Movie Review: Jungle Woman (1944)

The movie stars Acquanetta, Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone, Lois Collier and J. Carroll Naish.

My oldest daughter and I had this movie on our "to watch" list and decided to finally watch it last night while playing a board game with her younger sister. Unfortunately, as we quickly learned, the board game was much more exciting than this movie was.

This film is a sequel to the movie "Captive Wild Woman." My daughter and I watched that movie some time ago and thought it was OK but not great. And, as is the case with most sequels, this film was a step backwards from that film.

There are a couple things, in particular, we weren't impressed by when it came to this film. The first was the generous use of material from the original film. It's not unusual for a sequel to reference the movie that preceded it. But, in this case, it seemed like at least half the film consisted of selected clips from "Captive Wild Woman." In fact, there were times when we felt like we were watching the first movie again.

On top of it, when the movie does have original material, there's nothing that really stands out about it. The entire movie is a series of flashbacks and, because it reveals the ending within the first few minutes, is very predictable. As a result of this, it is kind of hard to watch it because it's not difficult to figure out what is going to happen next, making it pretty dull.

Also, as my daughter was quick to point out, the overall plot had quite a few weaknesses. For example, the doctor (Naish) didn't really need to tell the full (and unbelievable) story to defend himself of murder charges. All he had to do was say, truthfully, Paula Dupree (Acquanetta) attacked him and it was self defense.

Not to mention, for the second movie in a row, an ape goes missing and nobody seems to care. You would think that would draw a bit more concern, at least until they learn the truth. While this, admittedly, may be overthinking things a bit, plot holes like this do hurt this movie considerably.

I'm glad we ended up playing a board game while watching this movie. Otherwise, it would have been a wasted evening. Don't waste your time with this one.

My Grade: F