Lord of the Jungle (1955)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
The twelfth and final film in the series was clearly showing that the thing was out of gas and needed to be stopped. This time out Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) has to deal with a bunch of hunters out to kill a group of elephants who are stampeding villages and killing people. Bomba believes that if you kill the rouge leader that the rest will return to being good but will he have time to save them? Issues with elephants have been rampant through this series as well as other jungle adventures like Tarzan. Something I've noticed in this series is that quite often Bomba is on the fence about being a jerk at times and fighting for things that just make him look silly. I think that line is crossed here because he really does come off as a jerk and while he continues to fight for the elephants more people die yet he's still only interested in the elephants. Perhaps had the writing been stronger the character could have been filled out some more but writing and Bomba never really went together. At just 69-minutes this film goes along quite slowly and as usual we're treated to some silly stock footage, rear-projection shots and of course endless scenes of dialogue with people talking about what they're going to do. This all grows very tiresome in this entry and it turns out that the last was also one of the worst. You'd think with so many elephants that you could come up with something better but I'm going to guess that everyone knew this was it so not too much effort went into it. Sheffield fits the role nicely, as usual, but even he seems to be lacking some energy. Wayne Morris makes for a good heavy but he's actually not in the film too much. Nancy Hale plays the love interest but her character is really underwritten. LORD OF THE JUNGLE will only need to be viewed by those, like me, who enjoy watching every movie in a series no matter how poor they are. Now with all twelve Bomba films viewed, this series certainly wasn't high art but Sheffield was good.
