Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

As you can guess from the cover and title, Nabonga is about a man in a gorilla suit named "Samson." A plane crashes in the jungle with stolen jewels and securities. Doreen, a Shirley Temple clone, survives the crash and lives until adulthood becoming a gorilla whisperer. She has become a legend as "the white witch." Buster Crabbe, sometimes known a "Bwana" looks for the treasure as bad guys follow him.Doreen (Julie London) as an adult living in the jungle has smooth silky white skin without a scratch, like most real live Hollywood Jungle women. The film I watched was restored, at least the part filmed on a set. The stock footage, films from the jungles in Africa...and around the world, was edited into the film at random points. It wasn't restored that well.The film is camp nostalgia. The end included a plea to buy war bonds and stamps.

NABONGA is just a low-budget gorilla adventure from PRC Pictures, but it offers a good story, more African wildlife shots than most Tarzan movies, and a reasonable level of sex appeal. At 75 minutes, the movie is never dull; and it matters not that Nabonga is an actor in a gorilla suit -- because audiences allowed some slack if the story was good. This rates a solid 7/10, if not better.Contrast this with Peter Jackson's overblown, miserable, and downright stupid 2006 gorilla movie --- that cost in excess of $100 million --- and was dying fast at the box office (per word-of-mouth) two weeks after its release. Jackson's movie had no entertainment value at all.Some say that Nabonga was the inspiration to the 1950 "Mighty Joe Young" --- a truly excellent classic made by the same skilled people that made the 1933 "King Kong". I'd say, not quite. "Nabonga" is a much slimmer story.You can rent Nabonga + Swamp Fire from Netflix, or buy a DVD for about $2.00 on eBay or elsewhere. Worth your time and money.

I was all ready to strap myself in for the ride, but you know what, once the story got going it didn't turn out to be too bad. It reminded me a little of 1949's "Mighty Joe Young" without the production values, and quite possibly a more notable cast.The story opens with the ill fated plane flight of a wanted embezzler who escapes the authorities with his ten year old daughter in tow. With a tropical storm raging, the plane goes down in an African jungle. Even though the pilot and his two passengers survive, embezzler Stockwell (Herbert Rawlinson) is taking no chances after his cash and jewels are noticed by the flier; and then there were two. Shortly after getting situated, young Doreen Stockwell goes on a jungle foray and discovers a wounded gorilla.It's left to the viewer's imagination to piece things together as the film fast forwards unannounced to a period some years later when Ray Gorman (Buster Crabbe) arrives, curious to discover the facts behind the legend of a 'great white witch'. His servant Tobo (Prince Modupe) lends testimony to the tale of a witch born of a big bird that fell from the sky. Gorman and Tobo go in search of the 'house with wings' and the missing treasure. Adding intrigue to the adventure is the presence of mercenary Carl Hurst (Barton MacLane), who sets out to follow Gorman and cash in on the treasure trove himself, along with an accomplice named Marie (Fifi D'Orsay).I got a kick out of the scene where Tobo saves Gorman by shooting a leopard about to attack; Gorman expresses his wonder at Tobo's ability to read the jungle. Tobo's response - "When you live in jungle all your life, you know these things". Yet in the very next scene, Tobo follows Gorman as both swim across a crocodile infested river! Actually, Tobo's character is handled in rather dignified fashion given the era, when blacks often were portrayed as foils or in subservient roles. Gorman in fact treated his guide with respect and was willing to trust his judgment, and their relationship pretty much got along as equals.The casting coup of the film definitely has to be that of Julie London as the adult white witch Doreen. It was London's first film role, and even though she doesn't sing, she really doesn't have to. It was almost comical to observe her repeated 'I really like you' conversations with Buster Crabbe's character, who managed to miss all the signals. In that regard, the intrepid explorer was a total klutz.I saw this movie under the title "Nabonga Gorilla", which is a bit curious since Doreen's playmate is called Samson, and the name only shows up in the credits with a different spelling - 'Nbongo'. There it states that the part of the gorilla was played by Nbongo, though film fans will easily recognize the name of Ray "Crash" Corrigan as the man in the monkey suit. In ape circles, Corrigan came to be known by many names, including Zamba, Konga, Bonga, and my personal favorite - White Pongo. I wonder if he got to keep the gorilla costume.

I've just watched Nabonga for the first time and quite enjoyed it, despite its rather low budget.An aeroplane with a girl and her dad on board plus the pilot crash lands in Africa into a jungle. Her dad has some treasure with him so he shoots the pilot and disappears some years later, leaving his daughter alone. But she has been "adopted" by a gorilla, (a man in a monkey suit) Nabonga, although she calls him Samson. A small party, including Ray Gorman looking for the treasure eventually finds it and the girl and after Nabonga fights another gorilla (another man in a monkey suit), he kills somebody else who is also after the treasure along with a woman. After that, Gorman and the now grown up Doreen plan to return to America.The cast includes Buster Crabbe (Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers), singer Julie London and Barton MacLane (Unknown Island, The Maltese Falcon).This movie is certainly worth watching if you get the chance. Great fun.Rating: 3 stars out of 5.