Bomba on Panther Island (1949)

Instant Favorite.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The highlight of this Bomba film is certainly Lita Baron. She was the sexiest of Bomba's female admirers and had a lot of the sensuality of Acquanetta from "Tarzan and the Leopard Woman". As a matter of fact she took Acquanetta's place in Weissmuller's "Jungle JIm"(1948) as member of his safari with an eye for JIm. She also performs a sexy but hilarious dance-compared to Elaine's dance in Seinfeld. She had talent-sang with Xavier Cugart and was married to Rory Calhoun. A VerySexy and Petite(4'11) Jungle Girl!

This second of the dozen films made in the Bomba series focuses on the search for an evil black panther believed through superstition to be an evil spirit. It's all because the white man is there, cutting down trees, angering the alleged jungle gods and bringing one to earth to possess the wildcat and get revenge. Another father and daughter team have come along to replace Onslow Stevens and Peggy Ann Garner, making this series quite different than the MGM Tarzan series which had started with an ensemble cast. Other than Johnny Sheffield and his pet monkey, the only other actor returning is Smoki Whitfield as the African native who continues to work along side the white man as guide and protector. Allene Roberts is the female lead here, the daughter of Harry Lewis whose desire for the lumber brings about the alleged curse. While Sheffield was busy protecting Garner in the first film, here he is much closer to his distant "cousin" Tarzan, once again swinging from trees and doing much more physically than he did in the plot heavy first film. This entry is enjoyable but standard B jungle fare, entertaining as far as Saturday matinees go, but often stagnant and definitely about a reel too long. It's obvious how this will end, and just barely passes muster as a minor diversion. The continued usage of stock footage provides thrills, but a bit of it was an obvious repeat of what was already used in the first film.

Bomba on Panther Island (1949) ** (out of 4) The second film in Monogram's series finds Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) trying to track down a killer black panther who is causing all sorts of trouble in the jungle. He must also help a young woman (Allene Roberts) and her brother (Harry Lewis) who are doing special experiments in the jungle but their mysterious helper (Lita Baron) has the natives thinking she might be evil. After a decent start, this second entry quickly loses steam and in the end it's just another cheap, low-budget jungle movie that is nothing more than a rip-off of the Tarzan series. Of course, the biggest difference is that Sheffield played 'Boy' in those MGM films so it was natural that he'd be offered his own series. Sadly, the end results are rather weak but then again this is actually one of the best I've seen from the series so take that as you will. I think the opening scene where a monkey friend of Bomba is killed was rather effective but as soon as this is over the cheapness quickly kicks in. The majority of the panther attacks features stock footage of a panther "stalking" and then we cut away to the results and this is just a human (or animal) on the ground dead. At first I laughed at how cheap this effect was but by the end of the movie I understood because when the "fake" leopard does attack Bomba the results is so laughable that you can understand why the producers didn't want to use it too much. At one point it seems as if Bomba is fighting a cloth toy! Sheffield looks the part of a jungle boy and he's actually not too bad in the part. Roberts makes for a good love interest and Baron certainly has the looks and sexuality for her part. At 76-minutes the film is way too sluggish for its own good but the performances and a few scenes of the wildlife at least give it a little life.

***SPOILERS*** Johnny Sheffield in his second Bomba movie as Bomba the Jungle Boy gets involved in a hot and steamy love triangle with pretty and sophisticated city girl Judy Maltland, Allene Roberts, and the sexy and ready for action French maid in the Maltland household Losana, Lita Baron. That has the jungle boy almost forget about the death of his jungle friend and pet monkey who was killed by a vicious black panther earlier in the film.It was after Bomba's pet monkey was killed by the panther that he swore to find the killer and meet out justice, jungle justice, to him. As it so happened the panther was on a murderous rampage killing a number of natives who were working for Judy's brother Robert, Harry Lewis, in building a plantation for him in the jungle that was in fact screwing up the balance of nature there. It was Robert's good friend local great white hunter Andy Barnes, Charles Irwin, who tried to get him to stop defoliating the jungle by setting it on fire and leaving the natives as well as animals there without a place to stay.We get to see a number of great jungle sock footage with leopards and cape buffaloes having it out with each other as well as a fight to the death between two crocodiles with a cape buffalo, as if it was a referee, stepping in to end ,with it's hoofs & horns, the conflict. That as usual in movies like this is about the most exciting scenes you could expect to see in the film. There's also Bomba being a bit confused in what exactly sexy Losana wants from him since he never went out on a date, with a girl that is, in his entire life by living in the jungle with his friends the monkeys and gorillas.***Spoilers*** In the end it's Robert's setting the jungle on fire that in fact brings the killer panther out in the open in having Bomba and Judy try to save themselves from the flames by hiding in the safety in a nearby cave. It's there when Bomba finally gets to confront the panther since that's where he made his home, when he wasn't out killing, away from home! Johnny Sheffield who looks like he could pass for star Boston Red Sox outfielder Jackie, "frear of flying", Jensen's twin brother comes of age, at age 18, in this movie by seeing that girls are a lot more fun and better to hang out with then the monkeys he's been swinging around with all these years. It's just too bad for him that the girls he wants to hang out with don't have the same talents that he does in being able, by swinging on jungle vines, to keep up with him.