SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Edison Witt The first must-see film of the year.

mark.waltz The bad white man is back, after the mysterious okongoe for something in their system that apparently makes a fabulous narcotic. OK, that's a strange premise on its own, but the way that this "Jungle Jim" series is presented is a lot more intelligent than the previous four entries in the series, minus the very good first entry. Unfortunately, it's missing the unintentional humor in those films, and that makes this a bit slow at times. OK, there is the obviously painted mule made to look like a zebra and a slithering spider like creature the size of a man (no rival to the creepy ones of "Cat Women of the Moon"), plus a scary sandstorm that comes out of nowhere. Of course, there's also the obligatory fall into quicksand, a staple of practically every entry in the series. Sherry Moreland is the lucky starlet out of a tribe of Amazon like women to be the female lead, although I would say her creative discovery of makeup among non jungle plants seems quite ingenious.

Michael_Elliott Fury of the Congo (1951) * 1/2 (out of 4) Sixth film in the Columbia-Sam Katzman series has Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) trying to stop some drug dealers who are capturing horse-like animals whose glands can be turned into a strong drug. What Jim doesn't realize is that the man he trusts most is the one behind the scheme. FURY OF THE CONGO is pretty much what you'd expect from a Jungle Jim movie as we begin with some weird narration that sets everything up and that follows with countless bits of stock footage showing off the animals and then Jim enters the picture and of course he's normally swimming. It's clear that this series was aimed at the kids during a Saturday matinée and that's fine but when viewed today it's really hard to find anything good to say about the films. This one here is one of the weaker ones even though it actually does feature one of the more entertaining or at least interesting story lines. The idea of this zebra-horse crossbreed being used for drugs was an interesting idea that could have worked in another film but here it just leads to one boring sequence after another. Not only do the action scenes come off boring but they're also done extremely cheaply and look so poor that you often start to wonder if perhaps one of the chimps running around the set took a camera and started filming. There are also a few funny goofs in the film including one where Jim grabs a weed that's basically going to be used as a straw so that he can hide underwater and still be able to breathe. I'm not sure if Weissmuller just didn't realize how deep the water was or what but when he goes under he actually goes all the way under including bringing the breathing device under with him. As for the former Tarzan, he's pretty lifeless here but I guess at this point in his career he was just going by-the-numbers. The supporting cast includes Sherry Moreland and William Henry but neither bring much life to the screen nor does Lyle Talbot in his small role. The craziest sequence happens during a windstorm when a large spider attacks Jim. At first I thought this "spider" was just the top of some palm tree because that's exactly what it looks like. The scene is pretty funny because it's obvious this "spider" doesn't have very much movement and when it's supposed to be pulling Jim back, it's easy to see that Weissmuller is using his hands to move back. FURY OF THE CONGO is yet another poor film in this series, which today is mainly for those who enjoy bad movies.

classicsoncall If you've seen more than a couple of Johnny Weismuller's 'Jungle Jim' movie adventures, you won't have any trouble spotting the scenes repeated from earlier films in the franchise. "Fury Of The Congo" has at least two, utilizing Jim's wrestling match with a leopard from the first film of the series ("Jungle Jim"), and later on there's a view of Tamba the chimp in a vine swing over a ravine from the prior picture, "Captive Girl". Come to think of it, those shots of the mountain top pass might have been the ones used in "The Lost Tribe" as well. That's one thing the Poverty Row producers of the era did well, and that was to economize wherever possible.At least a little more creativity went into this story than we've seen before. The plot deals with a rare jungle animal called the 'Okongo', described as a cross between an antelope and a zebra. That of course presumes that interspecies breeding is possible, but since it isn't, it's at this point you can leave your thinking cap on the couch. Curiously, dark Okongos have a pattern of white stripes, and light colored ones have the same pattern in black stripes, in a way that zebras just can't duplicate. It gets better. The Okongos feed on a rare narcotic plant (sounds like 'madro'), and then produce a glandular drug that has an even more concentrated effect. That makes them a prime target for drug smugglers who want to capture the Okongos for illicit trade. I found it pretty interesting that with all the rare animals they might have come up with to use in a story line, it's probably best that the writers made this all up.The creativity doesn't end there either. This is the first time out we see Jungle Jim use a bolo as a weapon, and with great accuracy of course. Besides the leopard mentioned earlier, Jim also defeats a giant hairy tarantula-like spider in an awkward looking battle where he's on his back the entire time. You know, you can say all you want about Superman, but the real Man Of Steel was Jungle Jim. In film after film, going hand to claw with lions, tigers, leopards and crocodiles, Jim never came away with even a scratch!Of course there's never any doubt that Jungle Jim prevails in this one too, the downside however being that most of the finale in a violent desert storm goes on a lot longer than it needed to, much like the filler between Skipper and Caw-Caw in previous films. Which is another downside to the story, they're both not here, giving way to Tamba as Jim's animal companion in this one. I think he might have lost points for knocking Jim into a pool of quicksand though. But at least there's a pretty girl around as in the prior films; Sherry Moreland is effective as Jim's native guide to locate the Okongo.

Chris Gaskin I obtained a copy of Fury of the Congo from the same source as the Bomba movies I have.In this one, Jungle Jim, a native woman and another man who is pretending to be their friend and is actually a hunter go and track down a group of hunters who have kidnapped all the native men. These hunters are after a rare breed of horse, the Okongo and want the native men to help them to kill the Okongoes as they are a source of a kind of drug. During the expedition, Jim and his companions face several dangers including dust storms and, best of all, a giant desert spider. The hunters are captured at the end, some of them killed and the native men are reunited with their wives. The Okongoes are safe and well too.As always, Johnny Wiessmuller plays Jungle Jim and the rest of the cast includes Lyle Talbot and William Henry.Fury of the Kongo is worth a look at if you get the chance. Quite hard to get hold of.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.