I love this movie so much

Touches You

Pretty Good

One of my all time favorites.

I was a little curious about Johnny Sheffield's age when he made this picture so I had to take a look. Turns out he was about twenty four, which might have been a hint that Bomba the Jungle Boy wouldn't work as a character much longer. Later on in the story hunter Jeff Wood (Wayne Morris) called him a junior ape man making it sound kind of derogatory. I guess it was time to call it quits.The story isn't too bad, Bomba shows his mettle in protecting a herd of elephants that hunters have been authorized to kill by the territorial commissioner due to their destructive rampages. Turns out however that it was a lone rogue elephant responsible for the havoc, so Bomba intends to single him out as the bad guy. There was a running theme that Bomba actually owned the land that the elephants were living on by virtue of his parents having settled and worked there. I don't know how one would lay claim to jungle property but everyone seemed to accept it in the story.I'm not certain how far back one would have to go in film history to credit the first time it happened, I'm sure Tarzan had his fair share of vine swing saves the way Bomba did here with pretty Mona Andrews (Nancy Hale). It always brings to mind what most modern viewers recall about Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. She didn't kiss him however, that actually happened earlier in the picture, and it was Bomba planting an innocent peck on the cheek of Miss Andrews.The one thing I did find hilarious in the film had to do with the African native drum talk, especially when Molu (Joel Fluellen) rapped his drum exactly the same way each time, and each time it meant something different. That was in the same league as all those Westerns in which Indian tribes communicate by smoke signals, or better yet, each time Tonto communicated with the Lone Ranger with identical hand waves under entirely different circumstances. How can you possibly interpret that?

This is the only Bomba film in which Johnny Sheffield shares top billing with another actor namely chain smoking, overweight, disillusioned Wayne Morris. It is the only one of the series which does not have a human villain. Instead there is a rogue elephant who is leading the rest of the herd to commit mayhem. The crux of the drama is conflict between Bomba who is full of bombast and only wants to shoot the rogue elephant and Wayne Morris who is head of a government licensed group of hunters ordered to shoot the entire herd. The last few of the series injected a sliver of sex by inventing an excuse for the comely heroine,in this case Nancy Hale, to go for a dip with Bomba. They also share a couple of chaste kisses. The budget of this film must have been trimmed more than usual because much of the action is talked about or described rather than seen, but the climax packs a little excitement. Stock footage of wild animals abounds. The rest of the film is padded out with aimless trekking through the jungle in pursuit of the rogue elephant. The script contains gaps in logic and continuity and most of the characters display a lack of common sense. Sheffield fits the role and his loin cloth comfortably. On the strength of Wayne Morris's appearance in this film, the title could have been changed to "Lard of the Jungle". After viewing this effort, it is doubtful if anyone exclaimed, "We could be talking Oscars here!"

Lord of the Jungle (1955) * 1/2 (out of 4) The twelfth and final film in the series was clearly showing that the thing was out of gas and needed to be stopped. This time out Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) has to deal with a bunch of hunters out to kill a group of elephants who are stampeding villages and killing people. Bomba believes that if you kill the rouge leader that the rest will return to being good but will he have time to save them? Issues with elephants have been rampant through this series as well as other jungle adventures like Tarzan. Something I've noticed in this series is that quite often Bomba is on the fence about being a jerk at times and fighting for things that just make him look silly. I think that line is crossed here because he really does come off as a jerk and while he continues to fight for the elephants more people die yet he's still only interested in the elephants. Perhaps had the writing been stronger the character could have been filled out some more but writing and Bomba never really went together. At just 69-minutes this film goes along quite slowly and as usual we're treated to some silly stock footage, rear-projection shots and of course endless scenes of dialogue with people talking about what they're going to do. This all grows very tiresome in this entry and it turns out that the last was also one of the worst. You'd think with so many elephants that you could come up with something better but I'm going to guess that everyone knew this was it so not too much effort went into it. Sheffield fits the role nicely, as usual, but even he seems to be lacking some energy. Wayne Morris makes for a good heavy but he's actually not in the film too much. Nancy Hale plays the love interest but her character is really underwritten. LORD OF THE JUNGLE will only need to be viewed by those, like me, who enjoy watching every movie in a series no matter how poor they are. Now with all twelve Bomba films viewed, this series certainly wasn't high art but Sheffield was good.

***SPOILERS*** In this the last of the "Bomba the Jungle Boy" films Bomba, Johnny Sheffield,takes it upon himself to bring a murderous rouge elephant named Raju to justice. Raju who's become wild and crazy from eating contaminated, from DDT, weeds and ended up leading or forcing his heard of elephant to go nuts attacking and killing a number of the local native population.Bomba who comes on the scene to help catch and kill Raju is shocked to find out that it's been decided by the county's High Commissioner to kill the entire heard of elephants along with Raju! Knowing that the land where the elephants are grazing at or around belonged to Bomba's British parents the Hastings he uses that technicality,in that it now belongs to him, to have the animals driven or kept on to his land and thus prevent them from being exterminated by the white hunters lead by Jeff Wood, Wayne Morris, assigned by "The Commish" to gun them them all down to the last elephant!Raju for his part goes on,with his band of elephants followers, rampaging through the jungle killing among others Bomba's native friend Molu,Joel Fluellen, and his infant child leaving his wife, Juanita Moore, a widow before her 21th birthday. Bomba still has a hard time convincing the local authorities that it's Raju not those elephants with him who's responsible for all this carnage but time is running out with bands of white and native hunters descending into Bomba country to wipe out the entire elephant herd. As a side story there's also the spunky and pretty Mona Hammond, Nancy Hale, who traveled to Bomba Country to find her husband known by the natives as the "Great White Witch Doctor" Lewis Hammond. Lewis gave up a lucrative medical practice back in London to save those, in the African bush, who could never afford much less get his help or services! ***SPOILERS*** The film reaches a wild and bloody crescendo with the rampaging Raju tearing the jungle apart with Bomba's good friend Deputhy Commissioner Andy Barnes(Leonard Mudie), after Bomba gave him back the gun he stole from him, gunning down the rouge elephant and finally putting an end to all this madness! Still Bomba has to prove that it was only the now dead Raju who was the reason for all this death and destruction. It's then that Bomba organizes an elephant parade in front of Deputy Commissioner's Barnes headquarters to prove just how harmless and friendly the maligned by almost everyone in the movie, with the exception of Bomba and Mona, elephants were.