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.

This has to be in the top three of my favorite old films. Of course, as it is a Serial presentation, there's plenty of action in every episode and it never drags. And, even better, as you watch it on a rainy Saturday afternoon, you can doze off and on and each time you wake up, you're pretty much right back up to speed on what has happened -- that's the way they wrote these great episodes.Here we have a 1941, high-quality print, Black-and-White film from Republic Pictures, broken down into 15 episodes on two discs, running 267 minutes all total! Here are the episode titles:1. Death by Voodoo2. Queen of the Beasts3. River of Fire4. Treachery5. Jungle Vengeance6. Tribal fury7. The Poison Dart8. Man Trap9. Treasure Tomb10. Jungle Killer11. Dangerous Secret12. Trapper13. Ambush14. Diamond Trail15. Flight to FreedomFrances Gifford plays the lead as, Nyoka, the female version of Tarzan. She can pretty much do anything from swinging on grapevines through the jungle to riding elephants. She gets along great with the natives (except for one noxious medicine man who's jealous of Nyoka and her doctor father) and the animals in the jungle are, for the most part, just wild about her.The story, (based upon a book by Edgar Rice Burroughs), is essentially this: An isolated African tribe maintains watch over millions of dollars worth of diamonds in a nearby, secret and sacred cave. Nyoka and her father (a doctor), watch over the natives, helping them make due from day to day. As for the cave, it requires the use of a sacred amulet to enter and, therefore, becomes much in demand as the story evolves. Some good guys, as well as some really nefarious bad guys, fly into this secluded region and, over the course of 15 episodes, it's Nyoka and her meager crew fighting against a pack of scoundrels who just want the diamonds for personal wealth. The confused natives switch sides, back and forth, numerous times during the film.There's lots of shooting, stabbing, getting thrown over cliffs, gorilla attacks, crude bamboo weapons that mash and grind.... on and on. Just great stuff!There IS one other Nyoka Serial, (with Kay Aldridge as Nyoka), which I like just slightly better than "Jungle Girl": Nyoka and the Tigermen However, this preference is just my personal opinion -- you may, in fact, enjoy the Frances Gifford Nyoka better. You will also notice that the  Nyoka and the Tigermen  is only available in VHS tape. Folks with DVD recorders will be interested to know that this two-tape set is NOT copy-protected so you can draw whatever conclusions that you wish from that fact.Anyway, "Jungle Girl" is a superb entry and I give it my highest recommendation to appropriate fans of such nostalgic films.

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.

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!

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!

great fun innocent escapism and frances gifford is as always a delightpicture quality pretty good too

I notice the other reviews of this release are from several years ago so they may not relate to this specific product. I 've bought many DVD's from US suppliers via Amazon and other outlets. I've always received genuine factory pressed discs and never had any problems.Really disappointed to receive this on two CDR's . Disc one is so overloaded that it constantly sticks. Disc two plays slightly better but I've lost interest in it.This is not what I expect from Amazon.

If you are into the old movie serials, this is one of the best! Attractive lead with lots of cliffhanger storylines. Quality is very good which is a major plus! Worth the money!