JUNGLE PRINCESS (1936)
Article 1936 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-3-2006
Posting Date: 11-30-2006
Directed by Wilhelm Thiele
Featuring Dorothy Lamour, Akim Tamiroff, Ray Milland

An adventurer injures himself in the jungle, and is rescued by a jungle woman who keeps a tiger as a pet.

This wasn’t Dorothy Lamour’s debut movie, but it was the first one where she wore a sarong, and she would become famous for it. The fantastic content is mostly centered around the fact that when the tiger would appear, natives would hear the laughter of the native girl and think it was the tiger, thus spawning a legend about a laughing tiger; other than that, the fantastic content is mostly of the type that is common to jungle movies; namely, that their view of life in the jungle had very little in common with reality. The plot doesn’t have much in the way of surprises, but it’s solidly directed and acted (with a particularly strong turn from Akim Tamiroff), and has some memorable scenes; it is, in fact, one of the better jungle movies you’re likely to see. The climax of the movie is especially exciting; there are have been several movies in which villages have been destroyed by a stampeding elephants (in fact, this movie opens with such a scene), but the final destruction here comes from a totally unexpected group of animals. Lamour and Milland would rendezvous again in the jungle two years later with HER JUNGLE LOVE.