JUNGLE QUEEN (1945)
Serial
Article 2910 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-26-2009
Posting Date: 8-1-2009
Directed by Lewis D. Collins and Ray Taylor
Featuring Edward Norris, Eddie Quillan, Douglas Dumbrille
Country: USA

Nazis plan to gain control of Africa by putting their own puppet on the seat of the judge of the jungle tribes. However, British and American agents are out to thwart them, as is a mysterious jungle queen known as Lothel.

It seems that by this time, Universal was putting out the least interesting serials of the three remaining serial producers, the others being Republic and Columbia. Despite some interesting touches and some fun elements, this one is curiously uninvolving. I’m beginning to understand why most serials stuck to fairly simple action/adventure scenarios; this one tries to for a more involved plot, but the end result is the story is cluttered with too many uninteresting characters, and the attempt to follow up each of the storylines in each episode ends up rather snooze-inducing. Still, to its credit, it manages to keep the fantastic content intact; the mysterious powers of the character Lothel are never explained away (she can walk through fire, disappears and reappears magically, and cannot be harmed by bullets), so we’re left with a truly supernatural creature here. Still, this is a fairly dull serial.