User Reviews

***SPOILER*** It's when "Bomba the Jungle Boy", Johnny Sheffield, spots a fatally wounded lion in the African bush he's forced to put the big cat down, with his spear, in order to take it out of its misery.

Knowing that the lion, who was shot, was the victim of big game hunters Bomba tracks down the campsite where a number of captured wild African lions are being held captive in bamboo cages. It's then that Bomba does what he does best releasing the lions into the wild. But what Bomba did was also outrage big game lion hunter Marty Martin, Douglas Kennedy. A mad and determined Martin now plans to put an end to Bomba rescuing his fine furry friends as well as Bomba himself.

The collegiate looking Bomba despite his living in the wild all his life is no fool in knowing what Martin is planning to do and stymies him at every turn. Bomba also gets very friendly with Martin's partner Tom Forbes', Morris Ankrum, cute and adorable 19 year old daughter Jean, Ann E. Todd, who despite her dad hunting and trying to capture the big cats, and put them in cages for the rest of their lives, sees Bomba's attempt to rescue them as the right and only "human" thing to do.

With a frustrated Martin getting nowhere in capturing the big cats, by Bomba always turning them loose, he decides to use the local Massai Tribesmen to get the job done for him. That's after the Massai Chief Lohu's, David Richards, nerdy 16 year old son in trying to prove that he's a man ends up getting mauled by a charging lion who in return gets shot by Martin together with the fleeing for life young man!

It's then that Martin tries to pull a fast on on the dead son's dad, the Massai Chief, by tricking him into letting him capture all the lions in the area in order to prevent them from devouring his entire tribe! Of course all this backfires on Martin's part with the lions set on him and his safari by the Massai Chief after finding out that it was Martin not the lion who killed his son. With Martin together with who he still has left, most of the natives on his safari deserted him, having their guns and rifles stolen from them by the Massai's their left to take on the Kings of Beasts with only their bare hands!

Average "Bomba the Jungle Boy" flick with the boyish Johnny Sheffield at the top of his game swinging from jungle vines fighting hand to paw combat with a ferocious lion and spending most of his free time, when he's not saving his jungle friends from game hunters, sitting on a tree branch and shearing a banana with his monkey companion. Bomba also goes so far as saving the villainous Martin's neck from being snapped off by a crocodile which in fact still doesn't get Martin to see Bomba's way; In him leaving the jungle animals, mostly lions, alone. Martin finally gets it, and gets it good, when he's forced to take on the lions that he's been hunting by the Massai tribesmen letting them loose on him in the final moments of the movie!

P.S If there were any two actors who were ever meant to co-star with each other in a movie it had to be Johnny Sheffield and Ann E.Todd. Both Sheffield and Todd were born within three months of each other in 1931 and who's careers spanned, Todd from 1938 to 1954 and Sheffield 1938 to 1955, almost the exact same time period!

Johnny Sheffield as Bomba has such low-keyed charisma and an easy gait that he commands attention even when he's not saying anything, which is sometimes preferable to the lines he's given. Bomba finds an injured lion in his territory and accuses the local villagers of leaving it to die (they deny it, even though a custom of their tribe is to send a young man out into the wilds to kill a lion as part of his initiation). Meanwhile, 'bwanas' have invaded the jungle with a permit to trap lions to sell back home to zoos--and one of the white men has a psychotic bent and an itchy trigger finger. One of better movies in the "Bomba" serial is still loaded with repetitive and recycled scenes, cheap back projection and nature footage from stock. Still, the editing is nimble enough so that the plot at least moves instead of being bogged down in the padding, and the supporting cast is strong. Douglas Kennedy is a worthy adversary for Sheffield's jungle boy (sprouting a little chest hair here), and the natives are finally given some personality quirks to make the subplot interesting. Bomba wrestles both an alligator and a lion, plays with lion cubs, relays messages to the birds (a bit embarrassing) and flirts innocently with the proverbial girl. Fans of the series could hardly expect or ask for more. **1/2 from ****

The Lion Hunters have come to Africa to do just as the title of the picture says they do. But what they don't know is that the lions are both held as sacred by the Masai tribe and that the area they've chosen is the home of the legendary Bomba the Jungle Boy. He just doesn't like white folks trapping or killing his animal friends as a matter of general principle.

Between the two of these facts, white trappers Morris Ankrum and Douglas Kennedy haven't a chance. Especially Kennedy whose hubris gets the better of him. It's always interesting in these B films how the villains never know when to quit.

Johnny Sheffield is allowed a little puppy love here in the person of Ann E. Todd who is also Ankrum's daughter. She's checking the well built Sheffield out, but he's got his mind on his animals.

The Lion Hunters never gets off the Monogram back lot with plenty of stock jungle footage supporting a hackneyed plot.

I already said it yesterday, when you have seen a BOMBA movie, you have seen all of them. But it's not a default, it's charming, enchanted, naive, fun, agreeable to watch if you watch them with the "proper" eyes. The topics are all close to nature, animal defense, against colonialism, the villains are most of the time White ones, as in any Tarzan or Jungle Jim feature. You like it or don't. No locations, only celluloid jungle and many footage stock shots about animals. You can easily see a jungle setting and the next scene you are deep into savannah.... You see a gorilla in the forest just before seeing an elephant in thee bush, or even a giraffe.....But that belong to the charm of this film series, firget any realism. It is destined to kids, adult kids. Or kids adults. Ford Beebe was a serial director and then westerns and adventures B pictures. He had no ambition but good skills with a camera.

After he grew too old to play 'Boy' in the Tarzan movies, Johnny Sheffield wound up in this Monogram cheapie series based on the Bomba books/cartoon strip. In this one he is joined by Ann Todd, who had also been a child actor, as the ingénue, playing the daughter of a lion trapper.

For a Monogram movie there is a potentially interesting message about ecology: that it is simply not right to trap lions and keep them in cages. Of course, there is no real philosophy behind it in this movie. But there are hints of.... well, something. Bomba and the natives speak broken English at all times, but they have a sense of dignity and honor.

All in all, a silly, cheap movie, but I enjoyed it for the animals. Not only at least two lions, but a hawk, a monkey and folks walking around in pith helmets. Not to mention the funky hats the natives wear.

Another corny Bomba tale has our hero, Johnny Sheffield, rescuing some great white hunters after they mistakenly kill some lions on sacred Masai burial grounds. As with most of the Bomba films, they are even more racist in their depiction of native African people than the much derided Tarzan films, and which is again the case with "The Lion Hunters." The only thing to set this Bomba entry apart from others is the presence of the great Woody Strode (credited as Woodrow Strode) in a before-he-was-famous role playing a tribal warrior.

It's Bomba the Jungle Boy (Johnny Sheffield). He's playing with the lions when he spots an injured male which has been shot by hunters. Bomba is forced to do a mercy kill. He confronts the Maasai but they insist that it's not them. Tom Forbes and his daughter Jean meet up with his partner Marty Martin who is trapping and killing animals.

I like the animal-friendly message of this movie although there is some animal-unfriendly lion wrestling. No matter how unfriendly, it is still impressive stunt work. The native people are not simpletons or unthinking savages. They actually have a big part in the plot. It may not be modern or that good but it is as good as Bomba movies get.

Many of the MGM Tarzan films were exceptionally good and well made. Wanting to cash in on the studio's success, many lesser production companies also made similar films, though with a fraction of the budget or attention to details. Most of these Tarzan and Tarzan-like films from other studios stink when you see them today. Too often, the films are filled with poorly integrated stock footage and silly acting...and Monogram Studio's "The Lion Hunters" is really no exception.

The story involves an expedition which has come to the jungle to trap lions. Unfortunately, the trapper they have hired, Marty, has zero regard for the animals or the locals. When Bomba the Jungle Boy finds a dying lion which Marty shot, he demands the folks leave and never return. Naturally, they don't just leave...otherwise the film would last only about 10 minutes!

There are several awful things about the film. First, too often the flick relies on stock footage that obviously doesn't match the film stock. Some include non-African animals (such as alligators) ad the footage of the guy fighting the gator is OBVIOUSLY not the actor!! There also is the god-awful use of rear-projection--and it's so obvious that Johnny Sheffield (Bomba) is no where near any adult lions! And, speaking of Sheffield, I never understood having a guy who speaks much like any American high school student playing a guy raised in the jungle! He's also pretty stiff and lacks charisma....making the film a bit of a chore to watch.

By the way, at one point in the film Bomba tells a girl that the baby lions need the male lions to provide food for them and hunt for the pride. Well, Bomba, it doesn't generally work that way. Female lions do the 'lion's share' of the hunting while males often lie about and do nothing to provide meat for the rest of them.

THE LION HUNTERS (Monogram, 1951), directed and screenplay by Ford Beebe, based on the character created by Roy Rockwood in the "Bomba" books, stars Bomba, the Jungle Boy as portrayed by Johnny Sheffield. An average production and fifth entry to the "Bomba" franchise, its not only routine material but the longest (82 minutes) in the series.

Rather than the usual camera tracking opening of animals and jungle scenery, the story immediately introduces Bomba (Johnny Sheffield), followed by his playing with some baby cubs as observed by its mother. Moments later at a distance, Bomba finds the father lion shot and near death. To prevent it from suffering, Bomba sadly puts a spear to him. He then goes about to find the one responsible. At first he believes it to be one of the Masai tribe, until, after communicating with animals in their own language, finds there's a jungle expedition consisting of Forbes (Morris Ankrum), his teenage daughter, Jean (Ann Todd), Jonas (Smoki Whitfeield), the guide, and Martin (Douglas Kennedy) with permit to capture lions to sell. As the lions are captured and caged, Bomba releases them one by one, much to the chagrin of the money hungry Martin. During the course of time, Bomba befriends Jean, who's unable to get Martin to give up on his lion hunt. As Martin tricks Chief Walu (Woodrow Strode), leader of the Masai tribe, to capture the lions for him, he also intends on killing Bomba for continuously getting in his way. Robert Davis as Lobu is also in the cast.

With Bomba befriending former teenage actresses of the 1940s now past their prime in earlier entries as Peggy Ann Garner, Allene Roberts and Sue England, Ann Todd (usually billed as Ann E. Todd) becomes a sort of love interest for the jungle boy for this entry. Her acting at times is sort of lame, but as usual, its the villain, played by Douglas Kennedy, who gathers the most attention. Though Bomba's communication with animals may seem far-fetched to contemporary viewers, its gets by in its comic book sort of way on how he could get information to and from them. Some good scenery and action scene (notably Bomba's fight with a vicious lion), but other than that, standard Bomba material.

Available on DVD, THE LION HUNTERS turns up occasionally on Turner Classic Movies where its been showing since August 2010. Next in the series: AFRICAN TREASURE (1952). (** lion cubs)

These movies were made for kids back when kids had decent role models to look up to. Bomba was a gentle young man with the right attitude and the right morals to show kids. Not like today's 'heroes' that kill and maim and blow up everything and drive cars along the streets like every one else is a stunt driver on the road.

I would much rather live in Bomba's world than today's world. It is too bad that times changed, for the worse, and these kind of movies ended. Like with the "B" western movies, we always knew who the good guy was and what he stood for and in the end he showed us all that the right way is the best way and always produces winners.

With Johnny Sheffield's smile and gentle way of talking, it is a shame that he ended his movie career, but he did much better with the money he made from these movies to build his future. He wasn't just a boy raised in the jungle with animals after all.

Hunters are trapping and killing lions in Bomba's jungle. Bomba has feelings on this. Fifth entry in Monogram's series is pretty weak with an especially talkative Bomba this time around. The pluses are the animals, particularly the lions, and Sheffield's earnest performance. Morris Ankrum and Douglas Kennedy play the lion hunters. Kennedy is the heavy, which was hardly new territory for him. Ankrum's the nicer one. Ann E. Todd plays his tomboyish daughter who takes a liking to Bomba and vice versa. This was Todd's final movie before an early retirement. Woody Strode appears briefly as a native. This is a fairly standard Bomba movie. Which is to say it's an unremarkable B jungle adventure for kids. Still, a decent time-passer on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Lion Hunters, The (1951)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The fifth of twelve films in Monogram's "Bomba, The Jungle Boy" series, which Ford Beebe featured Johnny Sheffield as Bomba but he's probably still best remembered for playing Boy in the original MGM Tarzan series. In this entry Bomba is saddened when he comes across a lion that has been seriously wounded and must be put to rest. Soon Bomba learns that lion trappers are in the area and he must try and convince them that lions were meant to be free in the jungle. This is the first entry in the series that I've seen so I can't judge the entire thing but this movie here was pretty bad from start to finish. There's no doubt that this thing was meant to be a poor man's Tarzan and I'm going to guess that they did pretty well at the box office for so many films to be made but that doesn't mean we get quality. The biggest problem is the screenplay, which for an adventure film doesn't contain too much excitement. For the most part Bomba simply talks and talk and then talks some more about how lions are friendly creatures and that they should be left alone. It goes without saying but the talk of lions being nice creatures made for a few laughs as did many of the special effects including an embarrassing sequence towards the end when Bomba and his lady love are stuck in a tree with a lion jumping up at them. The fake claw being used to poke at them was downright hilarious as were some of the other effects when men are fighting the lions. Another problem are the performances with Sheffield coming off extremely bland in the role. He's certainly trying to recapture what Johnny Weissmuller did with Tarzan but the poor guy doesn't come close. He just doesn't contain enough energy to really be interesting and the screenplay certainly doesn't do him any favors. Douglas Kennedy pretty much steals the film as the crazed hunter as he's so over the top during certain scenes that you can't help but laugh. Ann E. Todd plays the love interest and is absolutely horrible. The early scenes she's acting as if she's a 12-year-old girl, which is rather confusing since she is playing an adult. The way she talks and tries to carry herself is just downright annoying to watch. Woody Strode has a brief role as one of the natives. As bas as this movie is, I'll admit to being a completest so I'll check out the other eleven as soon as they appear on TCM but I'm certainly hoping for better.