Jungle Girl
Picture: C Sound: C Extras: C- Film: C+
If you are looking for a
classic example of a Saturday morning serial that is just a hoot, then stop at
1941’s Jungle Girl. Originally a Republic Pictures release, which
dominated the market in the late 30’s and early 40’s with its product (at least
on a B-level), while the larger material was set aside for some of the major
studios of the time, Republic was in full-swing focus on this special kid’s
market.
Jungle Girl was a 15-chapter serial that is just odd and funny all in one. It certainly has its ups and downs and there
is always something to at least look forward to while watching. The concept is that there is a treasury of
diamonds that are sacred to a particular tribe, but between the tribe are the
visitors that come into their territory, among them is Jungle Girl (played by Frances Gifford), but she adapts to their
ways and is the midpoint between the native and the visitors. She finds out that there is a plot to heist
these diamonds, so she must investigate, but at the same time her life is in
danger, as she must keep peace even among hostile enemy natives.
Chapter selection is
available to go through the entire program, which runs around 265-minutes and
is broken down into its respected 15 parts.
The 2-disc set has the serial broken down with the first ten segments on
Disc One and the remaining five on Disc Two.
The 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono is decent, but still
has a fair amount of noise on the soundtrack. Given the age and source of this,
it can be expected and even the 1.33 X 1 picture looks slightly dated even
though this is taken from a relatively pristine 35mm print. It would take some
major work to get this back into a near mint condition, which is most unlikely
since this was a B-scale production to begin with.
Although there are no
commentaries or other weighted extras, VCI has included some biographies, lobby
cards/stills, and a huge section of previews for their other serials that they
are handling. Just having a collection
of this material on DVD is notable enough.
Check out the reviews also on this site for Jungle Jim, Dick Tracy,
and Somewhere in Dreamland, all which
VCI is responsible for releasing.
- Nate Goss
