Jungle Goddess (1948)

I can't figure out how anybody could make a comment saying they expected more out of the lead actors in this B-feature when the two male leads, George Reeves and Ralph Byrd, gave the exact same performances in this film as they did when playing "Superman" and "Dick Tracy," or any other role they played in their long careers. And the film was made for the express purpose of supplying mid-week and double-feature bill-of-fare for the several thousand small-town and side-street theatres in the U.S. that couldn't afford the rates charged on "The Snake Pit" ( a non-jungle jungle film), which is the one to watch if one is looking for "realism" from films released about the same dates in 1948. Evidently, the ability to look at a film within the context of when it was made and who it was made for---even a low-budget, credibility-lacking, poverty-row potboiler such as "Jungle Goddess"---doesn't exist among the majority of today's television viewers whose sense and understanding of history regarding movies and/or eras in history only dates back to the day-before-yesterday.

Of course, compared to most of the other 1948-produced films, it is a clinker and a clunker, but that is where the comparisons need to be made.

For plot researchers, this one has Greta Venderhorn (Wanda McKay), a young girl, as the only survivor of a plane crash in the "African" jungle at the beginning of World War II, and she is rescued by a tribe of "natives"---no more real than the people populating Camelot---who proclaim her as their "White Goddess." (Gracious, how un-PC.) Six years later, two ex-Army Air Corps pilots, Mike Patton (George "Superman" Reeves) and Bob Simpson (Ralph "Dick Tracy" Byrd), searching for the plane wreckage spot it, and land in an attempt to find the missing girl. It seems that Gloria's father's will stipulates that the person or persons that find his daughter, dead or alive, will receive a large reward.

Well, as fate and screenplay writer Joseph Pagnano would have it, they find the village and Gloria, and learn that she has had all she wants of playing Miss White Goddess of 1948, especially since her father's estate is not going to be depleted none too much by the payments of the reward, so she, Mike and Bob plan to escape and head back for civilization.

BUT...and a big but it is...one of the two men discovers that there is nearby a valuable deposit of ore, and he decides that he wants the ore and the reward and Gloria all to himself (no dummy, he), and conflict rears its ugly head, and the two male leads are soon scuffling on the plank floors of the rear-lot jungle set. Plus, the tribe witch doctor, Oolonga (Smoki Whitfield), isn't all that happy that these two intruders are making off with the White Goddess and the tribe's ore (even if the tribe didn't know they had some valuable ore and Wanama (Armida)is on hand to claim the title of Off-White Goddess with a Spanish accent) and Oolonga is pursuing their oom-gawa, bad-juju white butts with intent to punish. (Hey, lighten up, it's just a b-feature from the late 40's and a film of its time or, at least, the makers thought it was.)

Now, we wouldn't dare disclose whether "Superman" or "Dick Tracy" is the semi-bad and slightly misguided hero, who finally sees the light but catches a chukked spear and dies anyway, because that would be a bell-ringing, light-flashing, five-star SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER...for the few who aren't hip to 1940's cast-order listings.