La tigre sacra

First of all you must remember that Jungle Jim movies were made for kids, so they don't need to make sense! Having said that, I can still enjoy them over 60 years later, they're fun, they take me back to happier times at the old Saturday Arvo matinees. Johnny Weissmuller always looked impressive and delivered his lines competently enough, there was usually a pretty girl or two in the cast, a fair share of action and the monkey for laughs! What more could a kid of any age want? No real voodo in this one , but a menacing looking tiger make up for that! I enjoyed it, and I don't care who knows it!

Jungle Jim is assigned to track down a former SS Officer, who alone knows the locale of an art collection stolen during World War II by the Nazis. There is also a trio of crooks who desire to know where the paintings are hidden. The SS Officer, fleeing U. S. Army agents, commandeers an airplane carrying night-club entertainer and her trained tiger. The plane crashes in the jungle, where the local natives are voodoo tiger-worshipers, especially those who fly in on a great bird.

Jungle Jim, aided by an American army officer, swings into action, and, after fending off a lion with his knife, he tracks down the crooks, or what's left after the tiger-worshipers get through with them, and they themselves are killed in a dynamite blast.

Voodoo Tiger is another Jungle Jim adventure, and brisk as ever with plenty of peril- tigers, a crooked former SS officer, a lion, grand schemes and a couple of good looking ladies. To enjoy these films, you got to see it with the eyes of a child, not a sharp eyed critic/cynic, or else you won't enjoy it! It's a fun romp, nothing more!

**SPOILERS** Jungle Jim, Johnny Weissmuller, gets involved with a fugitive Nazi Karl Werner aka Col. Heinrich Schultz, Michel Fox, as well as a gang of hoodlums out to get him. Not because of Schultz's war record but because of him having hid over $2,000,000.00 in art works that he smuggled out of Europe after the war and hid somewhere on the African Continent.

Before we ever even get to know about Schultz there's this Voodoo jungle cult headed by their witch doctor and head man Mr. Wombulu,Charles Horvath, worshiping a magical Voodoo Tiger in darkest Africa. The natives and Wombulu himself looking as if their from the Amazon Jungle of South America instead of native Africans looking more Hispanic or native South American Indian then dark and indigenous African warriors and tribesmen. That has you so confused at times that you don't exactly know just what part of the world the film is supposed to be taking place in? The movie "Voodoo Tiger" has a tiger escape from a plane that crash-landed in the jungle that was part of a act with it's master the beautiful exotic dancer Shailimar,Jean Dean. The confused natives thinking that she's some kind of Voodoo Goddess who then uses her influence with them to keep Jungle Jim and his fellow white-men and one woman museum curator Phillis Bruce, Jean Byron, from being killed by them. For once Jungle Jim isn't upstaged by his pet chimp Tamba with Tamba being given very little screen time by the films director. He doesn't what his big star former Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller to end up, like in most of the movies with Tamba co-staring in. Having Weissmuller looking like a monkey with Tamba not only getting the best lines, and laughs, but in many cases the girl as well.

Being taken prisoner by Wombulu's Voodoo men as well as the local head hunters Jungle Jim & Co.are slated to be sacrificed to the Voodoo Tiger but to gave Jungle Jim a chance to strut his stuff he's put into a lions cage and given the choice to live if he can defeat the wild and savage beast or end up as it's supper if he loses. The lion, who was obviously drugged to keep him from mauling the jungle man, in his fight with Jungle Jim looks as if he'd rather go to sleep and doesn't even try to put up any fight at all. Jungle Jim easily puts the lion away, like an alligator wrestler puts away the big reptile by rubbing it's stomach, in no time at all. Wombulu going against his word, by not letting Jungle Jim and friends go free, has Jim makes a run for it together with the white captives held by the Voodoo head hunters into the open jungle. The tiger meanwhile is always getting into fights with local jungle animals, like crocodiles buffalo's and leopards, before he just gets so sick and tired of being used by the Voodoo men and head hunters that he attacks them. The tiger has the entire Voodoo cult run for their lives thus giving Jungle Jim & Co. a chance to escape.

Everything turns out right for the good guys, Jungle Jim & Co., in the end with the bad guys getting caught by the natives and run through with spears and Schultz being captured by Jim and friends and being forced, or obliged, to reveal where the stolen art works and painting are. The big hero of the flick after Jungle Jim of course Maj. Bill Green, Robert Bray, ends up getting the girl Phillis but Jungle Jim does him one better he ends up getting the monkey; Tamba.

Not the worst of the JUNGLE JIM series. Not the best either. For me, the most interesting are the villains, most of the time evil white explorers, greedy, ruthless, who stop at nothing to obtain, reach their goals: get richer at all costs, no matter the harm for the poor tribes. That's what I look for in such bland, lame but fun movies. I was not bored with this film from the director Spence Gordon Bennet, the former serial specialist at Republic pictures in replacement of William Witney. Good action scenes for this kind of features. The fast pace helps a lot, and that's where the Bennet's talent is the most obvious. Good little movie.