JUNGLE MOON MEN (1955)
Article 2997 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-22-2009
Posting Date: 10-28-2009
Directed by Charles S. Gould
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Jean Byron, Helene Stanton
Country: USA

Jungle Jim – er, pardon me, Johnny Weissmuller, that is, helps guide a woman writer to the realm of a tribe of pygmies known as moon men.

This is one of those Jungle Jim movies where the Jungle Jim references were dropped; Johnny Weissmuller plays Johnny Weissmuller, and the chimp is named Kimba. Not much has changed; it’s still plotted with all the tender loving care as the other Jungle Jim movies (i.e. randomly). The moon men aren’t from the moon, nor do they get their name because they drop their loincloths in battle. Instead, they worship a woman who is an acolyte of the Egyptian Moon Goddess, and who possesses immortal life as long as she avoids the sun (making this jungle flick something of a cross between SHE and THE MOLE PEOPLE). Myron Healey plays a character named Santo, but he doesn’t wear a mask or wrestle Mexicans. Billy Curtis gives about as good a performance as anyone could as the head of the moon men, but he has to endure one embarrassing sequence in which he is tied to a tree and tormented by Kimba. Ben Chapman appears as a native who dies early on. Angelo Rossitto plays the Littlest Moon Man, which will no doubt one day be the title of a really bad children’s movie. Heck, I’m having more fun writing my review than I did watching the movie.