Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

DEVIL GODDESS

Billy Griffith
DEVIL  GODDESS (1955). Director: Spencer Gordon Bennett.

In the last of the "Jungle Jim" movies -- or the last non-JJ movie, since star Johnny Weissmuller plays himself and not Jungle Jim, more or less -- our hero encounters Nora (Angela Stevens) who is accompanying her father, Professor Carl Blakely (Selmer Jackson) on a search for the missing Professor Dixon (Billy Griffith). Turns out Dixon has gone a little crazy and become the strange Fire God of the Mountain, but he is actually on a mission to get a tribe to give up the practice of human sacrifice. Sarabina (Vera Francis) is to be one of the sacrifices, and her lover Teinusi (Abel Fernandez) gets Johnny to help him save the gal. The natives are especially restless and the mountain is about to blow its top. Naturally there are bad white guys looking for treasure. One sequence is lifted straight from Savage Mutiny, the Jungle Jim feature which also starred Angela Stevens. The exciting fight between Weissmuller and a gorilla on a rope bridge was taken from Pygmy Island. The best scene in this has chimp Kimba and his simian buddies getting drunk! After this Weissmuller did Jungle Jim, the TV series, which lasted one season and twenty-six episodes. There is no actual "Devil Goddess" in the picture.

Verdict: Barely acceptable jungle adventure with familiar elements. **.


3 comments:

angelman66 said...

Looks like fun, though, Bill. Who doesn't love volcanos and virgin sacrifices? I can hear the tom-toms beating! I'll watch it as long as it doesn't star Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (did you ever see that one?).
-C

William said...

Were Hanks and Ryan in a movie with a Volcano? I must have missed that one!

Anyway, I've finally made my way through all of the Jungle Jim movies and should get some sort of medal, LOL!

angelman66 said...

Joe Vs the Volcano (1990)

Yup, they should give you the Golden Loincloth Award. ;-)
-C