good back-story, and good acting

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The dog tags of a Woman's Army Corps officer are found in the jungle along with a few other items by our hero Jungle Jim with the body of a dead pygmy. Our government has taken an interest in finding and maybe rescuing Ann Savage because with those dog tags is a piece of rope made of a substance grown only in the jungle. It's strong and it doesn't burn. Of course there are other and unfriendly governments also interested and in 1950 that could only mean the Commies though they are never identified by name. In the film that would be Steven Geray and William Tannen who want to find Savage for their own nefarious purposes.So it's Johnny Weissmuller and David Bruce for our side and Geray and Tannen for the bad guys going to look for Savage in pygmy country. A lot of stock jungle footage, an elephant stampede, and Jungle Jim battling a gorilla or a guy in a gorilla suit in unconvincing fashion.When the Jungle Jim series ended, Weissmuller took the series to television where it was better suited. Still it only lasted a season there.With King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen on the horizon, the movie going public would little tolerate films like Pygmy Island. It's not tolerable now.

Instead of some tired old jungle footage, this one starts off with a really ancient disappearing scientist montage (no offscreen narration whatever until Selmer Jackson introduces Jungle Jim via a flashback). All the same, this should have been one of the better entries in the series: The pygmies could have been colorful. The introductory shots of the bush devils show promise and Ann Savage should have been an interesting heroine. Instead she is totally colorless and ranks as one of the dullest in the entire series. The climax, despite some exploding firecrackers is tame and the other main action highlights such as the underwater fight with the croc and the tangle with the phony gorilla on the bridge have obviously been lifted from the stock library. Fortunately, Steve Geray makes a superior villain – in the process of which – with seemingly casual ease – he puts every other member of the cast – and most especially Johnny W. – distinctly in the shade! Incidentally, Selmer Jackson plays the Commissioner in my credits, but maybe he's also an army officer at the Pentagon?

I can't believe it's been five years already, but that's when I last went on a Jungle Jim movie blitz, having sat through nine of these epics. I have to say, my timing is incredible because Turner Classics is running a Saturday noon-time gig of Johnny Weissmuller's jungle adventures at the present time. I only became aware of it today, but as luck would have it, I've seen the first four in the series, and today they were showing the fifth, "Pygmy Island". It was a bit of a hoot to see Turner host Ben Mankiewicz offering a scholarly intro to this flick because let's face it, these movies are terrible in almost all respects, but they're such a blast I plan on catching all the ones I haven't seen yet.So right off the bat, you have to wonder about the title of this picture. Unless I'm mistaken, there was no island, and if one were to assume this story took place in Africa, a lost tribe of white pygmies would have been bigger news than the missing female Army Captain (Ann Savage) at the center of the story. Ann Kingsley is the government's top expert in plant chemical research, and she's hot on the trail of the nagoma plant that has properties that can produce a virtually indestructible rope. But so are those dreaded Nazi-like foreign agents who have their eye on the same prize.Apparently Hollywood kept a reserve supply of midget actors on hand for pictures requiring their talents, as the entire cast of "The Wizard of Oz" seems to have shown up here in loincloth to portray the pygmy tribe. Their leader Makuba was none other than Billy Curtis, better known to film fans a couple decades later as the only citizen of Lago to befriend Clint Eastwood's Stranger in "High Plains Drifter". I also had to do a double take to figure out who his friend Kimba was, good old Billy Barty. Check him out and tell me if he doesn't look like a miniature version of Huntz Hall.Well your usual jungle antics are on display here, as Jungle Jim wrestles a rubber crocodile, survives an elephant stampede, and manages to escape a fierce but comical looking gorilla atop a wooden bridge strung across a high gorge. Later on, he's kidnapped by the bad guys after being pulled from quicksand fighting one of the enemy. Did you notice they used the barrel end of a rifle to do that? How safe do you think that was? Speaking of that gorilla, I think another reviewer had it right, that had to be Crash Corrigan in the monkey suit.You know, I wish I could have been around to be with this bunch filming a picture like this. Can you imagine how sloshed they must have gotten every night trying to forget what they just put on film. But boy, I'm glad these pictures survived, because who would have ever believed it.

Pygmy Island (1950) ** (out of 4) The fifth film in the series has Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) helping rescue a woman (Ann Savage) who went into the jungle and never returned. It turns out that a group of white men are racing against the government trying to locate a mysterious rope that can't burn and this here starts up a war with a group of midgets led by Makuba (Billy Curtis). If you're expecting any type of "quality" from a Jungle Jim movie then you're going to be disappointed. I'm sure kids back in the day were thrilled and terrified to see Jungle Jim fight a rubber alligator but when seen today you can't help but view it as nothing more than camp. What's shocking is that they were able to squeeze out sixteen of these films and their quality might not have ever gotten too high but the camp value is usually there. The actual story here is certainly better than some of the entries in the series as the groups are trying to locate this mysterious plant, which will allow them to make a fireproof rope. All is good as we get several fights, an elephant stampede, crocodiles attacking and we get the highlight involving a large gorilla. In the film's best scene Jungle Jim and his friendly chimp are crossing one of those bridges that connect two cliffs and of course there's a long fall to your death if you go over the side. When Jim gets over the bridge he's attacked by a large gorilla (man in a suit of course) and their battle is downright hilarious. Seeing Weissmuller having to fight a gorilla is worth sitting through the entire film. As you'd expect, the performances are all bland to bad with Weissmuller showing that he was more image than acting talent. Savage appears to be asking yourself what she's doing in this type of film but at least Curtis is fun as the midget leader. At 69-minutes the film still seems way too long but if you're into these types of "B" movies then you might find this one a tad bit better than some but at the same time that's really not saying much.