Against stock footage of lions, elephants and wildebeasts, Bomba the Jungle Boy captures a pair of nefarious diamond smugglers.
I'm rather fond of Johnny Sheffield in these "Bomba meets..." films. Apart from reminding me of "Kurt" from "the Sound of Music" (1965) he remains quite a fun paragon of decency and simplicity in a jungle environment soon to be compromised/exploited/destroyed by anyone who comes along thinking they know best... In this little yarn, our hero gets caught up with some nasty diamond smugglers who are posing as scientists whilst killing and enslaving the natives as they search for the "Mountain of Diamonds". Of course it's filmed in California, and the animal scenes look very much like stock-shots; but the innocence of the hero and the charm of the story - and of Leonard Mudie as the world-weary Scot - made me smile. I found the slightly staccato style ("Me Tarzan, You Jane") style of dialogue from "Bomba" a bit unnecessary; his upbringing is rather given away by his ability to chat to his animal friends - oh, and his loincloth; but I still enjoyed watching this.
