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| Bomba, the Jungle Boy | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 23 2013, 07:14 AM (273 Views) | |
| JazzGuyy | Apr 23 2013, 07:14 AM Post #1 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Warner Archive is releasing the first set from the film series. http://shop.warnerarchive.com/product/bomba+the+jungle+boy+volume+1+1000383911.do?sortby=ourPicks&from=fn |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| JazzGuyy | Aug 20 2013, 08:24 AM Post #2 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Volume 2 is now available. |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Feb 22 2014, 09:16 AM Post #3 |
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![]() Bomba, The Jungle Boy (1949) starring Johnny Sheffield, directed by Ford Beebe and released by Monogram Pictures on March 20, 1949. Onslow Stevens and Peggy Ann Garner are a team of father-and-daughter photographers in deepest Africa for a pictorial book on which they’re collaborating. When Miss Garner is separated from their safari, she’s found by Bomba, a teenage jungle boy living in a cave atop a high ridge. She shares his living space with him chastely for a while before rejoining civilization. The first of 12 Bomba adventures filmed from 1949 through 1955, the books are ostensibly based on the popular series of 20 novels written by “Roy Rockwood” in the 1920s-1930s. Actually, they’re junior Tarzan stories starring Junior Tarzan himself. Johnny Sheffield had outgrown his part as Boy in the MGM/RKO Tarzan series, and was swinging vines solo at last. Because of the film’s lengthy setup, we only get a glimpse of Bomba in the first 12 minutes of the 70-minute feature, but he’s worth the wait. Although he’s supposed to be a “Jungle Boy”, and although Sheffield was only 18, the kid looks as if he could lift an elephant. Oddly enough, all that jungle living hasn’t seemed to tan him very much: he’s the palest looking fellow in the film. Africa is well portrayed by a plethora of plastic ferns and trees, although one of the characters tells us that it’s “a land that was old when the rest of the world rose steaming from the slimy sea!” Mostly, the film appears to be about 20 minutes of new footage intermingled with 50 minutes of stock footage animal frolics. You can’t believe how many times the cast stops to look at impala, chimps, giraffes, locusts, baboons, lions, leopards, hippos, and cows. Yes, cows. Jungle cows. Herds and herds of jungle cows. Sometimes, the stock footage is shown in slow motion, as if the film needed more padding. Favorite line: the native guide points to a track in the mud and says, “Look! A white man’s footprint!” Least favorite scenes: two stock footage scenes of lions being killed. Shiver-inducing. The Bomba films I’ve seen do have a nice, playful touch of sexuality to them; in this one, when Peggy Ann tears her skirt and asks Bomba if he’s got a leopard skin she could have, he immediately begins to take off his own loin cloth. When she quickly protests and asks for her own leopard skin, he retorts naively, “But this best one!” We’re sure it is, Jungle Boy. Bomba and Peggy Ann later share a swim, and some of the monkeys steal Peggy Ann's underpants, leaving her to go commando, apparently, the rest of the film. Steamy stuff for 1949, kids! No wonder the Bomba series was so popular. Incidentally, I remembered Bomba as having a better vocabulary than the “Me go, you stay” dialog we hear in this picture; maybe it gets better as the series progresses. In any case, it is an entertaining film, especially if you enjoy seeing impala and monkeys larking about for reel after reel. All 12 Bomba films are available from Warner Archives in 2 boxed sets. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| CliffClaven | Feb 23 2014, 12:44 AM Post #4 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I remember seeing a Bomba double header on TV as a kid. I do remember the first film with its Tarzan talk (and the loincloth bit); in the next -- not sure if it was second in the series -- he was more articulate than Jungle Jim. I remember laughing as a relaxed Bomba said to a visitor, "Now who's being unreasonable?" |
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| moodyhound | Apr 22 2014, 07:02 AM Post #5 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I have both sets of these and enjoy them. They go right behind my Tarzan sets.
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12:18 AM Jul 11