one of my absolute favorites!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

"Panther Girl of the Congo" is one of the last serial turned out by "the serial factory", Republic Pictures. At this time studios were turning out films about over sized or mutant creatures. This one deals with an over-sized (now get this) craw fish.Mad scientist Dr. Morgan (Arthur Space) is creating mutant craw fish in order to frighten the local natives away so that he and his cronies, Cass (John Day) and Rand (Mike Ragan) can mine diamonds from an abandoned mine. International Wildlife Federation Representative Jean Evans (Phyllis Coates) is filming wildlife in the jungle when she comes upon one of the mutant creatures. Evans summon hunter/guide Larry Sanders (Myron Healey) for assistance.Over 12 chapters, the pair escape life threatening situations each chapter as they battle with the bad guys. For some reason Evans is called Panther Girl. We don't actually see a panther in the story except at the end of each chapter. What we do see is the fetching Ms. Coates in a micro mini skirted costume each time she goes into the jungle. She swings across the jungle on vines in sequences I'm sure I've seen in other Republic serials. She also gets to ride an elephant from time to time and battle a rubber crocodile as well..It was refreshing for me to see long time western villain Healey in a leading role. This may have been his only starring role. Space, Day an Ragan make formidable villains. Oddly enough neither the heroes or villains can hit the broad side of a barn with their rifles. Although the Lydecker Brothers do their best with the monsters, I can't help but wonder why a rogue panther wasn't considered as the, pardon the expression, elephant in the room.Not one of their best but still a competently made serial nonetheless.

Most criticisms of this serial are valid. The pace in the middle episodes slows down to a crawl. It relies on cheap special effects and stock footage, and it's padded with "flashbacks" to previous episodes. So why did I give it 7 out of 10 stars? Two words: Phyllis Coates. She is to my mind one of the sexiest Jungle Girls ever in her tailored buckskin leopard belted mini dress (an exact duplicate of Frances Gifford's outfit in "Jungle Girl")It's not a matter of looks alone. The Panther Girl is a different kind of Jungle Girl, not a mysterious goddess of some lost world or a waif growing up in the wilds.She is a career woman with a real job. She is a cinematographer of wild animals. A feisty, hard nosed business woman. Absolutely fearless, she can swing through the trees like Tarzan, swim like a fish, run like a gazelle, and dispatch dangerous predators with gun or knife. And you know at the end she will make a well deserved profit selling her footage of the "Claw Monsters". And why not? She is an example of capitalism at its best. She risks her life to save the jungle from the dastardly villains and is entitled to a profit. She is a prototype of the modern woman but feminine enough to accept the help of her stalwart friend played by WW2 vet Myron Healy. If they do develop a romantic relationship you know it would be as equals. A few caveats. I would not try to watch it straight through. A couple of episodes a night might be best, and have the fast forward button ready for some of the middle episodes.

Despite the title, this is a guy show more than anything else, if I remember correctly, Panther Girl is the only girl in it, all the other characters, or cartoon figures, are male. There is no characterisation in the whole run of the serial, every word is spoken to advance the story, only in the final frame of the last chapter does someone make a jaw-dropping bit of non-plot driven talk. But that is not a negative comment on this serial.I actually like the no non-sense way this serial, and other serials, present themselves (Irwin Allen's The Time Tunnel would later copy this all the way).The claw monster in this serial was created by the Lydecker brothers, and one of the Lydeckers - Howard - would be associated (with LB Abbott) in the effects for TV's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea...a series that featured many miniature and full scale monsters, with or without a claw.Panther Girl is a fine serial, and when seen in full on video in 1997 it was a knockout, but beware of repeat viewings, for some reason this serial does not go over too well when you look too close.

Jean Evans, known in the jungles of Africa as the Panther Girl, is filming wildlife when she encounters what appears to be a giant crawfish in the jungles, which frightens the natives. The monster is the creation of chemist Morgan who has been feeding crawfish growth hormones. The reason for this is that Morgan has discovered a diamond mine, and with his two henchmen Cass and Rand, want to drive out the natives so they can work the mine unknown to everyone. Jean calls in her friend Larry Sanders, a big game hunter, to destroy the claw monster, but they also have to tackle Cass, Rand, and whatever idea Morgan can come up with to stop them. This is not a bad serial considering the era of the serials in 1955, but the serial seems flat and the performances only fair. Only when does the serial splice in footage from Jungle Girl does the serial seem to take on any life. The claw monster idea was probably novel in 1955 since there were plenty of mutated monster flicks at the time. Rating, based on serials, 4.