bensonmum2 If you're a fan of random stock footage of animals from the early 20th Century, this is the movie for you. At least half of the film is taken up with clips of animals that are so poorly shot, it's often difficult to see what you're looking at. Animals that in nature are continents apart are presented as if they live in the same African jungle. I swear that some of the animals even appear to be in zoos or other unnatural settings. Piece these clips together, throw in a nonsensical story about the search for a lost city by some bored rich dudes, and add an even more nonsensical plot line where Buster Crabbe is searching for a cure to a deadly disease by slaving over a Bunsen burner in the jungle - you've got Jungle Man. By the time our heroes come down with the illness, I had long ceased to care about any of it. I was rooting for their deaths as it might mean the movie would end faster. It's all a total bore. The one hour run-time feels more like an eternity. If you can't tell, I didn't care much for Jungle Man.The lone highlight for me was seeing Buster Crabbe and Charles Middleton together on screen. I'm not much a fan of the old Flash Gordon serial, but I realize it's historical significance. Seeing Flash and Ming together here was pretty cool.

Red-Barracuda This is the third jungle adventure I have seen from director Harry Fraser. The other two were The White Gorilla and The Savage Girl. This one, Drums of Africa, is at best marginally better than those other two. Harry sure knew how to knock out shoddy product in this genre. Like the other two films, this one is full of stock footage of wild animals. Although I don't really mind this as this footage is always kind of quite good fun to watch. In fact some of the scenes with the lions and tigers were actually pretty good, especially where some guy wrestles with them. Impressive stuff. My main gripe about the movie would most probably be its rubbish story line. There's a thread about a lost city, a fatal disease and a multiple lion attack. Nothing wrong with having a few things going on, but with the exception of the lion attack, the other story elements are dealt with very half-heartedly. The lost city turns out to be, you guessed it, more stock footage; this time hilariously it's shots of Angkor Wat which is of course in Asia. It just goes to show the things that they could get away with back in the 40's. Also, on that subject, I could never quite understand why there was a tiger in the middle of the African jungle. I think they just included it because they had it. The deadly killer disease is the other plot thrust of the story. And it's this that explains the presence of Buster Crabbe's doctor character in the middle of the jungle. He's there to find an antidote and help the natives. But this too is pretty lacklustre, and it really is hard to care very much about this plot element at all.Drums of Africa is a pretty poor jungle adventure overall. It's not completely devoid of entertainment though.

Thomas Fasulo If someone can figure out the plot for this movie, please let me know. The story line jumps all over the place, except during the many times when stock footage is shown to make the movie longer - way too much longer. The "City of the Dead" is so obviously Asian (perhaps Anwat) that I was surprised they had the gall to show it in this "African jungle" movie. That was also stock footage as the actors and the "City" are never seen together. The budget for this movie was probably a couple of hundred dollars. I like Buster Crabbe, but I was hoping the sharks would kill him in this movie.

Chris Gaskin I've just watched Jungle Man for the first time and found fairly enjoyable, despite reading some bad reviews about it.A party, including a woman and her dad set off to Africa to search for The City of the Dead, located in the depths of one of the jungles there. They have to face several dangers on their way including lions, tigers, snakes and head hunters. When they do find it, they discover it a ruin and explore and take some film of it. On the way back to camp, the woman finds a lion cub and decides to take it with her. A big mistake as several lions then attack the camp looking for it. Everybody is OK at the end though.Jungle Man has extensive stock footage of animals and natives dancing but that didn't spoil my enjoyment.The cast includes former Tarzan actor Buster Crabbe, Charles Middleton and Sheila Darcy.Though not brilliant, Jungle Man is a good way to spend an hour one afternoon.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.