Bomba and the Jungle Girl

Bomba the jungle boy tries to discover who his parents were, why was he brought up in the jungle and what happened to said parents. The film fills in some of Bomba's back story and does it very well with deeper feeling than was usual in a Bomba movie. He also helps a nice girl but there is no romance. At the end he is off on his own back to the animals and the forest. Johnny Sheffield is not the best actor in the jungle but does well here, particularly at the start with his plaintive voiceover. There is also fine support from Karen Sharpe as the sharpshooting Linda, Suzette Harbin as the poisonous dart shooting Baru and Morris Buchanan as the rightful chief Kokoli. The fire scenes at the end are well staged. An enjoyable film in the series.

This little feature is not better or worse than the other Bomba movies. I think they were made for sunny - or rainy - Sunday afternoons. All directed by Ford Beebe, they are all the same. When you have seen one, you have seen all of them. But they are not charmless. I won't explain the topic of this one, it is already exposed in the tag line. I only write this comment because this film has not been commented yet. That's all. If you watch all Bomba features in a row, you'll forget this one. For sure. I recommend to see the Bomba films one each week. That's the best to appreciate them.

This film in the Bomba series finds Johnny Sheffield both finding out his true identity and dealing with a usurper who has taken the leadership of the Masai tribe. The title is a real misnomer, what Sheffield has not done is find a sister. It seems as though Bomba's real parents were government agents who knew the truth of the coup in the Masai tribe. Martin Wilkins is the usurper and he reals with help of Suzette Harbin who has the meatiest role in the film that of his daughter and chief enforcer. She's a real piece of work and goes out in quite the diva fashion. Helping Bomba is Walter Sande who is in the Masai village on a survey and his daughter Karen Sharpe and of course that symbol of jungle authority Commissioner Barnes as played by Leonard Mudie, the other recurring character in the Bomba series. Masai politics and Bomba's identity, makes for a nice film.