A little set-to on Facebook regarding Nabonga, a 1944 gorilla flick that marked singer/film star Julie London’s maiden voyage on the silver screen, prompted fellow Bright Lights Film Journal dude C. Jerry Kutner1 to challenge me to a review. Well, with this, that, and the other thing, including pushing forward a new novel to publication (STAY TUNED!), it’s taken me a couple of weeks to set fingers to the keys, but here goes.
It would be nice to report that Nabonga is a delicious piece of neglected B-movie kitsch, but, sadly, that’s far from the truth. Nabonga, I must confess, is nothing more, or less, than minor Buster Crabbe. Major Buster Crabbe, of course, is the more than legendary 1936 serial, Flash Gordon,2 but this ain’t that. Nabonga is a poorly shot, poorly paced, one-hour, “jungle” movie, stuffed with aimless stock footage and guys in lame “gorilla” outfits, of which the best that can be said is that it isn’t that racist.
Julie does have a major role, as a “white witch” who rules over the jungle, but, as white jungle witches go, her act is pretty tame, so it can also be said that the film isn’t that sexist.
Buster (remember him?) is the hero, naturally, a “bwana,”3 who knows the real backstory for Julie (her father was a thief, who stole jewels and such, absconding with the loot and his little girl, leaving Buster’s father to take the rap, and then crashing in, yes, “darkest Africa”). At the jumping off point for his one-man expedition, Buster arouses the suspicions of slimy white trader Carl Hurst (Barton MacLane), who sics temptress Marie (Fifi D’Orsay)4 on Buster. “Remember, this is business!” he warns her. “Sometimes, business can be a pleasure,” she replies, in what is easily the best line of the picture.
Meanwhile, virtuous Buster saves the life of Tobo (played by an actual African who went by the name of Prince Modupe), who naturally must “serve” Buster in recompense for the rest of his days. Buster, to his credit, proves a good bwana, saving Tobo from a crocodile in a “thrilling” water sequence,5 and, even more remarkably, insists on doing his “fair share” of the scut work, taking the machete away from Tobo and cutting a path for them both through the jungle, swinging the big knife like a brother. Carl and Marie follow, determined to grab the loot they suspect Buster is searching for.
Eventually, we finally arrive at the lair of the white witch, where Julie lives in a sort of gorilla-guarded Garden of Eden, surrounded by orchids and cute monkeys. When Buster shows up, she hits him with never seen a man before lines like “You can sleep right here beside me,” for a salary that was surely even lower than Gal Gadot’s.6
When Carl and Marie show up, I was sort of hoping that Nabonga (he’s the gorilla) would settle Carl’s hash, while Marie and Julie would have a little “jungle girl meets bad girl” set to, but that doesn’t happen.7 Instead, Nabonga kills off everyone except Buster and Julie, which wraps up the plot pretty neatly (with, naturally, a minimum of gore). As I said, minor Buster Crabbe.
Afterwords
For major Julie London, check out this excellent “Ultimate Fan Site”.
- Jerry’s BL articles are here. He maintains a separate site dedicated to the work of science fiction artist Richard M. Powers ↩︎
- You can see an excellent, fan-edited, two-hour version of the 13 episodes (which ran for a total of four hours), cutting out all the standard repetition, here ↩︎
- Meaning “boss”, Swahili, from Arabic abuna our father, according to Merriam-Webster. ↩︎
- Fifi worked in film and TV from 1929 until the early sixties, but never made it big. The highlight of her career came in 1933, when she played Bing Crosby’s mistress in Going Hollywood, introducing him to absinthe, among other things, though Bing prissily discards her in the end for Marion Davies. ↩︎
- Crabbe was an Olympic champion swimmer, and, like another Olympic champion, Johnny Weismuller, Crabbe also played Tarzan, though, sadly, Johnny’s Tarzan flicks were A pics, while Buster’s one outing as the ape man was in an embarrassingly low budget serial, Tarzan the Fearless. ↩︎
- Gal apparently only got $300,000 for Wonder Woman. Considering the importance of Gal’s magnificent face, throat, and shoulders to the success of that film, $30 million would have been more appropriate, though hardly generous. ↩︎
- Yes, it would have been wrong, but it would have been fun as well. ↩︎
