Thanks for the memories!

Lack of good storyline.

Film Perfection

Blistering performances.

Yes, somebody does say "Holy Cow!", but it was me with the sarcastic reply. I just wondered if screenwriter/director Ford Beebe was serious when he had that line written, said by the hunting commissioner in Bomba territory after spotting a dead elephant. I also had a sarcastic response when Bomba indicated that he slept between the elephant's legs when there was danger in the jungle. "Front legs, I hope", I said, praying that Bomba would not be covered in elephant waste.All these segments occur in the first 10 minutes, combining bad humor with the reprehensible trade of elephant poaching. Like Bomba, elephants are my favorite African mammal, gentle giants, he claims, and usually right until the evil that men do gets the elephants angry. And when elephants are angry, all humans within their range will pay. It's up to Bomba to stop the poachers, having been involved in the accidental killing of the man determined to stop them from ivory trade, giving a sad element to the plot.Bomba's trying to learn to read, and pretty Donna Martell is the teacher's assistant working with him. She's decked out in a sarong and assumed to be a native, but it's obvious to me that she's as much a native as Johnny Sheffield is. When this deals with the serious legal and moral crime of poaching and the pointless slaughter of all African mammals, I'm all for it. But when it comes up with some lame piece of dialog, my eyes roll back, and my own trunk sneers at the screen. This is so formulaic that I seem to know what the characters will say when they say it. It's passable entertainment, so I can look past the rotten parts, as long as the lessons of nature are fully explained.

The sixth Bomba movie starring Johnny Sheffield has Bomba learning to read from beautiful Lola (Donna Martell). Lola is interested in Bomba for more than his mind but, as was the case in most of these movies, Bomba will have none of that. So, to make him jealous, Lola starts flirting with one of two ivory poachers. Bomba doesn't care about the flirting but he does care about the poaching. So he steps in to put a stop to them killing his elephant friends.No doubt some modern viewers will read some unintended subtext into the fact that Bomba was often uninterested in the attractive women throwing themselves at him in these movies. I think the real reason was the makers of these movies were aiming them at little boys who didn't like 'mushy stuff,' as well as the comic value that comes from some of these situations. Anyway, the series really needed a Jane like Tarzan had. It's unfortunate they didn't see it that way but that's just one of the many reasons this series never rises above middling juvenile entertainment. This entry is par for the course with the usual rear projection effects and stock footage but there is a nice supporting cast, which helps.

Elephant Stampede (1951) ** (out of 4) While Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) is in the jungle having a pretty teacher's aid (Donna Martell) teach him to reach, a couple poachers are killing elephants for their ivory. Soon the two men find out about Bomba and must kill him so that they can get back to their business. The sixth film in the series actually turns out to be one of the most entertaining but than again this is a cheap Bomba movie from Monogram so one shouldn't be expecting an actual good movie. I think there are some pretty funny and campy moments throughout and not the ones we're used to seeing like the stock footage o rear projection stuff. There's an entire side-story dealing with this young, beautiful school assistant wanting to have fun with Bomba but he keeps pushing her away instead preferring to learn his ABCs. This leads to her wanting to make him jealous and take off with the two poachers who are constantly sexually harassing her. I'm not sure how many children in the audience knew this or cared about it but I'm sure the majority of the adults watching, then and now, couldn't help but laugh at Bomba for rejecting such a beauty. The film is actually quite dark for children because there's quite a bit of violence against elephants and especially Bomba. Poor jungle boy takes quite a beating here including being pistol whipped and knocked out a couple times. This action does help keep the film moving and I'd say that at times Bomba comes off as such a jerk you really don't mind it. Sheffield is certainly very comfortable in the part by now and he turns in a fine performance. Martell clearly steals the film as the teacher's aid. The support is pretty good as well, which is rare for this series. All in all, fans of the series should be some entertainment out of this but just don't expect something great.

Bomba, the Jungle Boy returns, predictably involved in peril as he tangles with two mercenary Americans--ivory poachers in the jungle who have just killed their guide and plot to overtake an ivory shipment running through Portugese territory. Despite the camp-exotic undermining (which all the "Bomba" movie inevitably possess), this episode in the serial is curiously top-heavy with violent action (some of it rather nasty). Bomba is punched, pistol-whipped, shot at, and shot down; at one point, he misses a bullet by inches, which instead strikes a pretty native girl harboring a crush on the "jungle devil". Stock footage makes up most of the title stampede (a great deal of which is ridiculously sped-up, one presumes for time), while both the acting and Ford Beebe's direction are equally wooden. Johnny Sheffield is still charming as Bomba; resembling a corn-fed kid straight off the farm, or perhaps a quarterback on the high school football team, Sheffield cannot belie his embarrassment over this cheapjack endeavor, but neither does he get ambitious or attempt to turn his Bomba into a super-hero. The lackadaisical personality of Bomba (who speaks to his elephants in Swahili and asks questions like, "Why are there two f's in 'giraffe'?") is a major part of his appeal. Without him, this would be just another matinée quickie--one with a hardened heart. ** from ****