The Mighty Jungle (1964)

Did anyone watch “Daktari” as a kid? Well this is pretty much a precursor to those adventures, only this time it is the Amazonian jungle that our intrepid explorers find themselves pretending to be in whilst the archive is interspersed with their adventure. They are on the hunt for some ancient Aztec treasure but along they way “Connors” (Marshall Thompson) finds himself and his team at the mercy of the beasts and the blow-pipe wielding natives who have seen the script and the storyboard and want nothing to do with what’s about to happen. It’s that former aspect that really grates the most. Not because the acting is especially bad, it’s really just mediocre more than bad, but because Lou Krugman’s narration is intrusive to the point that is virtually obliterates all the dialogue and ensures that any attempt at characterisation is thrown under the Land Rover. It had three directors: perhaps each did a different day? Or perhaps one said “quiet”; the second “action” and then the third begging “cut”? In any case, they didn’t focus much on providing us with much of a story and the use of the actuality is so bleedin’ obvious as to leave the thing in a sort of cinematic docu-limbo. The “Tarzan” and “Bomba” films made decades earlier showed that even with the most basic of kit and budgets it was possible to do more in five minutes than this does in an overlong ninety minutes. Avoid, sorry. Mighty it isn’t.