Nabonga (1944) ** (out of 4)A thief steals some priceless jewels and heads off in an airplane with his young daughter. The plane ends up crashing and the little girl befriends an injured gorilla in the jungle. Flash forward several years and explorer Ray Gorman (Buster Crabbe) hears about a "white witch" from the jungle that "fell from a big bird" and heads there to search for the jewels. He finds the now woman (Julie London) being protected by a large gorilla but must find a way to get her to lead him to the jewels.NABONGA, meaning gorilla, is a rather silly and low-budget jungle adventure that manages to be slightly entertaining as long as you don't take it too serious. if you're looking to find a meaning for life or some sort of great art then it's best you avoid this film at all costs and I'd also recommend not even looking at the posters for it. However, if you like cheap entertainment and just want 71 minutes to kill then there's certainly much worse out there.I think the best thing about the film are the leads. While neither Crabbe or London give excellent performances, they at least have a nice chemistry together and I thought they were good enough to carry the picture. There's a scene where Crabbe is trying to act afraid of her pet gorilla that is quite funny and especially some of the flirtation going on between them. The biggest problem with the movie is the fact that the budget was probably a tad bit higher than a pack of gum. There's a ton of stock footage in the movie that makes it look even cheaper and there's no doubt that the majority of the "real" footage was probably shot on one set with very limited range. More times than not the characters just stay in one spot and talk.NABONGA was meant to be cheap entertainment, which is what it pretty much is.

It's just an adventure story. A young girl is raised by a gorilla after her father, a crook, dies. A really boring man played by Buster Crabbe finds her and needs her to give some money and jewels back. Of course, there is another guy who wants the loot. Most of the movie is the discovery of the White Witch who is really just a good looking young woman and the efforts to keep her alive by the duo of Crabbe and gorilla. Most of the scenes are silly and forgettable. There are a lot of animals (stock footage) and lots of vines and trees. It is entirely predictable and there are few surprises. The relationship between the girl and Crabbe goes nowhere. Can you imagine the reality of her being put back into Western society.

Well, I bought this gem for a fiver out of the blue. I thought: "Buster Crabbe is in it, so it can't be all bad!" Then I watched it in the German dubbing, and had to laugh quite a few times, but at spots neither the original movie makers nor the dubbing crew would have intended to be for laughter. The German dubbing sounds like from a bad porn movie. Really. The lines of the native people are just ridiculous, and the voice of the girls sounds like the voice of a 60 year old woman. Its crap! They even attached new music to it. Somekind of psychedelic syntho-pop, but a really bad one. So I switched over to the original soundtrack, and so I could finally enjoy this movie. Buster Crabbe is like usual awesome in action scenes, but his character play too is definitely better than in any Flash Gordon. I recommend this movie (in English!!!!) for anyone who is interested in fantastic movies from before the fifties. But its not King Kong tho! Therefore: 5 out of 10

I've just watched Nabonga for the first time and quite enjoyed it, despite its rather low budget.An aeroplane with a girl and her dad on board plus the pilot crash lands in Africa into a jungle. Her dad has some treasure with him so he shoots the pilot and disappears some years later, leaving his daughter alone. But she has been "adopted" by a gorilla, (a man in a monkey suit) Nabonga, although she calls him Samson. A small party, including Ray Gorman looking for the treasure eventually finds it and the girl and after Nabonga fights another gorilla (another man in a monkey suit), he kills somebody else who is also after the treasure along with a woman. After that, Gorman and the now grown up Doreen plan to return to America.The cast includes Buster Crabbe (Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers), singer Julie London and Barton MacLane (Unknown Island, The Maltese Falcon).This movie is certainly worth watching if you get the chance. Great fun.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.