The Jungle Princess

1936 film by Wilhelm Thiele

November 27, 1936 (1936-11-27)

Running time

85 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget$600,000 (estimate)

The Jungle Princess is a 1936 American adventure film directed by Wilhelm Thiele starring Dorothy Lamour and Ray Milland.

Plot

Christopher Powell is in Malaya with his fiancée and her father, capturing wild animals. While out hunting he is attacked by a tiger, and his native guides run away, leaving him for dead. But the tiger is the pet of Ulah, a beautiful young woman who grew up by herself in the jungle. She rescues Chris and takes him back to her cave, where she nurses him to health and falls in love with him. When he eventually returns to camp, she follows. His fiancée is jealous, and the natives do not like Ulah or her pet tiger either, all of which leads to a lot of trouble.

Cast

Dorothy Lamour as Ulah
Ray Milland as Christopher Powell
Akim Tamiroff as Karen Neg
Lynne Overman as Frank
Molly Lamont as Ava
Ray Mala as Melan (as Mala)
Hugh Buckler as Col. Neville Lane

Reception

Writing for The Spectator in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a mildly positive review. He critiqued the film's hackneyed use of exaggerated social consciousness as a trope, but noted that "the climax is magnificent" and ultimately characterized it as a "lively picture".^[1]

The Jungle Princess was a major hit and launched Lamour's career as one of the leading stars of the era, often cast, sarong-clad, in similar jungle adventure romances, which led to her playing leading lady to Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the Road to... musical comedy movie series beginning four years later.

The Indonesian film Terang Boelan (1937) was partially inspired by The Jungle Princess.^[2]^[3]

References

^ Greene, Graham (1 January 1937). "The Jungle Princess/Windbag the Sailor". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. Oxford University Press. pp. 126-127. ISBN 0192812866.)
^ van der Heide, William (2002). Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film: Border Crossings and National Cultures. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-90-5356-580-3.
^ Biran, Misbach Yusa (2009). Sejarah Film 1900–1950: Bikin Film di Jawa [History of Film 1900–1950: Making Films in Java] (in Indonesian). Jakarta: Komunitas Bamboo working with the Jakarta Art Council. p. 169. ISBN 978-979-3731-58-2.

External links

The Jungle Princess at IMDb
The Jungle Princess at AllMovie
Jungle Princess film clip on YouTube
"Kino Nostalgie Die Dschungel Prinzessin" [Cinema Nostalgia: The Jungle Princess]. Kinogucker [Cinema Movies]. Original german handbills from 1939 (in German). May 27, 2015. Archived from the original on May 27, 2015.