The thing about these next three films is, any two of them have a great deal in common:
- The Lion Man and The Phantom of 42nd Street both involve divorce as a significant plot element;
- The Phantom of 42nd Street and The Savage Girl both have cab drivers as major characters;
- and The Lion Man and The Savage Girl are both firmly in that dubious tradition one might call "white people gone native in exotic lands (plus stock footage of the animals with whom they communicate)".
Grade: D-
One can only guess how many studios rolled their own version of the Tarzan legend, wherein a noble boy abandoned in a savage land grows up to become a fierce and principled warrior defined by his rapport with animals. The Lion Man at least bases its yarn on another, similar story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, "The Lad and the Lion". It transports the Tarzan archetype to an unnamed and dangerous Arab region, somewhere on the border between French- and British-controlled areas, where Sir Ronald Chatham (Eric Snowden) seeks to negotiate mining rights for tungsten with a local sheik.
Does Chatham bring any colleagues? Does he go with a group of powerful allies or mercenaries? No, he does it more or less alone. But since he just got divorced --
-- he also carts his young son along to the Middle East, for...reasons. (Allegedly the aim is to raise him in the Arab way, but that may just be speculation by his colleagues.)
So it's down the hatch --
-- and off to the land of camels and tents --
-- where, sadly, there are no good times to be had with this particular (and murderous) sheik.
Before long peril lurks for the poor lad, and only the brave sacrifice of Sherrifa (Finis Barton) keeps doom at bay -- well, that and shots so blown-out, we assume their pursuers simply couldn't see anything with all the white. (The cinematographer of Cheers struggled with similar issues.)
We wouldn't have much of a story if there weren't a Ben Kenobi-like figure who emerges to harbor and preserve the boy -- in this case, Hassan El Dinh, or as two tribesmen fearfully call him, "The Lion Man! Beyond this point we cannot go!"
The Lion Man tries to dazzle us with sandy set-pieces, a blaring soundtrack of Wagner's greatest hits (especially "The Ride of the Valkyries"), and a female love interest (Kathleen Burke) who -- if you're into that sort of thing -- is certainly easy on the eyes.
However, the lead character (Jon Hall) is irritatingly stupid, while the film's action sequences are horribly choreographed with bad sound.
Worst of all -- save for a very brief bit of footage toward the middle -- there are no lions in the movie! It's in the title of the movie and the book, right? We kept waiting for a pride of wrathful lions to emerge, Valkyrie-like, and descend upon the evil sheik and his followers. But no, we just get this as our penultimate shot:
"Lion man" indeed. Pshaw.
Grade: C-
Pity poor Anthony Woolrich (The Devil Bat's Dave O'Brien), a theater critic who just wants to work his usual gig -- and really, really doesn't want to get stuck with the task of investigating the recent death of a prominent actor: "The only murders that interest me are the ones on the stage!"
But that mean old editor of his insists, you see. "Don't you realize you had the jump on an exclusive story!"
At least Tony has Romeo (Frank Jenks), the stalwart cab driver who's more than happy to help in the "moider" investigation. On the other hand, there's the obligatory cop (Jack Mulhall) who warns Tony in no uncertain terms to stay out of the way...which naturally makes him all the more determined to keep digging.
And is there a love interest? Of course there's a love interest (Kay Aldridge)!
K. liked this murder-mystery more than P. did, though neither of us were smitten. It's certainly efficient, clocking in comfortably under an hour. And whoever handled the sound clearly knew what they were doing, as the film almost sounds like a radio drama; O'Brien's resonant voice comes through as though he were speaking directly into a microphone, with rich bass and proximity effect galore.
Maybe they went to the extra expense in hopes of optioning the broadcast rights to radio? It's certainly a wordy script, with very little unremarked upon.
We also found ourselves wishing we'd watched this right after Wanted: Babysitter (or Scar Tissue if you prefer), since both films share a theme of actors wearing silly period costumes.
But the muddled denouement of The Phantom of 42nd Street doesn't live up to the professionalism of its first 45 minutes, denying us the satisfying feeling of inevitability with which a good murder-mystery finishes the job.
Ah, well: at least we have a batty waitress as comic relief. Who doesn't love that, right?
Grade: D
A couple minutes of exposition got hacked off the front end of Mill Creek's print of The Savage Girl, leaving us a bit uncertain as to why drunken millionaire Amos P. Stitch (Harry Myers) is so intent on hiring intrepid explorer Jim Franklin (Walter Byron) for an expedition in Africa. Tracking down other copies on the Internet reveals that the missing minutes detail Franklin's affinity for wild animals, his policy of non-violence towards them, and his fondness for invidiously comparing them to women:
"One is safer in darkest Africa than in many a speakeasy or nightclub in this city. As a matter of fact, gentlemen, the baby-blue eyes of some of your glorified Follies beauties conceal more hidden dangers than many a savage beast I've met in the bush!"
Can any woman capture the heart of this cynical adventurer? Well, the more pressing problem for Franklin is extracting himself from Stitch's sloppy monologue.
But money talks, and soon enough the pair is preparing to leave for "darkest Africa", with Franklin already having to rein in Stitch's impulse to buy an arsenal. And when the cab driver who drops them off at the shipyards (Ted Adams) laments their departure -- "Jeez, can you imagine that? All my life I've wanted to go to Africa" -- then, with the self-involved spontaneity of the super-rich, Stitch brings him too.
Upon arrival they partner with the seedy Erich Vernuth (Adolph Milar), a lusty and unscrupulous German who warns them of the "jungle goddess" worshipped by the natives, in tribute to whom they torture and sacrifice unwary travelers. And, as we soon discover, that goddess is...
...a feral girl (Rochelle Hudson) with good legs, immaculate makeup, and some sort of leopard-skin outfit. (And she talks to the animals, which makes you wonder how exactly she came by the leopard skin.) Hudson was apparently all of 16 years old when this was filmed, which makes her inevitable romance with the 33-year-old Byron -- more than twice her age! -- seem a bit skeevy.
But Jim Franklin is, all told, a perfect gentleman. No points for guessing that it's Vernuth who has carnal designs on "the girl" (she never gets a name), and no scruples about attempting to force his affections on her. When caught in the act, he offers to "share" her with Franklin: yikes.
Anyway, you can guess most of the rest, complete with demeaning bunga-bunga portrayals from innumerable black extras, stock footage of jungle animals, and that awful squeaking sound effect we heard in Jungle Man. Hudson almost literally spends all of her screen time repeating whatever word Byron just said, with a quizzical expression:
"Talk?"
"Sleep?"
"Stay?"
If she were to bust out with "Brain, brain, what is brain?" it would hardly have surprised us.
When comparing Mill Creek's print of The Savage Girl to the YouTube copy we checked out, there's about an 8-minute difference in running time, which is a lot for a 54/62-minute film. Most of the cuts are tiny edits that might pass unnoticed, but occasionally something significant is lost -- as in the scene where Hudson observes Byron plucking a thorn from an injured monkey's paw, which goes some way toward explaining her affection for him.
There's also a loopy subplot in which Stitch, the chauffeur, and expatriate Harlemite Oscar (Floyd Shackelford) conduct the same experiment the Mythbusters tackled decades later, seeing if an elephant gets spooked by a mouse. (Spoiler: it does.)
But Stitch's diversion isn't enough to keep him from getting homesick. The treatment -- a nice "a-roo-ga" on the car horn, to remind him of the city -- turns out to be a semi-logical plot point, which is sort of cute.
The Savage Girl spares us a tedious backstory for its title character (which is sort of refreshing), and it moves along at a good clip and uses its stock footage with some intelligence (also refreshing). But it's still the same "darkest Africa" storytelling that trades entirely in stereotypes and caricatures -- and even if that doesn't particularly bother you, it has little else to offer beyond jail bait, "How Dry I Am" humor, and Walter Byron repeatedly looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
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