Until I watched the Sam Katzman (Earth vs the Flying Saucers, The Giant Claw, Zombies of Mura Tau) production of The Killer Ape with Johnny Weissmuller I had never seen a Jungle Jim feature in my life. Weissmuller began making the Jungle Jim features in 1948, the same year he played in his last Tarzan movie for RKO, Tarzan and the Mermaids. TATM is the only Weissmuller Tarzan feature I have yet to watch over (I of course saw it repeatedly on Saturdays afternoons as a kid) but I have it and need to get around to that some night. Some stories seem to suggest Weissmuller switched contracts from RKO to Columbia because Columbia agreed to let him wear clothes for his Jungle Jim character. Weissmuller was no longer the lean young man he was in Tarzan the Apeman, and had not been for sometime. Basically the Jungle Jim character, based on the Alex Raymond comic strip of the time, is Tarzan with clothes. At least in the one episode I watched here, and I will see others if I can find them, Weissmuller still seems a little too monosyllabic and spacey to be considered a man of civilized culture. He walks around the jungle with a knife and holding the hand of his pet chimp Tamba. But instead of a loin-cloth he wears a safari hat and uniform. You could almost image that it is a middle aged Tarzan who was giving a job by the local game commission because he is too old and heavy to swing through trees anymore. I saw a site that ranks the Jungle Jim movies, and along with The Lost Tribe, The Killer Ape is one of only two on the list to receive a one star rating. I guess I would be one of the few people to consider myself lucky to have began my exploration of the series with this feature.

I have done about three Weissmuller Tarzan features here at the Café and I am a huge fan of the films and in particular the early ones with Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane. I am not sure what the Jungle Jim series is all about yet. I do not know if he has a female partner or Boy type character but he does Tamba the chimpanzee who gets Jim out of many sticky situations as Cheetah ever did Tarzan. The story in The Killer Ape starts off with Jim and some of his park warden pals commenting on how strange the crocodiles have been behaving lately. Seems they have lost any will power and resistance and have become uncommonly docile. We are treated to some stock footage of “natives” beating crocs with sticks and paddles to confirm this. Jim is of course concerned about the wildlife’s health and welfare. We are made aware of this in the following scene where he pounces on a sluggish, land bound crocodile that startled Tamba and kills it with his hunting knife Tarzan style. Later a Mexican looking girl dressed in a South Pacific patterned skirt walks upon Tamba and throws a net over him and Jim runs to the rescue. In one of many attempts through out the film she tries to stab him but he subdues her by grabbing her wrist. Jim proves to Shari (Carol Thurston) and her tribe, the Wasulis, that Tamba is his pet by making him do a back flip. That’s is settled but Shari and her fiancée Ramada (Burt Wenland) still do not trust him very much. Shari’s brother Mahara (Paul Marion) seems to trust more when he warns them not to trap animals in The Canyon of the Ape which, according to local legend, is inhabited by a monstrous half man half ape creature with a really bad temper.

Jim also warns a group of pith helmet wearing white hunters about the dangers of the killer ape but they dismiss his advice and stay in the very canyon where the creature lives. They are actually paying the Wasuli people cash in exchange for animals to conduct their experiments on. The experiments are led by Dr. Andrews (Nestor Paiva) who wants to perfect his serum and antidote for a drug that will make animals, and ultimately human beings, meek and docile. This will sold to the highest bidder who will then pour it into some country’s drinking water making the populace weak and an easy target for conquest. I guess. Problem is that the killer ape is not a legend and soon appears in the hulking form of 7’7’’ actor Max Palmer. Palmer had an extra foot of height added to his already massive frame and his make up really looked nothing like an ape. If anything he resembled a cave man with his furry body wear and boots. Palmer would make a few more movies and TV spots then go onto first to a career as a professional wrestler named Paul Bunyon and then he would become a born again evangelical preacher. His performance in The Killer Ape is pretty campy and at times the high point of the film. He is a giant but seems to get around pretty unnoticed. He manages to kidnap Shari about three or four times and he carries the damsel around in classic monster fashion while she kicks her feet around. He whoops Jungle Jim’s butt a couple times but in the end Jim manages to torch the brute in a showdown in the bad guy’s lair.

One scene worth looking for is the native dance sequence that most of these jungle flicks contained. The music is primitive drums rhythms, the standard style that resemble the stuff you would hear at a gentleman’s Tiki lounge more than in the actual jungle. The problem is that the men are dressed like Ali Baba and the women look like they are island girls from Tahiti. Another memorable scene, that seems to consist of stock footage, is when Tamba calls on the monkeys in the forest to stampede the camp of the bad guys. I mean, this is an actual monkey stampede.  All in all Weissmuller made sixteen Jungle Jim films for Columbia under Katzman’s production and I hope I can locate a few more. Sure they are pretty lame on one level but The Killer Ape was pretty fun as far as I am concerned. Jim did not seem larger than life the way Tarzan did but I am going to see what else the series has to offer. If this is considered one of the worst then I am sure I will be satisfied. And by the way there will be more Weissmuller Tarzan material here evntually since I loved those films so much.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Action and Adventure, Camp and Cheese Classic . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.