CAPTIVE GIRL (1950)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

CAPTIVE GIRL breaks with that "tradition," for it only has one female in it, though as she's dressed in a leopardskin one-piece, she may make a more positive impression.  Played by swimming champion Anita Lhoest, who never made another film, she's not a "Sheena"-style fighter but she does have a pet tiger that comes to her aid.  In addition, since she was orphaned by one of the film's villains and has the usual jungle-upbringing, she seems to have a slight rapport with the animals, though the tiger is the only one who obeys her.  The title makes no sense because she spends most of her film-time running around free.

In place of two babes, CAPTIVE gives the viewer two villains of note.  One is Buster Crabbe, who played Tarzan in a 1933 serial, just one year after "Jungle Jim" star Johnny Weismuller made his fame by playing the ape man in the MGM film-series.  The two "ape men," who were both swimming stars in their youth, naturally have a climactic battle underwater, but it's a pretty desultory battle.  I got more entertainment out of seeing long-time B-film badguy John Dehner as "Hakim," the guy responsible for orphaning the jungle girl.  He's dressed up in witch-doctor garb and colored in "brownface"-- supposedly because he's some sort of Arab-- but the actor projects a nice aura of menace despite it all.  The villains are both after a sunken treasure connected to the old sacrificial rites of Hakim's tribe, and as usual Jungle Jim represents the role of the progressive colonist, trying to turn the heathens away from the old ways.  It isn't much, but it gives the story a little more heft than the threadbare MARK OF THE GORILLA.