FURY OF THE CONGO

Johnny Weissmuller as Jungle Jim

FURY OF THE CONGO (1951). Director: William Berke.

Ronald Cameron (William Henry of Nearly Eighteen) asks Jungle Jim's (Johnny Weissmuller) help in tracking down the missing Professor Dunham (Joel Friedkin). Dunham is working on extracting a narcotic from the glands of a strange zebra-like animal called the Okango. Jim doesn't know that Cameron's men have already found the professor and are keeping him captive, and have also rounded up the men of a native village to help them capture the animals. The remaining females importune Jim for help, and he sets out with Cameron and Leta (Sherry Moreland) to find both the men and the professor. Lyle Talbot [The Vigilante] is another of the bad guys, along with George Eldredge [Shadows Over Chinatown] and Rusty Westcoatte. Among the livelier scenes in this standard Jungle Jim adventure are a fight with a lion, an attack on Jim by a giant "death-spider," and the climactic fight during a sand storm. It's fun to see the ladies of the village taking off after the men to free them. Timba the chimp stupidly knocks Jim right into quicksand at one point and there's a great deal of running around. The film is heavily scored (by a very wide variety of composers) to make the low-budget Columbia flick seem faster and more exciting. The natives are all white in this.

Verdict: The spider steals the picture. **1/2.

SHADOWS OVER CHINATOWN

Mantan Moreland and Sidney Toler

SHADOWS OVER CHINATOWN (1946). Director: Terry O. Morse.

There's thirteen people on a bus driving through a rain storm to San Francisco, where passenger Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) hopes to find the identity of a torso murderer. At a way station, someone takes a shot at Charlie. Does the body of a dismembered woman belong to a missing heiress, or the grand-daughter (Tanis Chandler) of Mrs. Conover (Mary Gordon of Bonnie Scotland)? While Charlie investigates -- with the help of Jimmy Chan (Victor Sen Yung back as Number Two Son); chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland), and Chief Lannigan (George Eldredge) -- there are more murders and a lot of confusion. Suspects include pickpocket Cosgrove (Jack Norton); private eye Hay (John Gallaudet); crook Mike Rogan (Paul Bryar); Marine colonel Tilford (Bruce Kellogg); and others. Shadows Over Chinatown has a basically good story and is quite entertaining, but there are some gaping holes in the plot. Who exactly took that shot at Charlie? How did Mrs. Conover's friend Miss Johnson (Myra McKinney) manage to locate her grand-daughter's apartment when only a short while before Charlie discovered the young woman working as a waitress? Who knows? The identity of the killer in this is no great surprise, but the film is still fun. Terry Morse also directed Unknown World with Bruce Kellogg, who was equally mediocre in both movies. 71-year-old Toler made two more appearances as Charlie Chan that year before his death in 1947. An interesting prologue deals with the Department of Missing Persons.

Verdict: Chan is not missing in this even if some of the script is. ***.