Bomba, Jungle Jim and similar books and film.

[hawkbrother]

I have always loved what would be called jungle adventure stories. Tarzan of course, but many others. Have put together a pretty good collection of books and movies.
 When other kids back in childhood were really into Batman and the like,my favorite comics were Westerns,especially the Lone Ranger, and the Jungle Jim comics from Dell. Jungle Jim was also in the newspaper comics. Those were set in Africa, but the comic books had the adventures of Jungle Jim Bradley set in Asia, in India and Malaya. 
 Of course Johnny Weissmuller went on to play Jungle Jim in the movies after his Tarzan role. Someone called those " Tarzan with clothes on." Just found a collection of all 16 of those plus the Grant Withers Jungle Jim serial on EBay for $36 and eagerly awaiting their arrival.
 Also got hold of all 12 Bomba the Jungle Boy movies on DVD which starred Johnny Sheffield,Boy in the Weissmuller Tarzans. Also a couple of the Bombs books. Have to agree with Richard Lupoff who wrote in ERB Master of Adventure that the quality of the writing is none too good.May collect more if reasonable prices are available but not a high priority
 And of course Ramar of the Jungle,a TV show from my childhood and whom younger people may remember from his mention in a Jimmy Buffett song. Have a DVD collection which has most but not all of the episodes. Fear they are lost, which is likely true of tge 1950s Sheena show. Have some collections of those though the film quality is poor. And the later Sheenas ,the 1984 movie. and the short lived 2000-2001 TV which added a fantastic element, the Gena Lee Nolin Sheena having a shapeshifting capability.
 Sorry the Lost World TV show only lasted 3 seasons and ended on a "cliffhanger" note, though it had gone more from jungle adventure to sci-fi, with alternate worlds and time travel.
 Yes, I love this stuff. Space stuff never has appealed to me that much, never a trekkie. Like John Carter but my favorite Burroughs series aside from Tarzan are the Pellucidar stories, wish he had written more of them.
 Love to find out other jungle adventure books or film I may not know of.

[thedarkman]

Seek ye the adventures of Ki-Gor, lord of the jungle. These pulp adventures are considered a close second to Tarzan, and are now available in two big collections on Amazon. I have read a couple online, and they are pretty good...

[almuric]

Never read any of the Bomba books but I understand they're not so good. I caught bits of a few Bomba movies on TCM a while back. Not that great, unfortunately. They look very cheap, which is not surprising since they were produced by Monogram. By the point they were made, jungle movies were based on clichés from other jungle movies and had become very formulaic. Not to mention all the stock footage animals the cast never interacts with.

I have to wonder how Sheffield and Weissmuller felt about being so utterly typecast? They must have been sick of jungle sets after a while. :-P

[johnnypt]

You don't get much more typecast than those two: Weissmuller's entire career revolved around him playing Tarzan, Jungle Jim or himself and Sheffield was basically either Boy or Bomba. Not sure if it was coincidental but both of them stopped playing those roles by 1957.

[almuric]

Though he's almost forgotten today, Edgar Wallace was once one of the most prolific and bestselling authors of all time. He had a series about District Commissioner Sanders, who oversaw British colonial holdings in Africa. There are fantastic elements in a few of them, apparently, though probably no lost cities ruled by evil-yet-sexy queens. There were a few Sanders movies made in Germany in the 1960s, when there had been a very popular revival of Wallace's works. IMBD suggests they are not that good.

You can almost tell how bored Wallace must have been with Sanders after a while based on the titles of his last two novels in that series: Sanders and Again Sanders. I wonder what he would have called the next volume, if he had written it?

[trescuinge]

Wildside Press has an e-book Adventure Megapack that contains some stories you might like, I particularly recommend 'The Mindoon Maneater' by C.M. Cross.

Are you familiar with Charles Saunders 'Imaro" stories?

[almuric]

Jul 24, 2016 19:21:22 GMT -5 trescuinge said:

Wildside Press has an e-book Adventure Megapack that contains some stories you might like, I particularly recommend 'The Mindoon Maneater' by C.M. Cross.

Are you familiar with Charles Saunders 'Imaro" stories?

I have the first two revised volumes that were released a few years back.

I will definitely check out the Megapacks. Looks like some obscure material in some of them.

[hawkbrother]

Have read some Saunders,in various anthologies,both Imaro and his heroine Doussuye. Think of them as more heroic fantasy than pure jungle adventure, But there is really a blurring of the lines between jungle adventure/lost race/fantasy. Certainly the H. Rider Haggard books set in Africa belong in it, and also A. Merritt.
Mention of the disappearance of jungle heroes after 1957 called to mind a TV series from 1957-58 called White Hunter starring someonce called Rhodes Reason who portrayed a real life African white hunter, named of all things John A. Hunter. Not much actual hunting in the. show, except for the occasional rogue animal,usually some human drama. storyline.
Hunter, who came out and to Kenya sometime in the early 20th century from Scotland also wrote several. books on his own hunting and safari ecperiences and co-authored with Daniel P. Mannix Tales of the African Frontier, accounts of some the explorers,adventurers,settlers, etc who came out to British East Africa in the late ninettenth and early twentieth centuries. Some interesting stuff and interesting characters. If you enjoy reading about our American frontiersmen, whether real life or fictionalized accounts,you would like this Africana.
Back to adventure in lost lands,there are the Kiogs books of William L. Chester. While set in a lost land near the Arctic Circle and not the tropics they nonetheless fall into the general category discussed here. but

[almuric]

G W Thomas' page on jungle adventures, with some characters and series I've never heard of, including Canada's short-lived Tarzan clone, Zor:

www.gwthomas.org/jungleindex.htm

And here's one of the Ki-Gor stories which has fallen into the public domain:

gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0604011h.html

[almuric]

Fascinating article on the Tarzan imitators of the British boy's own magazines: darkworldsquarterly.gwthomas.org/british-apemen-of-the-boys-papers/

[deuce]

Gordon MacCreagh's tales of Kingi Bwana are great reads if you want "jungle adventure":

dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2019/8/10/the-indiana-jones-of-the-pulps-gordon-maccreagh

IMO, MacCreagh's Kingi Bwana stories were an influence upon REH's later/non-juvenile version of Francis X. Gordon/"El Borak".

[paulmc]

While not straight up jungle hero (there is no Tarzan type) the Pedro and Lourenco tales of Arthur O. Friel are great. Some of my favorites, and Robert E. Howard's favorites, too. Adventures in the Amazon jungle.

AMAZON NIGHTS collects some of the best.

For some reason, the book was dropped from Amazon but you can buy direct from Wildside Press. (edit: Also, the audiobook is excellent)

wildsidepress.com/amazon-nights-classic-adventure-tales-from-the-pulps-by-arthur-o-friel-epub-kindle/

[paulmc]

Dec 4, 2019 11:59:30 GMT -5 paulmc said:

While not straight up jungle hero (there is not Tarzan type) the Pedro and Lourenco tales of Arthur O. Friel are great. Some of my favorites, and Robert E. Howard's favorites, too. Adventures in the Amazon jungle.

AMAZON NIGHTS collects some of the best.

For some reason, the book was dropped from Amazon but you can buy direct from Wildside Press. (edit: Also, the audiobook is excellent)

wildsidepress.com/amazon-nights-classic-adventure-tales-from-the-pulps-by-arthur-o-friel-epub-kindle/

See also;

paulmcnamee.blogspot.com/2017/07/recent-read-amazon-nights.html

paulmcnamee.blogspot.com/2011/08/recent-read-pathless-trail.html

[themirrorthief]

I have read some of the bombas and I thought they were at least better than average adventure tales...some of the Ki Gors are really good, lots of different writers worked on those so the quality varies...I recommend both if you are just curious