Wed 11 May 2016
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: KING OF THE JUNGLE (1933).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[2] Comments
KING OF THE JUNGLE. Paramount, 1933. Buster Crabbe, Frances Dee, Sidney Toler, Nydia Westman, Robert Barrat, Irving Pichel, Douglas(s) Dumbrille. Based on the novel The Lion’s Way, by Charles Thurley Stoneham. Directors: H. Bruce Humberstone & Max Marcin. Shown at Cinevent 31, Columbus OH, May 1999.
I saw this on TV several years ago and was not impressed by it, but this time I found it a pleasant diversion, with Buster Crabbe as Kaspa, raised in the jungle after the deaths of his parents, and brought to the states with his lions to perform in a circus.
Frances Dee, a teacher who’s hired to teach Kaspa English, teaches him a couple of others things as well before the predictable fade-out in the studio backlot studio set.
This doesn’t give the first couple of the first MGM Tarzan films any real competition (Frances Dee, while attractive, is not Maureen O’Sullivan), but a spectacular circus fire provides some genuine excitement and the animals are magnificent specimens and out-act some of the supporting players.
May 12th, 2016 at 3:58 am
That “spectacular circus fire” appeared in a few other Paramount pictures, and I’ve often wondered if it started here or was borrowed from an earlier film.
May 12th, 2016 at 1:22 pm
C. T. Stoneham and his Kaspa was one of a handful of writers who actually gave Burroughs a little competition in the jungle man stakes, along with Kline’s Jan, Chester’s Kioga, and Browne’s Tharn (the former two also getting film outings in serials). Kaspa was one of the more successful ones. The pulps were littered with jungle men and women and the comics even more so; Jongor, Kaanga, Sheena, Bantan, and variations like Polaris.
I haven’t seen this for ages though a few clips are available on YouTube, but I do still remember parts of it, and it’s a diverting adventure if entirely inferior to the MGM Tarzan films. Solid cast though.
Irving Pichel was also a capable film director, though the Welshman is best remembered as the voice of the adult Huw (Roddy MacDowell) who narrates John Ford’s HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY.