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graycek
Reviews
Jungle Girl (1941)
Good stories need bad villains.
I was a grammar school student (grades 1-6) when this serial," Jungle Girl", was shown on Saturday afternoons in our neighborhood Fairfax Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. My friend Stewart and I loved this serial and we also were enthralled by the "The Batman" serial. A "Dick Tracy" serial was also shown around the same period. But Jungle Girl was the best of them all. Every adventure story needs a good villain and Slick Latimer, played by Gerald Mohr was outstanding. I never realized that he even had a first name until I saw the reviews here on IMDb. We kids just called him "Latimer" and we hated his guts. Each week for fifteen episodes this conniving snake would betray the beloved Nyoka and her friends Jack and Curley. Then the evil Latimer would slip us kids in the audience this sly smirk. It was a masterpiece of infuriation that made us so mad we were ready to chew the upholstery out of the arm rests. A few years ago I rented the original "Red Planet" movie which starred Gerald Mohr. After 50 years I had forgiven him. Well after all, he was now a good guy.
Batman (1943)
We didn't know how bad this serial was; we were just kids.
My friend Stewart and I were in grammar school when this serial was being shown in Jacksonville, Fl. We thought Batman was the greatest thing that we had ever seen. It did not bother us that the Caped Crusader did not have a utility belt, a bat-mobile nor that his tights were a little baggy. Instead of swinging down out of the shadows to confront the forces of evil, he was delivered to the front door via. a chauffeured limousine by Alfred the butler. The fifteen weekly plots were all the same for all practical purposes. The evil Dr. (Whoever He Was) would plot some foul deed. Then Batman and Robin would find out about it in time to screw things up. During the ensuing fistfight Robin the Boy Wonder would eat a knuckle sandwich and while he was seing birdies, all the bad guys would then gang up on the Batperson and kick the whiz out of him. Then they would throw him either out the window or under the train, or to the sharks, etc., etc. This happened every time (as would be expected because that was how serials were written) but we did not realize just how poorly written it was nor how cheap the props and set were. We were just kids and Batman was our idol. We made Batman and Robin costumes at home and some of the plots we devised were probably better than the ones on the silver screen. My memory of the Batman serial was how much we were taken with it. A couple years ago I found a video of the first seven episodes. Remembering my childhood memories, I was delighted to find it. Seeing it with anticipation after all these years turned out to be a real disappointment. Looking back at it , after watching our hero get his clock cleaned every Saturday afternoon , I am surprised that we grew up with any self esteem at all.
There was another serial that we also enjoyed around that time called Jungle Girl. I have contemplated asking around for it because my recollections are the same as they were for the Batman serial. Because of the disappointment with the Batman experience, I am not sure now that I really want to revisit Jack, Shamba, Curley and Nyoka of the jungle.