he sings a few bizarre sea shanties, gets betrayed by his supposed friend, is pursued by a simple-minded island girl and must battle some baddie named Richter for rights to a fortune in pearls. None of it is interesting or makes any sense--even for a cheap B-movie. I rarely say this, but I really found nothing that interested me in the least in this insipid film. Just awful is my verdict.

Opera trained George Houston stars in Wallaby Jim Of The Islands which when you come right down to it is a western set in the South Seas. Claim Jumping is claim jumping anywhere on the globe.

The folks doing the claim jumping are led by Wilhelm Von Brincken and what they're taking away from Houston is a claim to a rich bed of pearls. And they're aided and abetted by Douglas Walton who played a variety of weak individuals of the English persuasion, his best known role being Lord Darnley in Mary Of Scotland.

Getting his claim filed will be a chore for Houston especially since he's got Walton's betrayal and he's caught between Ruth Coleman and sexy native Mamo. You'll remember her from Mutiny On The Bounty.

Houston's numbers were truly superfluous, undistinguished and generally out of place. Turning out product like this no wonder Grand National Pictures folded.

Okay adventure film and set up for a series that never happened concerning the exploits of Wallaby Jim and his crew of sailors in the south seas. The story concerns Jim delaying filing his claim for a pearl rich island in order to bring the girl of the man keeping an eye on the island to see him. Trouble follows as Jim finds his man has gambled away his money and has also allowed a band of bad guys to stay on the island. Can Jim get rid of the bad guys, save the islanders and not end up hitched to the pretty island girl with the hots for him? Of course he can.

This is a good little film that suffers from too many songs,there are four.(you haven't lived until you've seen the first song and the films one production number badly lip synced. I don't even think these guys were trying) and a meandering attitude.This is a film that takes its time going where its going only to have to race to a conclusion in the final ten minutes. Its as if they didn't know what they wanted to do until they were almost out of time. The result is a good but not great little film. Its the sort of thing thats perfect for sitting curled up on the couch while a snow storm rages outside (which is what I did). To be honest its good enough to make you wish that they had tried to go somewhere with it in another film.