TARZAN'S HIDDEN JUNGLE

Cute but tough: Gordon Scott

TARZAN'S HIDDEN JUNGLE (1955). Director: Harold Schuster.

Dr. Celliers (Peter van Eyck of The Wages of Fear) is bringing medicine to members of a certain lost tribe across the river who "fanatically worship animals" and who kill anyone who harms one. Burger (Jack Elam of Lure of the Swamp), DeGroot (Charles Fredericks) and Reeves (Richard Reeves) are hunters masquerading as movie photographers. The doctor's nurse, Jill (Vera Miles), importunes him to allow the "photographers" to travel with them so as to spread the message of his work, but she is unaware that Tarzan (Gordon Scott) already knows that these men have injured a baby elephant in an attempt to kill the pachyderm. Jill gets caught in quicksand, with a boa constrictor sliding down a tree towards her for added measure, and she and the doctor are nearly fed to a pride of lions when the natives blame the couple for the hunters' intrusion. There's the usual elephant stampede with the bad guys' heads falling conveniently under some mighty big feet at the climax. As Tarzan, Scott is strong, mostly silent, and cute; and a pre-Psycho Miles is fine as Jill, with adept supporting performances from the others, but the script is so weak that it reminds one of a lesser Bomba or Jungle Jim programmer instead of a true Tarzan movie. "Cheta" -- yet another spelling of the chimp's name -- is played by a talented fellow named Zippy, and seems to have an even more adorable girlfriend with whom he smooches at the end. Speaking of romance, Tarzan seems to give Jill some lingering looks throughout the movie which may be why Scott and Miles got married soon after. This was Scott's first appearance as Tarzan.

Verdict: Essentially unmemorable Tarzan movie but it led into a four year marriage for Gordon Scott and Vera Miles. **.

TARGET EARTH

TARGET EARTH (1954). Director: Sherman A. Rose.

A young lady. Nora (Kathleen Crowley), who was in deep sleep wakes up to discover that there is no one in her apartment building, and indeed the streets of the unnamed city she resides in are completely deserted -- until she encounters businessman Frank (Richard Denning) and they meet up with Vicki (Virginia Grey) and her boyfriend Jim (Richard Reeves) swilling champagne in a bar. Seems this motley group was left behind for one reason or another when the city was evacuated due to the invasion of steel electromagnetic robots from Venus. With a plot like that it sounds as if Target Earth would at least be entertaining, but while the opening scenes showing Nora exploring the city are quite striking and good at getting across her sense of isolation, the picture doesn't develop in a particularly interesting fashion. Even introducing a killer with a gun (Richard Roark), doesn't help much, nor does the fact that there is some decent attempts at characterization. The ladies in the cast are much, much better than the men, with the exception of Roark. Denning is as blandly amiable as ever, and Reeves is similarly lightweight. Arthur Space (Panther Girl of the Kongo) and Whit Bissell (Creature from the Black Lagoon) play Army men trying to deal with the outer space menace in separate sequences. The best thing you can say about the movie, aside from the opening sequences and some of the performances and a couple of interesting directorial touches, is that it's moderately better than the decade-later The Earth Dies Screaming, which had a very similar plot line. Rose only directed three movies and mostly did television work.

Verdict: Throughout the movie you only see one robot. **.