JUNGLE JIM (1948) ¢ ¢
D: William Berke
Johnny Weissmuller, Virginia Grey, George Reeves,
Lita Baron, Rick Vallin, Holmes Herbert
When he got too old to play Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller kept his career going by putting on a few clothes and playing another B-movie hero, Jungle Jim. The first entry in the series, released the same year as his last Tarzan film, has Johnny fighting a leopard and shooting a crocodile and dodging an avalanche and almost falling off a cliff, while leading a safari in search of a substance that could cure infantile paralysis. Johnny's acting is painful - he was better cast as Tarzan, where he didn't have to grapple with complete sentences - but nine-year-old boys back then didn't much care about that. George "Superman" Reeves plays the villain.
