The Jungle is a fairly unique movie, produced when a safari to film in India really was a major adventure. The idea made good economic sense in that by encouraging American talent the Indian producers could hope to get their film shown in the lucrative U.S. market. The American talent most likely saw filming in India as an opportunity to produce something special and different.

But these filmmakers weren't really up to the task of making a top-notch film, unlike Jean Renoir who the year before had indulged a director's dream with his remarkable The River, an acknowledged classic. The Jungle's director was an old hand at making cheap series westerns and micro-budgeted crime stories, and producer Robert L. Lippert was practically persona non grata around Hollywood for evading industry rules about paying his actors. Writer Carroll Young worked almost exclusively in the jungle genre, having penned most of the RKO Tarzan movies before writing Lippert's hit Sci-Fi thriller The Lost Continent.

It's very possible that Young's original script was much more exciting than the final film. Indian tastes dictated no kissing and may be responsible for the film's near-fatal lack of a love angle: Rod Cameron's hunter and Marie Windsor's princess don't see eye-to-eye and Windsor and Cesar Romero aren't an item either. After an expository opening and an assassination attempt the movie settles into familiar trek mode, interrupted by episodic minor adventures and dramatically inert sidebar attractions like visits with traveling native entertainers.

With the absence of major action, the movie falls back on a staple from 1930s "Bring 'em Back Alive" type films, staged and sometimes cruel animal encounters and fights. These also come under the heading of low-wattage detours from the main story, making The Jungle seem longer than it should. The travelers hike for a while and observe some animals; then they hike some more before another musical bit.

Apparently the Indian version of the picture (Kaadu) was far longer, with the requisite longer musical numbers instead of the brief asides seen here, and elaborate comedy sub-plots. We see what might be a vestige of these when an expedition member makes funny faces charming a cobra. Small characters such as a boy who comes along and a furtive assassin are not fleshed out either; there may have been an entire parallel Indian cast in the other version.

Rod Cameron is reasonable as he's slowly revealed to be a brave take-charge guy and not a coward as accused. Marie Windsor and Cesar Romero are very good at pretending that the entire enterprise is a serious drama. Nothing essential happens until the very end, when the Wooly Bully Mammoths appear. They're three rather unexciting elephants wearing hairy carpets and extra-long fake tusks, and they just don't live up to their menacing buildup. No effort is made to make them look larger than normal elephants, either. A flurry of fast action cutting substitutes for a likely grand action scene in Carroll Young's script ... William Berke was a 'get it in the can' type of director, not an action stylist. Some of the bad guys are knocked off a cliff while Steve Bentley starts chucking war surplus grenades (not the Carl Denham type) at the charging beasts. It turns out that Rama Singh's brother was indeed killed, but not by Bentley. The noble finish doesn't even hang around long enough to find out if Princess Mari and Rama Singh are going to get together.

Just from a photo-travelogue point of view, The Jungle is a worthwhile viewing experience; it's as if Nanook of the North was made by Fred F. Sears instead of Robert J. Flaherty. With all this opportunity, the film has little or no Indian flavor or insights beyond the jungle trek formula.

VCI and Kit Parker's DVD of The Jungle is perfectly preserved and looks great. It's a flat B&W film but is printed in Sepia tone. The Indian technicians do well with the lighting and the soundtrack has an interesting regional flavor. The end of the show switches back to "stop" just like King Dinosaur but does not cut off the end title.

The extras range from excellent to perplexing. The best item is Tom Weaver's lengthy text interview with Marie Windsor, in which she tells the exciting tale of being given 'round the world tickets to reach India and the odd accommodations. She also witnessed a lot of animal cruelty and tried to record some on home movies, but thinks that those camera rolls were purposely stolen from her. She remembers attending a film festival with Frank Capra and noticing that Russian trade emissaries overran the affair trying to spread Soviet propaganda.

Ad and stills galleries are included. King Dinosaur is represented by a trailer and original script pages ... that are completely unreadable. You can't have everything. I can imagine Kit Parker films being miffed by the packaging design. The crowded images on the front are bad enough, but the black "Kit Parker" lettering is positioned at the bottom over a black background, and is thus invisible.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, King Dinosaur rates:
Movie: Fair but campy fun
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Trailer, script pages

The Jungle rates:
Movie: Good --
Video: Excellent
Sound: Very Good
Supplements: Tom Weaver interview with Marie Windsor, stills and ad art.

Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: November 15, 2006