utgard14 With Tarzan behind him, Johnny Sheffield moved over to Poverty Row where he would star in his own series for Monogram. Bomba the Jungle Boy is pretty much just Boy from the Tarzan movies grown up. Although I'm not exactly sure how grown up he's supposed to be as he looks like an adult (Sheffield was 18 at the time) but is treated like a young teen by other characters throughout the series. The movies are all juvenile jungle adventure tales with lots of stock footage. They are nowhere near as good as the Weissmuller Tarzan movies but, if you're a fan of those, these will at least keep your attention. Johnny Sheffield made twelve of them before retiring from movies altogether. This first entry in the series has a renowned photographer (Onslow Stevens) and his daughter (Peggy Ann Garner) coming to Africa to take some pictures of wildlife. The daughter gets lost and is rescued by Bomba, a white boy raised in the wild by a misanthropic naturalist. Most of the movie is about the girl trying to get Bomba to lead her back to her father. But Bomba is wary of outsiders and doesn't trust that her father won't try to hurt him.Sheffield is fine in the role of Bomba, which is hardly challenging. Garner, who was an exceptional child actor (see Jane Eyre for proof) is better than this sort of thing but such was the state of her career as she grew up. She spends most of the movie in a short leopard-print dress looking very cute. Charles Irwin, sounding positively like Scrooge McDuck, plays a character whose primary function in the movie is to argue with the girl's insufferable father, played by Onslow Stevens. Garner and Sheffield are delightful together and their scenes are the highlights of the movie. It's too bad Garner couldn't have stayed with the series. It might have helped if Bomba had a Jane and nobody would've minded killing off her father. I was kind of expecting him to die given how unlikable he was.There are some fun moments with monkeys and an amusing scene where the native guide explains the difference between native footprints and those of a white man. The use of stock footage is excessive but what really drags the movie down are the repetitive scenes of Stevens and Irwin. The movie basically breaks down like this: cute scene with Sheffield and Garner then back to Irwin telling Stevens he won't allow him to do something but Stevens does it anyway then back to Sheffield & Garner. Rinse, lather, repeat. It gets on your nerves after awhile.

John T. Ryan FOLLOWING THE ABRUPT ending of his run as Boy in the MGM and Sol Lesser-RKO Series of Tarzan Pictures, young Johnny Sheffield swung, not to a new career path, but to the next tree in the vast Hollywood Backlot "Jungle". Beginning a new role as the title character in BOMBA,THE JUNGLE BOY (Monogram, 1949).* THE COMBINATION OF good looks, a fine athletic physique and all of the previously generated publicity from all of those Tarzan movies, all joined together to make him perfect for the Bomba movies. The quite accidental combination of factors made for an ideal package of characteristics, both on screen and in the promotions department of Monogram.AS FOR THE above mentioned Monogram Studios, it was a mark of a great step down from the Tarzans at MGM and RKO. Monogram (which was increasingly using its newly formulated moniker of Allied Artists)was truly a resident of what is known as "Poverty Row" in Hollywood. It was not only a member of this dubious fraternity, but it could well be said to be the preeminent low budget company.** AS ONE WOULD suspect, BOMBA, THE JUNGLE BOY, being a cheapie production, makes plenty of use of stock footage, back lot scrub woods (with the occasional placement of potted palm trees, dwarf banana trees and lush plantings of the Castor Bean plant***)and black men as extras; portraying safari porters.THE STORYLINE, ALTHOUGH admittedly somewhat thinner than most "A" Picture Jungle Epics, is adequate and told in a straight forward manner. however, regardless of narrative method, whether or not that it would spawn a sequel and a series, would rely on Box Office $ucce$$ with the Saturday Afternoon Matinée crowd. Needless to say, the combination of frugality and comic book-like appeal to the juvenile market equaled an A-OK for a series.WE HAVE ALREADY dealt with Johnny Sheffield's casting; which can only be classified as a proverbial no brainer. Hence, we won't discuss him any more.IN THE CAST we have the presence of Onslow Stevens, who anchors an otherwise nondescript company of supporting players. Mr. Stevens' characterization represents the intrusion of the Modern, Western Civilization into the wilds of the Dark Continent. Alrhough it is obvious that it is much more technologically advanced, it's no match for Nature and the primitives who inhabit its savannas, jungles and rain forests.THE INCLUSION OF Peggy Anns Garner is both a plus and a sort of a shock; for just a few years earlier she was praised for her portrayal in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. Working a Monogram would seem to indicate some degree of slipping to her career.SHE DOES, HOWEVER, make for a most lovely "Jungle Girl" and female interest as a potential love interest for the virginal Bomba. The two together make for a truly sensual and even sexy pair; particularly while stretched out and resting during the trek through the wilds.NOTE: * BOMBA is just one of many Tarzan knock-offs (and most successful one)that had appeared over the years and were adapted to the screen. Starting with KING OF THE JUNGLE (Paramount, 1933) with Buster Crabbe as 'Kaspa the Lion Man', Herman Brix (Bruce Bennett) as Kioga (a sort of Temperate Zone Tarzan), HAWK OF THE WILDERNESS (Republic, 1938) and KING OF THE CONGO (Columbia, 1952) with Buster Crabbe as 'Thunda', are all fine examples. In the World of the Comics Magazines, we also had Kazar: whose origin was in Pulp Magazines of the same publisher of Timley/Atlas/Maevel Comics. Congo Bill, long time back-up feature in DC Comics' Action Comics (and adaptation to the serial, CONGO BILL (Columbia, 1948), later acquired a Tarzan-like protégé in one Janu the Jungle Boy. Neither Kazar nor Janu ever got to the point of having any celluloid counterpart. NOTE ** Along with Monogram, Poverty Row members included Republic, PRC (Producers' Releasing Corporation), American International, Grand National, Lippert and Columbia; which graduated to the upper echelon very early in the game.NOTE: *** The Castor Bean is a commonly grown garden flower plant. It is tall with red stems and exotic & tropical looking foliage. The seeds of the annual are poisonous to humans.

Wizard-8 After watching this first entry in the "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" series, I am really surprised that the series lasted for an additional eleven movies. I know these movies were aimed at kids who were less sophisticated than kids today, but I'm hard pressed to figure out how kids back then were entertained by something like this. Since this is a Monogram production, the budget is really low, seemingly shot entirely on soundstages with some occasional stock footage of jungle animals and natives mixed in. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it were revealed that the screenwriter was shown the stock footage before starting writing, and was told to write something that would include all that stock footage. That's because there really isn't much of a story here, and the character of Bomba is weakly written. For one thing, Bomba doesn't begin interacting with the visitors to the jungle until more than a third of the movie is over! And once this point of the movie has passed, we learn next to nothing about Bomba for the rest of the movie - we learn almost nothing about his past, his opinions on things etc. I think even very young kids will be bored stiff, and viewers who originally saw the movies in theaters and feel nostalgic will be rudely surprised by this drab and boring production.

bkoganbing Johnny Sheffield who had grown too old to play Boy in the Tarzan films got a nice break from Monogram Pictures and was able to extend his career with the Bomba The Jungle Boy series of films. Like Tarzan, Bomba grows up in the jungle and in fact this film bears no small resemblance to Tarzan, the Ape Man.Bomba's Jane is in the person of former child star Peggy Ann Garner who is a visiting photographer with her father Onslow Stevens. She gets separated from Stevens and enjoys an idyll of sorts with Bomba who is more articulate than those early Weissmuller Tarzans.The only other regular in the Bomba series is Commissioner Andy Barnes who is a glorified game warden here and played by Charles Irwin. In later films Barnes would be played by Leonard Mudie.Some stock jungle footage is integrated nicely into the film, better I would say than a lot of the Tarzan films done at RKO at the same time with Lex Barker. Not a bad beginning for the series.