SAFARI DRUMS (1953)

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

Unlike BOMBA AND THE JUNGLE GIRL, SAFARI DRUMS doesn't offer any characters as interesting as Baru, but it does return to the series' vaguely pro-ecological theme.  Rich Larry Conrad, a return to the "Ugly White Explorer" theme that launched the series, launches a safari into Commissioner Barnes' territory hoping to film exotic (read: violent) encounters with the local wildlife, for sale back in the States.  Barnes doesn't expect that Bomba will be sympathetic to Conrad and his party-- one of whom is young female assistant Peg-- but he sends a drum-message to Bomba anyway.  Bomba sends one back, essentially saying 'no."  Despite the prominence of "drums" in the title, they never play any role in the story greater than providing an exotic communication-system.

Conrad's party sets out without Bomba's guide-services, but two secrets accompany the safari.  After their departure Barnes learns one secret from local authorities, who tell Barnes that an unidentified murderer has apparently joined the safari.  This motivates Barnes to send a new message to Bomba, asking him to pose as the safari's guide and keep them busy until the local constabulary can overtake the caravan.  Bomba does so, and even uses his talent at calling animals to give the photographers more exotic subjects-- though with the stipulation that they can't needlessly shoot any of them.  When a trigger-happy fellow named Brad does shoot a lion, pretending to do so in self-defense, it's almost a given that he's going to be the killer.

Peg befriends Bomba and soon reveals the group's other secret: in one of the party's trucks Conrad's brought along a caged tiger.  Conrad plans to trap a lion and force it to fight the tiger in order to get exciting footage for the American audience.  Bomba refuses to help and deserts Conrad, yet tries to stay close to trap the killer and prevent the fight.  He's successful in the first respect but not in the last.  Apparently Monogram had access to some other film that staged a lion-tiger fight, and director Ford Beebe edited those scenes into this film, thus giving the audience the very sight that the script finds immoral.

The end is rather amusing.  Conrad, sheepish at having brought a killer along, confronts the local authorities, afraid that they might take his film away.  The colonials admit that there's no actual law against filming a lion-tiger fight-- not least because there are no tigers in Africa-- and permit him to keep his film.  However, Bomba's chimp friend Kimba intervenes with vigilante justice, exposing Conrad's film to sunlight and ruining Conrad's photographic epic.  The series doesn't always manage to dole out justice to its Ugly White (but non-criminal) Explorers, but SAFARI makes a happy exception.