Red-Barracuda This is the third jungle adventure I have seen from director Harry Fraser. The other two were The White Gorilla and The Savage Girl. This one, Drums of Africa, is at best marginally better than those other two. Harry sure knew how to knock out shoddy product in this genre. Like the other two films, this one is full of stock footage of wild animals. Although I don't really mind this as this footage is always kind of quite good fun to watch. In fact some of the scenes with the lions and tigers were actually pretty good, especially where some guy wrestles with them. Impressive stuff. My main gripe about the movie would most probably be its rubbish story line. There's a thread about a lost city, a fatal disease and a multiple lion attack. Nothing wrong with having a few things going on, but with the exception of the lion attack, the other story elements are dealt with very half-heartedly. The lost city turns out to be, you guessed it, more stock footage; this time hilariously it's shots of Angkor Wat which is of course in Asia. It just goes to show the things that they could get away with back in the 40's. Also, on that subject, I could never quite understand why there was a tiger in the middle of the African jungle. I think they just included it because they had it. The deadly killer disease is the other plot thrust of the story. And it's this that explains the presence of Buster Crabbe's doctor character in the middle of the jungle. He's there to find an antidote and help the natives. But this too is pretty lacklustre, and it really is hard to care very much about this plot element at all.Drums of Africa is a pretty poor jungle adventure overall. It's not completely devoid of entertainment though.

dbborroughs weak jungle adventure has a rich heiress, her fiancé, her father and assorted others going to Africa instead of their normal vacation haunt, in order to visit her father's brother and to find the lost city of the dead. Once there they run into Buster Crabbe who is trying to cure an epidemic, hostile natives and wild animals.Incredibly silly and cheap film has tons of stock footage padding out the proceedings. Who am I to ponder what Asian temples are doing in Darkest Africa? Its a mess. Blame the script and the direction which doesn't seem to know what to do or how real people behave. I mean Crabbe goes around with his shirt half open, out heroine prances around in sarongs for no good reason, the natives just look embarrassed. The cast is wildly uneven with some of the interlopers behaving badly while on the other end of the spectrum Charles Middleton as the uncle in the jungle turning in one of his best performances.This film is a mess. Recommended only for bad movie fans.

Michael_Elliott Drums of Africa (1941) * 1/2 (out of 4) A group of people head out into the jungles of Africa in search of the "City of the Dead" but think jungles, the wild life and natives cause several problems. Buster Crabbe leads the cast and adds a little excitement to this film but overall it drags for the most part. There's a lot of stock footage of various jungle animals and this stuff is fun to watch but the actual "story" of the film is a dull and boring mess. Not to mention that the whole set up never really pays off.The film is on various public domain labels under the title Jungle Man.

reptilicus If we took movies like this seriously we would believe that the jungles of Africa are just loaded with lost cities. From the 1920 serial JUNGLE QUEEN right through TV shows like "Jungle Jim" and "Ramar of the Jungle" there was always some lost civilisation just over the next mountain. Such is the case in this movie also; hey if a plot point works why change it?This time out we have Bruce (Weldon Heyburn) and his pal Andy (Robert Carson) a couple of rich, bored yachtsmen who decide to abandon sailing regattas and head for Africa to search for The City of the Dead. Coming along are Bruce's fiancée Bety (Sheila Darcy) and her dad William (Paul Scott). William is hoping for a reunion with his brother (Charles Middleton) who became a missionary and has been in the jungle for many years. Now in real life any safari that has perennial comic relief actor Vince Barnett as guide normally would not have much of a chance but hey fascinating indeed are the things you can get away with in a movie.Also in the jungle is Dr. Robert Hammond (Buster Crabbe) who is known as "Junga" to the natives. They may have been enemies in the "Flash Gordon" serials at Universal but in this PRC picture Buster and Charles are the best of friends. Buster has been searching for the cure to a fatal disease the natives call "malaka" and has sent a sample of the serum he has developed to the States for testing. Sadly the ship carrying the serum is lost, " . . .sunk by a torpedo" as Middleton informs him (a vague reference to WW2 which the US was not yet involved in when this movie was made). I'll get back to this point later.Bruce and Andy head off looking for the lost city. Whoever lost it must not have looked for it very hard because they find it with relative ease; and does anyone besides me think that Lost City looks an awful lot like Angkor Wat? Along the way there are many problems like attacking lions, giant snakes, headhunters, and of course a sudden outbreak of malaka. Can Buster do anything to save the natives and the explorers? If only the serum were not lost when the ship went down! Ah but wait, that wreck may not be lost after all! But can Buster get to it in the shark infested waters? That would be telling! You'll see for yourself.The low budget shows. This movie uses tons of stock footage that looks to be about 10 years old or even more. Watch as the actors in this movie look offscreen and react to scenes of wildlife that look like they come from an early documentary. Performances are good despite the limitations. Vince Barnett is amusing while never getting annoying. Buster and Charles react well with each other. Sheila Darcy is quite good and for one scene she even gets to "go native" wearing a skimpy (well, by 1941 standards) sarong while she flirts with Buster.I had fun watching JUNGLE MAN and if you give it a chance and overlook its shortcomings I think you will too.