Jungle Girl

Amazon has not only linked reviews of VCI's release of "Jungle Girl" to an "import" edition, but also placed both DVD versions under the same heading in their product listings. Sorting the reviews is difficult, with both described as "format: DVD" on the line that should indicate the product. Since the two are not the same, I have updated (26 June 2017) my review to include both. VCI's is decidedly preferable. See details below, after my long-winded description of the serial.As for the serial, "Jungle Girl" was released by Republic in 1941, directed by their "golden age" team of William Witney and John English. The story is loosely based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel of the same name, with screenplay by Ronald Davidson, Norman S. Hall, William Lively, Joseph O'Donnell, Joseph F. Poland and Alfred Batson, which ought to be enough writers to keep the action stirred up.The story has Nyoka (Frances Gifford) and her father, Doctor John Meredith (Trevor Bardette) providing medical aid to an African tribe. His medicine has proven superior to the voodoo of tribal witch doctor Shamba (Frank Lackteen) and after having cured Chief Lutembi (Al Kikume) of jungle fever Meredith was given custody of the Lion Amulet, a symbol of authority that allows access to the tribe's cache of diamonds, used by the doctor to obtain needed medical supplies. A pilot, Jack Stanton (Tom Neal) unwittingly brings to the tribe's village a crook, Slick Latimer (Gerald Mohr) who is plotting to get the diamonds with help from Meredith's evil twin brother Bradley, whose existence is unknown to Nyoka. The Doctor is murdered, and impersonated by Bradley, but meanwhile Shamba gets possession of The Amulet.The rest of the serial involves a three-way battle for The Amulet and the diamonds. Stanton has to rescue Nyoka, and vice-versa many times, and it takes quite a while for them to discover the evil doings of Latimer and the identity of the supposed Dr. Meredith, giving Republic's technical effects team plenty of work in creating elaborate death traps. It's hard to believe that this tribe came up with the hardware guarding the diamonds, with gates to flood the tunnels and trap doors operated by stone levers, when they otherwise use rope-and-log technology, and Shamba can't seem to get his Rube Goldberg inspired execution devices to work. While the tribe doesn't look very "African," Stanton tells Latimer that "they drifted down here from the Sahara Desert centuries ago" and in any case it was filmed not far from the jungle with similar natives used by Columbia for "The Phantom."Tom Neal is athletic-looking and an adequate hero, even if he has a moustache and brought that nasty Slick Latimer to the village in the first place. Gerald Mohr's ability to maintain an evil smirk through fifteen chapters, with the salesman suit and tie for jungle attire makes him a terrific villain, sometimes aided, other times opposed by veteran "foreign" bad guy Frank Lackteen. And we really want to believe Frances Gifford can do all those stunts, even if we know it is Helen Thurston and David Sharpe swinging on the vines. Helping Stanton and Nyoka are sidekick Curley (Eddie Acuff) who keeps the comedy under control, and native child Kimbu, played by Tommy Cook, who was Little Beaver in "Adventures of Red Ryder" a year earlier.Republic had a reputation for making the best serials, but their strength was in the action, costumes and special effects, while other aspects were less than they might have been. Much of each chapter is used to set up the cliffhanger, showing how the trap is going to work, so there isn't much time for plot development. This was accepted at the time for the remarkable thrills provided by those cliffhangers, and the same is true for most viewers today, though keeping all that action from looking redundant is one of the main reasons that serials should be watched with a day or more between chapters.VCI's edition, #8265 (ASIN: B000051S39) is on two discs and uses a print identified as being from the National Film and Television Archive. VCI includes a note on the package insert, "Special thanks goes to Fred Shay who wasinstrumental in making this classic available once again." Under the Republic logo in the opening title is "Distributed Throughout Great Britain and Ireland by British Lion Film Corporation Ltd." There is minor flicker and some distortion in the sound during this title, but both problems go away during the chapters. The image is sharp, corner to corner, with good gray scale, properly framed, and the sound up to expectations for 1941 without need of significant "noise reduction." A couple chapters have the wrong MPPDA certificate number, but this would have little meaning outside the U.S., and the chapters are all headed by the correct approval notices from the British Board of Film Censors. The "extras" on Disc 1 are a "gallery" with 25 still pictures and posters for the serial, and "biographies" of Frances Gifford, Tom Neal, Eddie Acuff, Trevor Bardette and directors William Witney and John English. The "biographies" have a very slow-scrolling text that can't be hastened by scan or fast play controls, though it is possible to pause them. The main menu itself has a long response time, and requires a page change to get to the last four chapters. The second disc has the same pictures and "biographies" plus 24 serial movie trailers, indexed but not individually shown in the menu, for "Tim Tyler's Luck," "The Master Key," "The Mysterious Mr. M," "Mystery of the Riverboat," "Riders of Death Valley," "The Royal Mounted Rides Again," "Jungle Queen," "Raiders of Ghost City," "Lost City of the Jungle," "The Phantom Creeps," "The Great Alaskan Mystery," "Winners of the West," "The Fighting Marines," "Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island," "Junior G-Men of the Air," "Adventures of Frank Merriwell," "Radio Patrol," "Don Winslow of the Navy," "Gang Busters," "Tailspin Tommy," "Scouts to the Rescue," "Adventures of Red Ryder," "Zorro Rides Again" and "Radar Men from the Moon." Whew!Since I wrote this review five years ago, "burned" media has become more common especially with DVDs of lower demand. By now most people probably know if their players are compatible with double-layer "burned" discs, but some reviews have noted special problems with this release. I have found a couple players that work fine with disc 1, but can't read disc 2. The second layer of disc 2 has only three trailers on it, about seven minutes, and the large amount of unused space can affect compatibility, especially with older players.The "import" edition (ASIN: B005MQ586I) is from Rocket DVD of Australia, and its best feature is that it is on three single-layer discs of the conventional "pressed" variety, which should work on any DVD player. The menu is less complicated and responds faster than VCI's, though the background music is quite loud, and it returns to the menu after each chapter. There are no "extra" features on the DVDs, but the 14mm thick triple-disc case is made of clear plastic, so it possible to read notes about the actors printed on the back of the insert having the cover art by Graeme Dickenson, "noted underground Australian illustrator" according to Rocket's website. The bad news is the video transfer quality. Like VCI's, it has the opening Republic logo with the distribution notice from British Lion Films Incorporated, and while it doesn't have the notices preceding that title, nor any information about how the copy was obtained, it could easily be from the same source. The sound is similar in quality, distorted in the opening Republic title and good for the era elsewhere. The image isn't as sharp as VCI's, but still fairly tolerable in that respect. What isn't very tolerable is the limited number of video levels, which cause odd patterns and blotchy areas especially in the darker parts of the picture and when the scene fades to black. At some scene changes there is a "venetian blind" effect, momentary horizontal lines. Even worse is the jerky motion present throughout, likely from poor frame-rate conversions. Not hard to guess how this edition was sourced.Despite the issue with the "burned" media, VCI's release is highly recommended to fans of serials. The print source is better than what was used for the old edition on VHS, and the serial itself good enough that if problems are encounterd playing VCI's discs, it would be worth searching for a machine that works with them. But unless the cover art is a major attraction, I'd suggest skipping the Rocket edition.

A thrilling jungle adventure with lots of wild animals, mysterious menaces, and daring escapes. What makes this movie especially interesting is that the title character rescues the male adventurers at least as often as they rescue her! I also liked the depiction of the heroine and heroes are benevolent missionaries who bring the benefits of Western civilization to native Africans while respecting their culture and defeating exploiters. Very loosely based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same name.

I feel Republic Pictures cornered the market when it came to serials.Jungle Girl ,in my opinion , was one of the 3 best that this studio released.The other 2 were " Perils of Nyoka " and" The Adventures of Captain Marvel " While all 3 have been released on tape,this DVD version of " Jungle Girl " released by VCI Entertainment is superior in quality to the " Jungle Girl " tape. It was remastered from a 35MM master positive print from the British Film institute.Even if you already own a VHS tape of this serial I would recommend that you add this DVD to your library not only for the picture quality but also for the extras.The scene selection brings you with a click to the start of each individual Chapter so when returning to see the film for the umpteenth time you can pick and choose your chapter rather than view the whole 15 chapters at once.The extras also include biographies of some of the cast members and a gallery of theatre posters and still shots.This DVD also has trailers of other serials released in the heyday of the serials ( mostly from Universal Pictures ) and a beautiful color photo of Frances Gifford riding her elephant on both disks.The menu treats you to a solo of Jungle Drums while you are waiting to click on your selection. My only negative thought is why did they put 10 chapters on the 1st disk and the remaining 5 on the second instead of the whole 15 chapters on the one disk.

Republic was the king of serials and still is. Thanks to VCI Entertainment to bringing the serials back to life through restoration . I agree that Jungle Girl is the best jungle serial yet. The transfer was made from a recently found master print. It appears that the print was one that was sent to England to be shown in British and Irish movie theaters. The DVD copy is crystal clear as is the sound track. Its as though the serial was filmed just a year or so ago. If you are a lover of old movies, including black and white and a lover of the serials then this is a definite must for viewing and your movie library. I would give it ten stars if I could

Starring the lovely Francis Gifford as the indomitable Nyoka, this classic serial displays all the low-budget delights of the movie cliffhanger, complete with deadly traps, unconvincing gorillas, evil witch doctors & natives of dubious ethnicity, and a rugged, stalwart male lead to aid the Jungle Girl in her many struggles on the way to a cheerfully corny conclusion.I'm not phrasing it that way out of mockery. Anyone knows going in that this sort of thing was shot on the fly, as cheaply as possible, without any artistic pretensions. What matters is how well it was done within those considerable limitations. And in this case, they did very well indeed. The serial is charged with energy & excitement, and Frances Gifford is sexy, plucky, and absolutely delightful to watch. You just have to fall into its small-scale ambience & become an eager kid once more, hungry for adventure & thrills. "Jungle Girl" delivers plenty of both -- it's sheer fun in every way!

The transfer was extremely poor so I returned it.

aLL THESE OLD MOVIE ARE IN EXCELLENT CONDITION and I truly enjoy watching them again. I saw most of them in the movie house back in the early 1940's and I have started a collection for my Great Grand Kids

I am disappointed.. The fist disk wouldn't play on the TV.I have to play it on computer. I have a new 55" TV and was looking forward to showing it. Disappointed .

arrived on time intact for home use

*レビュー掲載後追記:【以下レビューは、北米盤DVD(ASIN:B000051S39)に対するものですが、Amazon.co.jpが、勝手に他メディアにも転載しています】光と影の間歇運動―映画というメディアのその構造の裏に隠された恐ろしい秘密を描いたセオドア・ローザックの傑作ミステリー小説『フリッカー、あるいは映画の魔』。その中で、主人公である映画学科の学生ジョニーが、謎の監督マックス・キャッスルと仕事をした名キャメラマン、ジップ・リプスキーに会いに行くという場面が出てくる。そこで、女ターザンが活躍する連続活劇『ニレーナの危難』(これはローザックの創作)の主演女優ケイ・アリスンに出会い、彼女こそジップの奥さんだとわかり、子どもの頃大ファンだったジョニーは狂喜する。そして、彼女が若いジョニーの身体を求めて、誘惑し…と話は続くのだが、どうも、この『ニレーナの危難』にはモデルがあるようだ。1941年製のリパブリックの連続活劇"Jungle Girl"がそれ。フランセス・ギフォードがジャングル娘に扮した全15話の実に楽しいアクション作品だ。架空のケイ・アリスンという女優と実在のフランセス・ギフォードという女優を繋ぐ決定的な手がかりはないが、｢本名がフラニー、フランシス・ルイーズ・デュカスよ。映画にデビューしたときの芸名がケイ・アリスンなの｣とケイ・アリスンに語らせているので、ローザックが、フランセス・ギフォードと"Jungle Girl"をモデルにしていることは、ほぼ間違いないだろう。きっと、少年時代のローザックも、ジョニーのように、ギフォードの"Jungle Girl"に夢中になったに違いない(1933年生まれのローザックは、当時8才だったはず)。さて、ローザックの創作魂を刺激したと思われる本作は、アフリカの未開地の村落で育った白人医師の娘、ナイオカ"Nyoka"(フランセス・ギフォード)が(このNで始まる名前もニレーナを連想させる！)、村の財宝であり、お守りであるダイヤモンドを巡って、それを狙う悪党一味や邪悪な呪術師と戦いを繰り広げるという話。一応、『ターザン』のエドガー・ライス・バロウズの同名原作("Jungle Girl")を基にしているものの、基本設定だけ借りて、あとは自由に(勝手気ままに？)潤色しているようだ。日本劇場未公開。本DVDは、全15話を2枚のディスクに収めたもの。各話の題名は、以下の通り。【Disc1】:・第1話 "Death by Voodoo"・第2話 "Queen of Beasts"・第3話 "River of Fire"・第4話 "Treachery"・第5話 "Jungle Vengeance"・第6話 "Tribal Fury"・第7話 "The Poison Dart"・第8話 "Man Trap"・第9話 "Treasure Tomb"・第10話 "Jungle Killer"【Disc2】:・第11話 "Dangerous Secret"・第12話 "Trapped"・第13話 "Ambush"・第14話 "Diamond Trail"・第15話 "Flight to Freedom"リパブリックは、一般に弱小会社と言われているが、こと連続活劇においては、実に質の高い作品の宝庫と言っていい。そのアクションのキレの良さ、リズミカルな編集、工夫を凝らした効果的なキャメラ・アングル…など、本作が、いかに丁寧に、そして、連続活劇ならではの手に汗握るタッチで作られているかがわかる。各話の最後は、必ずナイオカや仲間のジャック(トム・ニール)が危機に陥り、絶体絶命、さあどうなる？という連続活劇のお決まりの形で次週につながり、もうハラハラ、ドキドキで、子どものように無邪気に興奮させてくれるのだ。ミニスカート風の衣裳で、スラリと伸びた健康的な脚を露わにして動き回る快活なギフォードも実に素晴らしい！連続活劇では、絶対に他社には負けないというようなリパブリックの気概と底力を感じさせる逸品なのだ。本DVDは、パブリック・ドメイン(著作権切れ)作品を、最良の素材でDVD化することに力を入れている米VCI Entertainmentのもの。BFI(ブリティッシュ・フィルム・インスティテュート)が所蔵している35mmマスター・ポジからテレシネされたマスターを使っている。徹底的なレストアはされていないので、細かいパラやキズは残っているものの、全体としては、白黒諧調も、ディテール表現も良好な画質。音声も、ノイズなどはあるが、セリフが聞き取れないというようなこともない。特典には、(フォト)ギャラリー、スタッフ・キャストのバイオグラフィー(テキスト)、リパブリック作品の予告編集(51分52秒)が収録。本DVDは、北米盤ながら、R-All仕様なので、日本の通常のR-2 DVDプレーヤーで視聴可能だ。

I can't remember these serials first time round cos I'm in my 40s but have been watching a lot of these in last couple of years and can guarantee that Jungle Girl is def the best i have seen so far- it is the only one i would award 5stars (The Tiger Woman & Adventures of Captain Marvel 4stars)-Frances Gifford is gorgeous-Tom Neal is a handsome hero(checkout his real life story-what a soap opera!)-print quality is superb- was sad when it finished & will def watch it again!

“Jungle girl” est une petite perle. Les aventures de Nyoka sont passionnantes de bout en bout. Frances Gifford est belle à couper le souffle. Les méchants sont campés par Gerald Mohr (Latimer), visage bien connu des amateurs de série B, et Frank Lackteen dans le rôle du sorcier Shamba, toujours prêt à jouer un mauvais tour si possible mortel à la fille de jungle. Les coups de poing et bagarres en tout genre scandent le rythme de cette course aux diamants autaut que les cascades très impressionnantes de la stunt-girl Helen Thurston qui double Frances Gifford dans toutes les scènes dangereuses. D’ailleurs les cascades dans les lianes feraient pâlir un Tarzan. Aux commandes de ces quinze chapitres, nous trouvons le duo de choc John English et William Witney, véritables spécialistes des serials. Ils ont également réalisé “Zorro rides again”, “The Lone Ranger”, “Fighting devil dogs” et aussi et surtout un excellent “Drums of Fu Manchu”. Liste incomplète qui ne donne qu’un petit aperçu d’une carrière au service des serials. “Jungle girl” ne pourra que plaire aux amateurs de serials. La fille de la jungle Nyoka reviendra d’ailleurs une année plus tard dans “Perils of Nyoka” mais cette fois-ci sous les traits de Kay Aldridge.Un dernier mot sur le DVD. “Jungle girl” a bénéficié d’un travail de restauration. En bonus, nous avons droit à des bande-annonces d’autres serials. Une occasion de repérer d’autres perles oubliées d’un genre hélas assez sous-estimé en France.

Admittedly, I'm only halfway through this as I write, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the over-all quality of this jungle-based adventure. "Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jungle Girl" says the title card, though I'd never heard of "Nyoka" prior to this serial, the film-making is pretty slick for a serial, directed by the killer-team of Whitney & English (who really was English, apparently). And Frances Gifford makes a fresh-faced and amazingly modern-looking heroine.I've been trawling around on Amazon to track down as many of these chapterplays as there are available and confidently vote Jungle Girl as one of the best both in movie quality and in DVD transfer (Lost Kingdom is one of the worst on both counts!).If you love serials or are interested is seeing one, make sure you track down Captain Marvel and King of the Rocket-Men - but start at the top of the heap ... Jungle Girl!