Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

MonsterPerfect Good idea lost in the noise

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

mark.waltz All you need to be is a damsel in distress, here Angela Greene, cornered by a black panther which in Jim's arms looks like a kitten. She's a beautiful anthropologist searching for a mysterious people, giants of the jungle and as mysterious as the forbidden land itself. This has one of the better setups for the mid series, outwearing its welcome except for the kids who rushed to these on Saturday morning and the later youthful TV audiences who clamored for Tarzan, Bombs and any look back at the ever popular but dying serials so popular in those last days of the golden age of cinema. That's when they made em' fast, made em' cheap, and made em' in bulk. As long as Jim and his chimp pal Tamba cavorted through the African wilds, they could find an audience.Smartly, this shows the raid on Greene's canoe by dangerous hippos, reminding us of the dangers of these seemingly peaceful herbivores. Johnny Weissmuller deserves credit for going as long as he could, dealing once again with on-the-warpath natives, elephant poachers and Styrofoam sets. They actually name the tribal chief "Zulu", and there's a mysterious prophet like character named "the old one". Lester Matthews and Jean Willed are the obvious bad guys, part of Jim's expedition for nefarious reasons, utilizing truth serum to find out what they need to know. This seems to be a little more polished than previous episodes which were mostly rushed. A plot twist borrowed from "Island of Lost Souls" adds to the intrigue. Danger at every turn and a steady, fun pace puts this at above average.

james higgins 31/100. This is the eighth entry in the Jungle Jim series, and unfortunately not the last. The were profitable at the time, mainly because the had minuscule budgets. As with most in the series, the plot is lame and stupid. This time he gets entangled with a greedy and evil ivory hunter. That's not all folks, he also has to grapple with a "giant man," in bad make up, a phony looking costume and a desperate need for a dentist. As with all in the films in the series, a lot of obvious stock footage is used, and a menagerie of animals that in reality do not co-exist anywhere in the universe. The acting is, as expected, poor, the art direction painfully obvious. The film looks as though it took perhaps a week to film.

classicsoncall Gee, what would have possessed Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) to take on a hippo, and under water no less? That's one of the offerings in 'The Forbidden Land', as the jungle hero aids an anthropologist seeking the fabled Land of Giant People. When a couple of the 'giants' actually appear for the first time, my first thought was who might have raided Lon Chaney's Wolfman wardrobe. If you take all the Jungle Jim films together, this would have to be right up there with the goofiest, if not the most dangerous for Jim. He would actually have been a goner if not for chimp sidekick Tamba wielding a coconut bean ball when the male giant had him down for the count.For trivia fans, it's finally revealed here that Jim's home is near Ingaba Lake in the Wasabi District, even though most of his earlier stories took place in the Nagandi District. Or maybe he just moved. This film more than any of Weismuller's other Jungle Jim flicks looks like it was slapped together with as many elements as possible and as little coherence necessary to pull off the story. For example - 'The Old One', the wise old man of Tiku. In the scene establishing that he was blind, he fires off the film's cleverest line - "When eyes are dead, heart must see". That advice was never needed again.The story itself involves ivory poachers, merely tall 'giant' people, and Jim tackling the earlier mentioned hippo and a black panther. Oh yes, and he's injected with a truth serum to reveal the location of the giant homeland. It would be interesting to hear Weissmuller express his thoughts about the picture after being injected with truth serum.Keeping track of non African animals in an African setting? This one has a South American jaguar battling a bush hog. As for that black panther, it's hilarious to watch it turn into a stuffed animal and back during it's wrestling match with Jim; as always, no blood drawn against the intrepid jungle tracker.Second chances notwithstanding, Weissmuller tries to do as much as he can with the material he's given, but is shown to best advantage in his swimming and diving scenes. Not as trim as in his earlier Tarzan days, but still impressive enough. But can you really kill a hippo using just a knife?

jim riecken (youroldpaljim) The Jungle Jim movies produced by Sam Katzman and starring Johnny Weismuller were all low grade jungle adventures made strictly to fill the bottom half of a double bill. Unless you watch them out nostalgia or, are like me, a fan of Weismuller, they are pretty rough going. None of them seem to have been made with idea of making something good. The concurrent Tarzan films at RKO with Lex Barker, and the Bomba the Jungle Boy series at Monogram starring former "Boy" Johnny Sheffield, while not great, were at least reasonably well produced.JUNGLE JIM IN THE FORBIDDEN LAND is slightly enlivened by the presence of the strange "giant people." They are not giants, just very tall. They are supposed to be some kind of missing link. The makeup by Clay Campell is surprisingly good for such a cheap picture, but the only problem is that the "giant people" look more like werewolves than some kind of "missing link". Otherwise, JUNGLE JIM IN THE FORBIDDEN is just another Jungle Jim movie with the usual perfunctory performances, light skinned Africans, Columbia backlot jungle, stock footage, Tamba's hijinks etc.