"Queen of the Jungle" (1935) tells the story of Joan who drifted in a balloon across Africa when she was a child, was found by the tribe called Lion Men and became their queen. 20 years later, she is discovered by David, an old friend, and he tries to bring her back to her parents although she does not even remember who they were. Naturally, it becomes a long, dangerous journey through the jungle with countless enemies. Divided into 12 chapters, each one ends of course with a cliffhanger that keeps you watching the next part. "Queen of the Jungle" suffers technically from the fact that it used a lot of footage from the 1922 silent movie production "The Jungle Goddess" which runs at double speed which makes it obviously not fit well. But as an action adventure, it is rather nice, featuring lions, leopards, crocodiles and an evil high priest who has a lot of the mysterious element radium to hide. Those were the days when people thought anything radioactive glows like a torch and can be hold in your bare hands. Nostalgic fun, but nothing extraordinary.
2 Reviews
Astonishingly horrible
stevergy20009 October 2019
Warning: Spoilers
I've seen well over a hundred serials, and this has to be one of the worst. Besides the technical difficulties referred to in the other review, the story just doesn't hang together. Who is the leopard girl who mysteriously appears, saves the hero and heroine and disappears? It appears that she releases her pack of leopards to attack them and then rescues them from them. How is it that she speaks perfect English, whereas the heroine of the title only speaks the native language.?
Other than providing the requisite 'bad guy role, what do the priests and the one rather rotund black man have as their motive? And why, oh why, doesn't David teach Joan more English, so that their dialogue isn't so utterly pointless throughout the entire serial? Finally, one of the supposed cliffhangers had them attacked by a lion in a locked cabin on a ship at the end of the episode only to have them landing their dinghy on the beach at the start of the next! How did they get away? And how is it that David managed to bring a hamper of extra clothes for Joan to wear? This is really, really poor script writing and shows the utter disdain the producers had for any viewer with half a brain.
Wooden acting, unnecessary shots of jungle animals, no sense of locale (mixing tigers and lions denies an African setting), pointless dialogue, confused motivations and even a relatively unrealistic conclusion,
Other than providing the requisite 'bad guy role, what do the priests and the one rather rotund black man have as their motive? And why, oh why, doesn't David teach Joan more English, so that their dialogue isn't so utterly pointless throughout the entire serial? Finally, one of the supposed cliffhangers had them attacked by a lion in a locked cabin on a ship at the end of the episode only to have them landing their dinghy on the beach at the start of the next! How did they get away? And how is it that David managed to bring a hamper of extra clothes for Joan to wear? This is really, really poor script writing and shows the utter disdain the producers had for any viewer with half a brain.
Wooden acting, unnecessary shots of jungle animals, no sense of locale (mixing tigers and lions denies an African setting), pointless dialogue, confused motivations and even a relatively unrealistic conclusion,
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