Tambores Selvagens

Safari Drums (1953)

** (out of 4)

Number nine in the Monogram series has Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) once again in the jungle minding his own business when some movie people show up to film some animals. Bomba gets involved when it turns out that one of them murdered a man and the jungle boy must also be sure that the men don't try to harm any of his animal friends. By this time in the series there's no question that they were running out of fresh ideas and the films were becoming quite a hard chore to sit through. Thankfully this entry is a step up from the previous ones and I'd argue that the final ten-minutes here are the best moments in the series to date. With that said, the typical issues are still here including the ultra low-budget that really doesn't allow the filmmakers to do too much. As usual, there are way too many scenes where nothing is going on other than cast members standing around talking about stuff that really doesn't add up to anything. These dialogue scenes might work if they were actually saying something interesting but rarely does anything you care about come from their mouths. Another problem is of course the stock footage but at times this can add some campy charm. As with the previous films, Sheffield is at least entertaining in the part and you can tell he's giving it his all even though he probably shouldn't be. Barbara Bestar plays the love interest here and the supporting cast includes Emory Parnell, Douglas Kennedy and Paul Marion. I won't spoil who the killer is but the actor makes for a good villain. The final ten-minutes has more action than any of the previous movie put together. This includes a sequence where the filmmakers (in the movie) get a tiger and lion to fight a rather violent battle, which might offend some. There's also the action/chase sequence with Bomba that contains some nice drama. SAFARI DRUMS isn't a classic and it's not even a good movie but for a Bomba movie it's certainly not bad.