The Golden Idol

The Golden Idol has the youthful Bomba The Jungle Boy in pursuit of a The Golden Idol that the Watusi tribe worships. Perennial movie villain Paul Guilfoyle plays the evil Arab sheik who stole the idol and he and Johnny Sheffield as Bomba have some history between them.

Bomba is quite the jungle cop in his own way, throughout the twelve picture series always on the side of law and order which in this case is represented by Leonard Mudie as Commissioner Andy Barnes. Those tribes accepting British rule will always find a champion in Bomba.

Allowance has to be made as the Bomba series was for the juvenile trade, but watching them as watching the Tarzan you would never know about the forces of anti-colonialism that were spreading like wildfire across the continent. Three years after this film was released, the British Commonwealth cut loose by mutual consent the Gold Coast colony which became the nation of Ghana. In the next several years new nations came in abundance. The Tarzan films accommodated the new reality eventually, but the Bomba series ended before all that.

Anyway The Golden Idol shows a little wear and tear of the character as originality has left the series if it was ever there in the first place.

This was not the last Bomba movie (two more were made shortly thereafter), but it may be the weakest. The whole series, never terribly well made, was just running out of "spiz" by this time, and it shows.

Playing the villain is Paul Guilfoyle, a longtime Hollywood bad guy (who should not be confused with the current actor of the same name). His character is an evil Arab potentate making trouble in the jungle. Guilfoyle had played a similar role in "Bomba and the Hidden City," but he doesn't reprise that role here. Not exactly. He simply plays a similar character to allow for use of footage from the earlier film.

Those recycled scenes, coupled with familiar stock footage of wild animals, give this movie a particular air of cheapness. Many of the scenes are shot at night, with people dashing around amid the foliage. It's often hard to tell what, if anything, is going on.

And Bomba's jungle seems very small. He keeps coming back to the same places -- the same pond, the same clearing, the same rock formation. Does he really know his way around the primeval forest?

The story is much like those in other Bomba films: Bad guys mistreat the natives, shoot animals and menace a pretty American girl whose work has brought her to the jungle. In this case, the girl is an archaeologist looking for the "Golden Idol of Watusi."

Johnny Sheffield was well past his teens by this point, and his increasing maturity may have doomed the series anyway. At one point in "Golden Idol," someone refers to Bomba as a "jungle man" instead of a "jungle boy." But he still looks young and fit enough to be credible.

It's easy to make fun of Bomba movies, but not really fair. I have to admit that I enjoyed them myself as a boy. Their racial attitudes are outdated, but some far better films of the era were much more insensitive in that regard. All in all, these little jungle adventures are well-meaning, simplistic, good-versus-evil tales. Still, if you want to get acquainted with the character, an early Bomba movie would be a better place to start.

Johnny Sheffield was getting pretty old to play Bomba the Jungle BOY in this episode, the tenth of the long-running Monogram series. It is, like all the others, a well-intentioned, decently produced work of knock-off Tarzan fiction, a bit more overt in its early ecological message than the Tarzan series was.

Some good talent lurks here, with Paul Guilefoyle returning and a nice pan shot of the native village across the river to keep people who care about such things happy. The story -- about some baddies seeking revenge on Bomba for being an annoyance while his friends and he are doing some archeology digging -- is just as slight as any of the others. Still, all the signs of competence are there and if you like the series, you will like this one. I find it harmless.

Tenth entry in the "Bomba" canon is a drowsily-paced adventure with Johnny Sheffield's resourceful, likable jungle boy the only point of interest--the villains all being cut-outs right off the series' assembly-line. A hunter is hired by the nefarious Prince Ali to retrieve the Golden Idol of Watusi, which he claims is his, stolen by Bomba. Turns out the Arab chieftain forcibly took it from a native, who was left for dead; Bomba promises to get it back. A nice swimming scene between a giddy Bomba and the resident pretty girl (Anne Kimball) is the highlight here, the plot and action being extremely tired. For completists, Bomba is bound and gagged (again), overturns a boat for an underwater fight and--in an amusing Ed Wood-like moment--allows a python to drown one of the bad guys. Regulars Leonard Mudi (as Mr. Barnes) and Smoki Whitfield (as faithful guide Eli) turn in their usual solid supporting performances, but this low-budget quickie would be nothing with Sheffield. *1/2 from ****

The Golden Idol (1954)

** (out of 4)

Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) is back in action and this time he's trying to bring down the evil Prince Ali Ben Mamoud (Paul Guilfoyle) who is starting trouble in the jungle after trying to steal a valuable golden idol, which is very important to some natives who just happen to worship the piece. THE GOLDEN IDOL was the tenth film in the Monogram series and it's clear that it's far from a masterpiece but in terms of this series it's not too bad. However, that's really not saying too much as there really weren't any good films in this series. This one here at least has a couple fun performances but as with the previous films, way too much time is spent on silly stock footage and boring dialogue sequences that just keep going on and on. On the plus side you once again have Sheffield back in the lead role and it's clear that he was given a lot more effort than this thing deserved. He's quite good in the part but one wishes they had given him a better writer. I also thought Guilfoyle was good in his part and actually made for a very good villain. He played a similar role in a previous film and sure enough was the best thing in that. The rest of the supporting players are serviceable in their parts. Most of the action is the typical gunshots, tribes men running around type of stuff and none of it is overly exciting. At 71-minutes the film does drag in spots but this is the tenth movie so that's to be expected.