The Lost Volcano
Little David Gordon lives in the jungle with his parents Ruth and Fred, along with their servant Nona. David likes living there while his father captures wild animals; he's made friends with Bomba the jungle boy, who has shown him a great deal about life in the jungle. One day two adventurers come looking for ancient treasure in the shadow of a live volcano.
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- Cast:
- Johnny Sheffield , Donald Woods , Marjorie Lord , John Ridgely , Tommy Ivo , Elena Verdugo , Don C. Harvey
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Reviews
Best movie of this year hands down!
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Tommy Ivo is poised for his own jungle boy series that never happened as the end of the B movie was imminent. This third installment of the Monogram series has Tarzan's son, now Bomba, befriending the lonely Ivo, trying to convince his parents (Donald Woods and Marjorie Lord) of the existence of the elusive Bomba, a legend of fantasy to adults yet the obvious hero to an impressionable young boy. Add in Elena Verdugo as an exotic jungle girl and some bad white men, hidden treasure, and of course, an active volcano, and the stage is set for an action packed programmer that is satisfactory, if just barely adequate.In spite of that, Ivo holds his own opposite Johnny Sheffield as Bomba, and it's a curious idea that so early in the series, the obvious ploy to promote a possible new jungle boy now that Sheffield was not quite a boy. The film stars off slowly but quickly picks up speed when the bad guys (lead by John Ridgley) kidnap Ivo. From there on, it's adventurous fun and fraught with tension, Indiana Jones like thrills, yet silly and often melodramatic serial like camp.
The third entry in Monogram's Bomba series starring Johnny Sheffield has our monosyllabic hero befriending the son of an animal trapper. The boy's parents (Donald Woods, Marjorie Lord) believe Bomba is the boy's imaginary friend. When some bad men try to force the boy to take them to the ruins of a lost city near an active volcano, Bomba comes to the rescue.Child actor Tommy Ivo plays the boy who idolizes Bomba and gives the corniest 'aw-shucks' performance this side of Timmy from the Lassie TV show. Donald Woods is his usual stiff self. Pretty Marjorie Lord and Elena Verdugo represent the fairer sex in this one, for better or worse. Bomba really needed a regular cast of characters like Tarzan had. The lack of one hurts the series, I think. This has the expected amounts of stock footage and rear projection effects all of the Bomba movies have. The climax goes on way too long. It's a decent B jungle adventure picture but nothing remarkable. Which is par for the course with this series. Might play better for the kiddos. But watch out for that python scene!
Lost Volcano, The (1950) * 1/2 (out of 4) Third film in the Johnny Sheffield Bomba series finds the jungle boy becoming friends with the son (Tommy Ivo) of an animal trapper (Donald Woods) and soon the kid is kidnapped because a couple thieves believes he can lead them to a dangerous volcano where a buried treasure can be found. This third film in the series suffers from a rather weak and predictable story but also it runs way too long. Clocking in at 75-minutes that's about ten or fifteen-minutes too long as things get so slow that you really feel as if you're watching the movie and someone hits the pause button and keeps it on for an hour or so. As with the previous two films, this one here contains some decent moments and this includes the performance of Ivo as the young boy. I thought the actor gave a very good performance and managed to really keep the film moving at a good pace. I certainly think the film improved each time he was on the screen and there's no question that Ivo and Sheffield shared some nice chemistry together. Veteran actor Woods is also good in his part but he's not on screen enough to make a real difference. The same is true for Marjorie Lord who plays the boy's mother. As with previous films, this one here features quite a bit of stock footage of various wildlife and there's one incredibly freaky scene where a man is attacked by a large snake. I'll admit that I'm terrified of snakes so this scene was extremely effective to me but others might not see it that way. Of course, being a low-budget series we get some rather funny scenes including Bomba's first fight with a rubber crocodile and it looks even cheaper than what was used in all those Tarzan movies. THE LOST VOLCANO, in the end, really suffers from a story that just doesn't move anywhere and direction that just doesn't spark any energy or excitement.
I recently obtained a copy of The Lost Volcano, which is a quite hard to find movie.This is one of a dozen Bomba the Jungle Boy movies starring Johnny Sheffield after he finished playing Boy in the Tarzan movies.The movie was quite enjoyable considering the low budget with Johnny playing a much younger version of Tarzan. His language is similar to Tarzan's too. This movies gets better as it moves along and the best part of the movie is the impressive eruption at the end. This is actually stock footage from One Million BC (1940), although we don't see any monsters from this movie. This is the second time Johnny Sheffield has encounted footage from One Million BC, as he encounted some of its monsters in Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943).I enjoyed this movie a lot and is worth seeing if you get the chance, as it is quite rare.Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.