Memorable, crazy movie

Awesome Movie

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Sam Newfield, director of White Pongo, had a long and productive career, spanning from the mid-1920s to the mid-1960s. Averaging 3-4 films per year (a total of 7 in 1951), he apparently did not have a great deal of time to waste with art, script refinement, and cinematography. His most well-known films achieve a relatively high rating here on IMDb (4), and are all within the horror genre (e.g. Dead Men Walk), but he did occasionally branch out into Sci-Fi (Lost Continent) and made a decent number of respectable war and western films in the last ten years of his career. Although I have not seen many of Newfield's films, and remember even fewer, I am willing to wager that White Pongo is fairly representative of the lot.There are essentially two weakly developed plots. First - an expedition of upper crust white guys and a beautiful young woman are out in the jungle searching for a missing link (an albino gorilla whose only truly distinguishing characteristic is bad costuming). Since this plot had been done several times previously in equally bad films and the excellent King Kong, the screenwriter included a rather over-dramatic romantic quadrangle between the young lady, a privileged jerk to whom she is apparently betrothed, a decent young laborer, and - of course - the albino gorilla. Raymond Schrock, who had been writing for film since the teens gets the only credit I can give anybody in the production team for giving the actors something reasonable to work with. Schrock is an interesting character. Most of the films he was involved with are very obscure and difficult to find, but those which remain in the light seem to rate pretty highly here on IMDb. Sadly, White Pongo was made within the last five years of his career. and, in terms of plot, it's a very predictable, unoriginal, mess.The cinematography is fairly standard for the jungle adventure genre as it stood in the middle of the 20th century. In other words, it is quite limited by available technology and set problems. The directing exemplifies the term "pedestrian", and the acting, though uninspired, is not nearly as bad as might be expected from the largely unknown cast. Those interested in the history of African American participation in film may be interested to see activist actor Joel Fluellen playing an unfortunate stereotype "Mumbo Jumbo" in this film, and will appreciate the irony that the only two 'ethnic' actors in this film (Fluellen and Al Eban) outlasted the rest of the cast. Fluellen appeared in some fairly good roles in Oscar and Grammy nominated films late in his career. Best viewed with the aid of intoxicants and friends with good senses of humor. Otherwise - to be avoided.

I'd swear that half of these B jungle movies has the people getting from one place to another. If they aren't paddling down a river, they are walking up a hill or across a field. Native tribesmen follow, single file, saying nothing, carrying supplies on their heads. This one is about an effort to find a white gorilla, a clue to the missing link. In the safari are a couple of factions as we find out. There's a rifle man, who is quiet and mysterious (we find out later what he really is), a young woman who is being pursued by a man who loves her, but who has no character. There is upper class snobbery. There is a group of cutthroat mutineers who wish to take power. Then there are scenes of out and out racism. The gorillas are, as usual, men in bad monkey suits. Even back in those days, couldn't they have put together something a little more convincing. One of my childhood memories is watching this movie on our old Admiral TV and seeing this long haired white ape. I may be wrong, but I think the ape suit shows up in other places, including an episode of the old George Reeves "Superman" TV show. This was another jungle movie that was part of a science fiction collection. I suppose the missing link is borderline science fiction. Overall, pretty lame.

This is another story of a jungle expedition that runs across a legendary white ape that may or may not be the missing link. There has got to be five or six of these films floating around in the film vaults and everyone of them is a turkey or a close cousin.The problem here, as in almost every jungle movie, is that the gorillas look like what they are, men in suits. Worse if the fact that the suits are absolutely terrible and so unconvincing that anyone watching it is going to laugh rather than scream. This movie isn't too terrible, and is actually okay if you have a love of bad movies, especially ones that you can talk back to and make fun of. As these things go its not a movie that I' search out, but it is one that I'd put on if I was in need of some unintentional laughs.

One of many Poverty Row jungle films, this has to be one of the truly "so bad it's good" films of its era. A Chief Native Bearer named "Mumbo Jumbo" -- addressed by the other actors with a straight face! Pongo is a white gorilla, and one of the natives points to the ground and cries, "B'wana! B'wana! Pongo tracks!" Normal gorillas leave recognizably different tracks? Pressing through the jungle on their trek, they pass the same tree multiple times.I have a copy of the film on videotape. One of my favorite scenes was edited out of the print it was made from. The hero and heroine are drifting down the river on a boat. They're sitting in the moonlight, and Pongo is following the boat in the jungle, making quite a racket as he snaps small trees, hurls aside boulders, and rustles through the underbrush, to keep up with the boat. He's framed by the profiles of the hero and heroine, in the background. The hero looks deeply into the heroine's eyes and says, dreamily, "Quiet out here in the river, isn't it?" I hope the DVD has that one left in.This is not a great film, and all of its humorous scenes are intended to be serious. But because of that, it's a fun film.