Fury of the Congo

Adventurer Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) is traversing the jungles of the Congo when he notices a plane diving towards the river. The agile explorer rescues the injured pilot, Ronald Cameron (William Henry), from the deep waters. Cameron tells Jim that he is trying to find missing biochemistry professor Dunham, under the University of Cairo's request. Dunham was last seen venturing into the jungles in search of a beast known as the Okongo, which is half-antelope and half-zebra, and is greatly revered by the tribal natives of Congo and hunted by bad guys for its glands which are rumoured to contain a rare type of drug.

Jungle Jim and Cameron later discover from a tribal chief, Leta (Sherry Moreland), that Dunham and all the males of the Okongo tribe have been kidnapped by hunters who wish to extract the drug from the Okongo's glands. Jim, Leta, and Cameron make their way to the hunters' hideout to put a halt to their sinister plans - well Jim and Leta intend to as Cameron is the leader of the notorious hunters...

A raging sandstorm, a gigantic desert spider and quick sand are some of the perils in store for Jungle Jim as he takes on despicable hunters who are after a animal gland - there's some exciting moments such as the chases and the desert storm at the end. It's a good Jungle Jim, has a smooth plot and is simplistic in an endearing way. The spider was quite poorly done, though- just a big hairy thing.

I obtained a copy of Fury of the Congo from the same source as the Bomba movies I have.

In this one, Jungle Jim, a native woman and another man who is pretending to be their friend and is actually a hunter go and track down a group of hunters who have kidnapped all the native men. These hunters are after a rare breed of horse, the Okongo and want the native men to help them to kill the Okongoes as they are a source of a kind of drug. During the expedition, Jim and his companions face several dangers including dust storms and, best of all, a giant desert spider. The hunters are captured at the end, some of them killed and the native men are reunited with their wives. The Okongoes are safe and well too.

As always, Johnny Wiessmuller plays Jungle Jim and the rest of the cast includes Lyle Talbot and William Henry.

Fury of the Kongo is worth a look at if you get the chance. Quite hard to get hold of.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

The story begins with a short bull**** segment about the wild animals of Africa. Why am I so irritated by this? Well, it talks about the 'rare Okango'...which is VERY obviously a pony that's had stripes painted on it! It's like the studio didn't even bother trying! Much of the rest of the film is about this ridiculous beast.

The actual story follows. A man is flying a plane in seach of a missing scientist. However, his plane crashes and rugged Jungle Jim leaps in the water to show off his olympic gold medal swimming skills (yes, Johnny Weismuller was an olympic champion swimmer in real life). Soon the man tells Jim about his quest and Jungle Jim agrees to help him find this professor.

What follows is pretty much what you expect from a Jungle Jim or other cheaply made African Epic of the era. In other words, poor writing, the profuse use of stock footage (often wrong or grainy), an ignorance of Africa as a whole, and a story that is nonsense. So, when you see 'native women', they are pretty white women sporting tanning paint and sarongs...yes, the sort of outfits you'd see in Polynesia! It's all ridiculous but perhaps people of this bygone era were ignorant of Africa and accepted all this nonsense...but surely many of them were left puzzled by this Hollywood version of Africa!

As for the story, well, it's pretty much what you'd expect...evil white people subjugating the local painted white people! In this case, to capture and kill the few remaining Okango in order to extract some gland from it.

Overall, a very poor film that doesn't even try to be anything other than basement level trash.

As for any JUNGLE JIM adventure, I watch out for the villain, and certainly not for the recurrent lead. This film is Ok, not deceiving at all, it is action packed, with a ridiculous giant spider. But who cares? It is fun, what can you expect more. I really like this Jungle Jim movie, episode movie. The plot doesn't bring anything new, and it is forbidden to watch it seriously. It is a bit shame that there were not so many of those adventures. However, there was a TV series about JJ. But try to forget the old Tarzan movies starring the same Johnny Weissmuller, you could be deceived. Just enjoy those ones.

The 6th of Johnny Weissmuller's forays into Jungle Jim's khaki shorts proves to be a damp squib. It's low on ideas and crudely constructed by director William Berke. OK, lets not beat around the jungle bush, for the very young film fan there is more than enough here to keep them rooted to the sofa. From hilariously bad spider designs to recycled animal fights, there's no denying that young eyes can enjoy whilst feasting on their burgers. Hell, the plot even has some intelligence to it, even if it's a touch bonkers as drug lords seek to extract narcotic tinged glands from the Okongo, a half horse/zebra/antelope thingy that the makers have made up. But this is all told one of the weakest of the series and feels old hat as regards familiarity breeding contempt. 4/10