Congo Bill (1948)

A girl is about to inherit a fortune, but she is missing in Africa. Only then, family charges Congo Bill, an adventurer, to find her, and bring her back to civilization. He follows a legend about some White Queen, but his path is full of difficulties, by an inhospitable jungle, and the man who will lose the fortune if the girl is found alive.

Directors:

Spencer Gordon Bennet, Thomas Carr

Writers:

George H. Plympton (screenplay), Arthur Hoerl (screenplay),

Stars:

Don McGuire, Cleo Moore, Jack Ingram

Cast

Cast overview:
Don McGuire	...	Congo Bill
Cleo Moore	...	Lureen / Ruth Culver
Jack Ingram	...	Cameron
I. Stanford Jolley	...	Bernie MacGraw
Leonard Penn	...	Andre Bocar
Nelson Leigh	...	Dr. Greenway
Charles King	...	Kleeg
Armida	...	Zalea
Hugh Prosser	...	Morelli
Neyle Morrow	...	Kahla
Fred Graham	...	Villabo
Rusty Wescoatt	...	Ivan
Anthony Warde	...	Rogan
Stephen Carr	...	Tom MacGraw

Storyline

Congo Bill, a tamer of wild animals, intends to find Ruth Culver, a missing woman who has just inherited the Culver Circus, worth half a million dollars. He has heard of the existence somewhere in Africa of a white queen who might be Ruth. Once on the African continent, Congo Bill's safari gets attacked several times. The man behind all that is none other than Andre Bocar, a trafficker in cahoots with Bernie MacGraw, who hopes to capture the Culver inheritance. With the help of Cameron, a mysterious stranger, Congo Bill manages to locate Lureen, the white queen, who turns out to be Ruth Culver as the tamer had guessed. But trouble is not at an end yet. Indeed Nagu, the witch doctor, who smuggles gold with Bocar, tries to get rid of Congo Bill. To no avail, for Bill and Cameron (who happens to be a colonial officer) recover the gold and capture Bocar. Congo Bill returns to the USA with Lureen/Ruth with a view to creating new circus, even bigger than the former one.

---

Plot Keywords:

white queen | gold | circus | africa | witch doctor | 

---

Taglines:

DARING HUNTER AND HIS JUNGLE QUEEN BATTLE DEADLY DANGERS! (original ad - all caps)

---

Genres:

Adventure | Action

---

Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 October 1948 (USA)

Also Known As:

Congo Bill: King of the Jungle

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

270 min

Sound Mix:

Mono Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

10. Trail of Treachery.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: With no regard for his personal safety, Congo Bill has never hesitated to risk his life to track down and capture even the most ferocious beasts of the jungle with power and speed beyond human conception. Even though trapped, these savage animals must still be trained adding new hazards to Congo Bill's thrill-packed career. A dangerous way of life, he would not trade it for any other.

User Reviews

Excitement and Thrills

Congo Bill is one of the great "Saturday Afternoon Serials" that were a treat for kids in the mid twentieth century. I have a special fondness for this adventure serial as it was my first cinema experience at age seven, when I was growing up in Fiji. With each of the fifteen episodes playing weekly on a Saturday afternoon, you had nearly four months of suspense and excitement! Congo Bill is an intrepid lion tamer and explorer attached to a circus who goes to Africa in search of a beautiful girl who is a possible heir to the circus fortune. He has heard rumours about a mythical White Queen living in the Congo and wants to find out if there is any basis in fact to this story. The steamy, humid, tropical atmosphere of the Congo is well captured at the ramshackle "Green Parrot Inn" where patrons sweat while drinking cold refreshments under slowly revolving ceiling fans.

Evil doers try to dog Congo Bill's path all the way. Each episode ends with a heart stopping cliff-hanger that consumes all your curiosity and impatient expectations from week to week! Children and adults alike will love this pure escapist entertainment. I highly recommend it.