If you like Tarzan flicks and jungle movies, you'll be right at home with "Bomba, The Jungle Boy". I used to hunt these pictures down as a kid because I liked wild animals a lot; watching today the films are still somewhat entertaining but notably deficient in the areas of acting and story development. I had to get a kick out of the scene where Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) helps Pat (Peggy Ann Garner) onto a log in the river, setting off on a quest to find Pat's father and his expedition. In just the prior sequence of events, Bomba had returned from an area of the jungle where he found evidence of the Harland party, and it was in a totally opposite direction, and he didn't have to cross a river to find it!Oh well, if you expect these stories to make sense you'll be extremely disappointed. Matinée fans of the day turned out for the jungle animals and perhaps more notably, to admire the trim athletic figures of the principals. Now Peggy Ann Garner may not be Maureen O'Sullivan, but she did cut a cute figure in the leopard skin, which by the way, did anyone else wonder who the jungle seamstress might have been to put that thing together? On a more positive note, there were a couple of animal scenes that got my attention here, the first being the slow motion photography of those jumping impalas that seemed to defy gravity. Then there was a really incredible sequence involving a lioness actually pulling a warthog out of a den to feed the rest of the pride. Granted, these were part of the stock footage the picture utilized quite freely, but someone at some time got that footage and it was absolutely amazing. Just about as exciting was a scene later on in the story when native hunters speared a lion to prevent it's attack. Very cool.With all that going on, the story itself is almost superfluous. As travel photographers, George Harland (Onslow Stevens) and his daughter Pat (Garner) are in Africa to photograph wild game and bring their story back to civilization. Sidetracked when Pat's guide is killed by a leopard and she gets lost, the rest of the picture involves Bomba helping Pat get back to her Dad in safe and timely fashion. Still, someone needs to explain to me how one of the native guides, examining the footprints next to the dead leopard (killed by Bomba), was certain they belonged to a white man.

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.

On safari in Africa, pretty teenager Peggy Ann Garner (as Patricia "Pat" Harland) photographs animals with father Onslow Stevens (as George). For better pictures, "glorified game warden" Charles Irwin (as Andy Barnes) and "native" Smoki Whitfield (as Eli) lead them deeper into the wild, where they meet "Teen Tarzan" Johnny Sheffield (as Bomba). The popular "Boy" from the faltering "Tarzan" movies was a natural pick for this unofficial spin-off series. While successful, it's nothing special. The first outing finds Mr. Sheffield and Ms. Garner in a tame "Tarzan and His Mate" (1934) mode. Best scene is when Garner tears her dress and Sheffield offers her his loincloth; she declines as the always-obvious stock footage inserts two chimps kissing.**** Bomba, the Jungle Boy (3/20/49) Ford Beebe ~ Johnny Sheffield, Peggy Ann Garner, Onslow Stevens, Charles Irwin

Johnny Sheffield as a teenage Tarzan in the African wilds, rescuing a pretty young shutterbug and (rather half-heartedly) attempting to reunite her with her photographer father and his guides. Having already played "Boy" opposite Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan several times, Sheffield was a natural choice to enact the formative years of this role once filmmakers began to run out of ideas and made the (worthwhile) decision to explore the loin-clothed legend's early beginnings. Sheffield is somewhat self-conscious as the boy who calls himself Bomba, and yet his modest performance is the best thing in the picture. He's straightforward in an innocent way, immature and yet brave around the girl, and he manages an amusing connection with the audience (one can almost hear the sighs of young filmgoers as Bomba gently helps Peggy Ann Garner's Pat onto a log to cross the river). The film is padded with nature footage (most of it poorly photographed and repetitive), and too much time is spent dragging the characters back and forth through the foliage, but the simple story (perky girl meets tame savage boy) still holds a spark of enchantment. ** from ****