mark.waltz For somebody living topless in the African jungle, Johnny Sheffield is pretty pale. This curly haired young man is certainly no boy, having grown up on screen as the son of Tarzan. With that series over (at least in its original conception), Sheffield was contracted for a series of his own. It is an enjoyable revamp of Tarzan under a new name with a new version of Jane, played here by Academy Award winner Peggy Ann Garner who has risen from child star herself to a decent young actress, and the adventures he takes her on are very enlightening for a civilized girl who learns that her society laws and rules of survival are often ruthless and a fight against God's law.Sheffield doesn't really have to act, just pose with his muscle bound arms and beefy chest, and grunt in his character's limited English. Sheffield comes across the lost Garner and tries to help her get back to her father Onslow Stevens, who may not be as grateful as he should be, having earlier nipped Sheffield's shoulder with a bullet. Sheffield proceeds to put Garner up near his cave, and a very subtle romance begins to emerge from their initially rocky introduction. Several dangerous elements emerge including a frightening attack by locusts who are definitely more than just your every day grasshopper. Obviously made for younger audiences, this is sort of a Blue Lagoon of jungle movies, yet avoids the insinuations of anything going on other than one person helping another although a few moments drop subtle hints that add a few laughs. Stock footage of old African documentaries mixes well with the newly shot footage. Adorable monkeys of all sorts provide even more giggles, especially one chimpanzee who tries on Garner's undergarments. The story is preposterous, but it's so gently done and enjoyable. While the days of the B movie would be soon over, the remaining years would produce a few more series like this, quota quickies, yet perfect fare for the entertainment starved public.

raysond In 1949,Monogram Pictures(also known as Allied Artists)released the first of 12 Bomba movies starring Johnny Sheffield,who played the character of "Boy" opposite Johnny Weissmuller and also Maureen O'Sullivan in eight "Tarzan" films, was chosen under Producer Walter Mirisch to star as Bomba. At the time this movie came out,Johnny Weissmuller was gone as "Tarzan",after 12 films to star in the "Jungle Jim" movies for Columbia Pictures,while newcomer Lex Barker,replaced him as the new "Tarzan" in five movies while Maureen O'Sullivan went into semi-retirement.Veteran director Ford Beebe,a "B" picture veteran whose speciality was mostly action-adventure films and also movie serials,was hired as director/writer for the series. In all,Beebe directed all 12 Bomba pictures that were released between 1949 and 1955. Owing more to the Tarzan film series than the children's books they claimed to based on,the Bomba movies were made on a shoestring budget with predictable plots that rely on stock jungle footage.The first of the series,"Bomba:The Jungle Boy",released in 1949 was a basic standard fare,more or less aimed as a children's matinée attraction. In this first outing,a photographer and his daughter arrive in Africa hoping to capture the local wildlife on film. Instead,they encounter(and never photographed)a killer leopard,a swarm of locusts,deadly lion worshippers and to the rescue to save them and protect them from the deadly encounters of the jungle comes Bomba the Jungle Boy! All of these within its 70 minute running time. Most of scenes involved the photographer's daughter(wearing a well-tailored leopard's skin)spends most of the movie with Bomba while her father and his assistant search for her.As for Producer Walter Mirisch,after the success of the "Bomba" pictures,along with his brothers,formed there own company The Mirisch Corporation. The Mirisch Corporation,and under the powers that be at United Artists,produced some of the biggest hits ever to come out of Hollywood during the era. Films like "The Magnificent Seven", "The Apartment","West Side Story","The Great Escape","The Pink Panther",and "In The Heat of the Night",just to name a few. However,Producer Walter Mirisch won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1961 for "West Side Story",and again in 1967 for Best Picture of "In The Heat of the Night".

bkoganbing Johnny Sheffield who had grown too old to play Boy in the Tarzan films got a nice break from Monogram Pictures and was able to extend his career with the Bomba The Jungle Boy series of films. Like Tarzan, Bomba grows up in the jungle and in fact this film bears no small resemblance to Tarzan, the Ape Man.Bomba's Jane is in the person of former child star Peggy Ann Garner who is a visiting photographer with her father Onslow Stevens. She gets separated from Stevens and enjoys an idyll of sorts with Bomba who is more articulate than those early Weissmuller Tarzans.The only other regular in the Bomba series is Commissioner Andy Barnes who is a glorified game warden here and played by Charles Irwin. In later films Barnes would be played by Leonard Mudie.Some stock jungle footage is integrated nicely into the film, better I would say than a lot of the Tarzan films done at RKO at the same time with Lex Barker. Not a bad beginning for the series.

Michael_Elliott Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949) ** (out of 4) When MGM decided to take their Tarzan series into a different direction, Johnny Weissmuller headed to Columbia to start the Jungle Jim series while his son, Boy, went to Monogram and began production on another Tarzan rip- off, Bomba, which would end up running for twelve films. The series opener has Pat Harland (Peggy Ann Garner) and her father (Onslow Stevens) are in Africa trying to take photos of some rare animals when she ends up in the jungle lost. Soon Bomba (Sheffield) shows up to show her some of the finer, less appreciated things in life. There's no question that this series should have been called TARZAN, JR. and there's no question that what brain cells the MGM series had are pretty much gone here. This isn't a horrible movie but at the same time it's doubtful too many are going to find it completely entertaining and this is due to several factors. One is that the screenplay really doesn't offer us anything new, original or really all that entertaining. I thought for the most part we got one boring sequence after another and in fact it takes nearly thirty-minutes before Bomba shows up, another ten-minutes for any sort of action and it takes yet another fifteen-minutes before Garner finally gets into her leopard-skinned outfit. As with the Tarzan films and the countless other rips, this film gets the benefit of many stock footage shots of the wildlife in Africa. We get to see a wide range of animals but it's obvious the footage was shot for other movies as it looks quite poor and even for stock footage the stuff isn't that good because the shots are so far away from the target and out of focus that at times you struggle to even tell what you're looking at. For some reason the film is pretty light on action as there are only a few fight sequences and even these are pretty tame. The first time Bomba fights a fake leopard it all happens off camera. The one saving grace to the film are the performances. Sheffield does a nice job playing the lead character and Garner adds up some nice support. The two feature some nice chemistry together and fans of HOUSE OF Dracula will enjoy seeing Stevens in his part. At just 70-minutes the movie goes by at a decent pace but it's just too bad they didn't try something fresh or original to throw a little life into the picture.