This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Overrated

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The Tarzan films declined in quality significantly after Johnny Weissmuller left the series, and even poorer of quality knock-off/unofficial spin-off series about Bomba the Jungle Boy, played by Johnny Sheffield, who played "Boy" in the Weissmuller Tarzan films, represented an even further decline. Loads of stock footage, poorly done rear projection, and lousy looking backlot jungles make this series pretty weak. This particular entry finds Bomba fighting a dangerous black panther (I only with is was the 1960s activist kind or the Marvel Cinematic Universe kind, which would have made a much more interesting of film). Bomba also has to fight some stereotypically superstitious natives.

This second of the dozen films made in the Bomba series focuses on the search for an evil black panther believed through superstition to be an evil spirit. It's all because the white man is there, cutting down trees, angering the alleged jungle gods and bringing one to earth to possess the wildcat and get revenge. Another father and daughter team have come along to replace Onslow Stevens and Peggy Ann Garner, making this series quite different than the MGM Tarzan series which had started with an ensemble cast. Other than Johnny Sheffield and his pet monkey, the only other actor returning is Smoki Whitfield as the African native who continues to work along side the white man as guide and protector. Allene Roberts is the female lead here, the daughter of Harry Lewis whose desire for the lumber brings about the alleged curse. While Sheffield was busy protecting Garner in the first film, here he is much closer to his distant "cousin" Tarzan, once again swinging from trees and doing much more physically than he did in the plot heavy first film. This entry is enjoyable but standard B jungle fare, entertaining as far as Saturday matinees go, but often stagnant and definitely about a reel too long. It's obvious how this will end, and just barely passes muster as a minor diversion. The continued usage of stock footage provides thrills, but a bit of it was an obvious repeat of what was already used in the first film.

***SPOILERS*** Johnny Sheffield in his second Bomba movie as Bomba the Jungle Boy gets involved in a hot and steamy love triangle with pretty and sophisticated city girl Judy Maltland, Allene Roberts, and the sexy and ready for action French maid in the Maltland household Losana, Lita Baron. That has the jungle boy almost forget about the death of his jungle friend and pet monkey who was killed by a vicious black panther earlier in the film.It was after Bomba's pet monkey was killed by the panther that he swore to find the killer and meet out justice, jungle justice, to him. As it so happened the panther was on a murderous rampage killing a number of natives who were working for Judy's brother Robert, Harry Lewis, in building a plantation for him in the jungle that was in fact screwing up the balance of nature there. It was Robert's good friend local great white hunter Andy Barnes, Charles Irwin, who tried to get him to stop defoliating the jungle by setting it on fire and leaving the natives as well as animals there without a place to stay.We get to see a number of great jungle sock footage with leopards and cape buffaloes having it out with each other as well as a fight to the death between two crocodiles with a cape buffalo, as if it was a referee, stepping in to end ,with it's hoofs & horns, the conflict. That as usual in movies like this is about the most exciting scenes you could expect to see in the film. There's also Bomba being a bit confused in what exactly sexy Losana wants from him since he never went out on a date, with a girl that is, in his entire life by living in the jungle with his friends the monkeys and gorillas.***Spoilers*** In the end it's Robert's setting the jungle on fire that in fact brings the killer panther out in the open in having Bomba and Judy try to save themselves from the flames by hiding in the safety in a nearby cave. It's there when Bomba finally gets to confront the panther since that's where he made his home, when he wasn't out killing, away from home! Johnny Sheffield who looks like he could pass for star Boston Red Sox outfielder Jackie, "frear of flying", Jensen's twin brother comes of age, at age 18, in this movie by seeing that girls are a lot more fun and better to hang out with then the monkeys he's been swinging around with all these years. It's just too bad for him that the girls he wants to hang out with don't have the same talents that he does in being able, by swinging on jungle vines, to keep up with him.

Bomba On Panther Island is the one I remember best from watching the series in my childhood. Mainly because with the presence of Lita Baron in the cast the story came close to being adult.Johnny Sheffield is on a jungle island where brother and sister Harry Lewis and Allene Roberts hope to build a plantation. But on that same island is a black panther with a taste for killing humans. When the panther kills one of Bomba's little monkey friends he goes on a mission.There are two women admiring Bomba's physique in this one, Allene who is a good girl and Lita who is one sexy dish. In fact the closest sex ever came to this series was when Lita gives Bomba the come hither glance while at a jungle stream. If this had been an adult picture you better believe Bomba would have been putty in her hands. In the entire Bomba series there was never anyone else like Lita Baron in it. I think more than the kids will like Bomba On Panther Island.