A Pine-Thomas film, produced and released by Paramount Pictures. Copyright 1 February 1954 (in notice: 1953) by Paramount Pictures Corp. New York opening (flat) at the Palace: 12 February 1954. U.S. release: February 1954. U.K. release on the lower half of a double bill: April 1954. Australian release (flat): 11 March 1955. Sydney opening on a double bill at the Victory. 8,228 feet. 91 minutes. U.K. and Australian release title: LOST TREASURE OF THE AMAZON.
SYNOPSIS: A cool but not overbright beauty comes looking for her fiancé who is lost in the Amazon jungle.
NOTES: Paramount's last 3-D feature played flat in most situations, though it did have some 3-D showings in Britain and the U.S.A.
COMMENT: Not exactly one of the Most Boring films ever made, but it certainly runs the Top of the Tedious pretty close. The swaggering Fernando Lamas, one of the most egotistical yet least personable of Hollywood's minor stars, is here joined by that regular Pine-Thomas lesser (if luscious) light, Rhonda Fleming in a cutdown variation of King Solomon's Mines.
Even in its 3-D version, the film comes across as a lackluster, snail-paced affair. It doesn't help that there are few 3-D effects - a shrunken head is thrust at the camera and a chair or two is thrown into the lens - and that the 2nd unit work is so grainy it was obviously blown up from 16mm. Many scenes like those with long-winded Lamas and frippery Fleming on the boat are completely superfluous and unnecessary. One wonders why the editor left them in, especially as at 91 or 93 minutes the film is too long for a "B" feature anyway. The support players come across as a trifle more interesting than the pedestrian principals, though only villainous Brian Keith gets much in the way of a dramatic opportunity. Cult hero, Lon Chaney, is confined to just one scene - true, it's one of the most exciting in the movie - near the beginning, while Rita Moreno has virtually no part at all. Ludwig's direction manages the difficult feat of bringing a dull script to an even less animated life. Production values are strictly "B".
In short, a waste of time. Even the Amazonian locations look synthetic. Although mildly stimulated by the opening scenes, desperate action fans will have deserted the movie long before the long-promised jivaro-attack climax. Maybe rabid followers of the loquacious Lamas and/or that equally dreary, equally unconvincing heroine, Miss Rhonda Fleming, a so meticulously groomed fashion clotheshorse of the studio backlot jungle - maybe fans of these two spoilers will get something out of Jivaro. Maybe.
SYNOPSIS: A cool but not overbright beauty comes looking for her fiancé who is lost in the Amazon jungle.
NOTES: Paramount's last 3-D feature played flat in most situations, though it did have some 3-D showings in Britain and the U.S.A.
COMMENT: Not exactly one of the Most Boring films ever made, but it certainly runs the Top of the Tedious pretty close. The swaggering Fernando Lamas, one of the most egotistical yet least personable of Hollywood's minor stars, is here joined by that regular Pine-Thomas lesser (if luscious) light, Rhonda Fleming in a cutdown variation of King Solomon's Mines.
Even in its 3-D version, the film comes across as a lackluster, snail-paced affair. It doesn't help that there are few 3-D effects - a shrunken head is thrust at the camera and a chair or two is thrown into the lens - and that the 2nd unit work is so grainy it was obviously blown up from 16mm. Many scenes like those with long-winded Lamas and frippery Fleming on the boat are completely superfluous and unnecessary. One wonders why the editor left them in, especially as at 91 or 93 minutes the film is too long for a "B" feature anyway. The support players come across as a trifle more interesting than the pedestrian principals, though only villainous Brian Keith gets much in the way of a dramatic opportunity. Cult hero, Lon Chaney, is confined to just one scene - true, it's one of the most exciting in the movie - near the beginning, while Rita Moreno has virtually no part at all. Ludwig's direction manages the difficult feat of bringing a dull script to an even less animated life. Production values are strictly "B".
In short, a waste of time. Even the Amazonian locations look synthetic. Although mildly stimulated by the opening scenes, desperate action fans will have deserted the movie long before the long-promised jivaro-attack climax. Maybe rabid followers of the loquacious Lamas and/or that equally dreary, equally unconvincing heroine, Miss Rhonda Fleming, a so meticulously groomed fashion clotheshorse of the studio backlot jungle - maybe fans of these two spoilers will get something out of Jivaro. Maybe.