Jungle Goddess

What century was this film made in? The racial attitudes in this snooze-fest are unbelievable. Yeah sure. Any self-respecting black tribe in Africa will bow down at the first white person who walks along. Ridiculous.

There's very little plot here: Pilots look for girl, find her, try to escape. The end. For the life of me, I don't know why this film was made. There's absolutely no point, and it would fail as an action/adeventure film because there's so little action (and some pathetic insertions of stock footage).

I would expect better from the two lead actors.

Show 203 of the popular Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's typical of many 40's Hollywood movies in which the white characters play God to the native Africans. Of course, the Africans with lines are played by white actors in dark makeup (sometimes in blackface.) It gets its proper roasting in MST3K.

In this low rent adventure, two aviators search for a missing heiress who vanished in the African jungle at the onset of World War Two. Our intrepid explorers discover she is alive and well and is being viewed by the local natives as some kind of "white goddess".

Many of these old time, low rent, ludicrous jungle flicks are quite entertaining when viewed in the right frame of mind and if the films are lively. However, JUNGLE GODDESS is just bad. It has a few campy scenes, but overall it is very uneventful. About half the film consists of scenes of the lead characters sitting around inside a hut and talking. There is also an overlong and dull flashback sequence. I was disappointed that there was nothing that really stood out as vivid. This film lacks the elements of the type that sometimes make these silly little pictures entertaining; ludicrous native rituals, the heroine being carted off by a gorilla, hero battling with a stuffed lion etc.

A FEW NOTES: George Reeves made two cheap jungle pictures the same year. This and JUNGLE JIM, where he played the villain. The set used for the pub at the start of this film, looks like the one used in UNKNOWN ISLAND, made the same year.

In this dystopian time, I have not made a lot of good choices with all the time I have not been working, and one of the choices was to gang watch all the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. This movie was one of the episodes. So, I watched it. When it was over, I stopped watching. I am sure things happened but all I remember was a Mexican girl who seemed to have a lesbian or bisexual relation with a white goddess while a bunch of Black guys were acting very black for even that time. Oh, and in the end, you get to see a weird plane moving so slowly that it violated several laws of physics at the same time. It is not worth watching even through the eyes of two robots. And be sure to vote. May as well. THE END

The dull, gray story of a Dutch girl(with no accent, mind you)who gets lost in the jungles of Bachman's floral..err..Tanzania. She is found and taken in by the most multi-ethnic 'native tribe' that I've ever seen, including a woman who looks like she put on too much bronzer before she went on set. These people seem to think that she's some kind of 'White Goddess', which is weird since they call the two meaty, wooden white guys who appear to rescue her white devils. These dopes crash in the jungle while looking for this girl, because there's a reward for finding her. One of them, a psychotic with a stupid pencil moustache, pulls out a gun and starts shooting. He kills one of the warriors, and is promptly condemned to death. Which he deserves, but that wouldn't further the plot, would it?

Not that much does. There are long, dry conversations and some tepid flirting between the Goddess and the less looney of the two men, although he manages to patronize her like crazy. Actually, she had managed to hold off the tribe doing her in by keeping up the white goddess front for over six years, plus she learned their language and kept a witch doctor at bay. Sounds like a pretty strong, smart girl, which is why Chunky McWhitey's smug condescension is even more annoying.

They finally all run away together, although why they didn't leave the psycho Snidely Whiplash wannabee behind is beyond me. He eventually tries to kill both of them, and gets stabbed by a warrior after he kills yet another of the tribesmen by 'accident'. The two protagonists get in the plane and fly away, and the woman makes dreamy comments about how when she gets back to civilization she immediately wants to buy a hat. A hat!? Gimme a break, lady!