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Jungle Film

A favorite subject of the early serials -- Lost City of the Jungle -- the jungle found its way into films in the '40s and '50s as a dangerous, dark and primitive place for white men in safari hats to encounter adventures. Unquestionably the most used and well-known hero of these films was the white-man-turned-savage, Tarzan. In a river of films which starred a rotating cast of Tarzans, of which Olympic swimmer Johnny Weismuller was one of the more popular, jungle animals alternately befriended and attacked Tarzan as he encountered white intruders and their beautiful companions. Many "B"-films were reeled off on varying notes of the same theme, starring beautiful women with torn shirts and men in loincloths beating off frightening cannibalistic natives. In the '80s and '90s, almost as if to make up for these transgressions, the jungle film turned inward and ostensibly gave more accurate pictures of jungle life. They were never quite free of the white-man-in-safari-hat syndrome, however, as films like The Emerald Forest, and Aguirre, the Wrath of God were more about the foreigners adventuring into the jungles than they were about the jungles themselves.

Major Works
Rating
Year
 Title
 
 Director
  9 Stars 1972 Aguirre, the Wrath of God   Werner Herzog
  8 Stars 1982 Fitzcarraldo   Werner Herzog
    7 Stars 1934 Tarzan and His Mate   Jack Conway
  7 Stars 1967 The Jungle Book   Wolfgang Reithermann
  7 Stars 1988 Gorillas in the Mist   Michael Apted
  6 Stars 1986 The Mosquito Coast   Peter Weir
  6 Stars 1942 The Jungle Book   Zoltan Korda
  6 Stars 1984 Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes   Hugh Hudson
  6 Stars 1985 The Emerald Forest   John Boorman
  5 Stars 1997 George of the Jungle   Sam Weisman
  5 Stars 1936 Jungle Jim [Serial]   Ford I. Beebe
    5 Stars 1963 Tarzan's Three Challenges   Robert Day
    5 Stars 1951 Tarzan's Peril   Byron Haskin
    5 Stars 1958 Tarzan's Greatest Adventure   John Guillermin
    5 Stars 1943 Tarzan Triumphs   William Thiele
    5 Stars 1948 Tarzan and the Mermaids   Robert Florey
    5 Stars 1945 Tarzan and the Amazons   Kurt Neumann
    5 Stars 1932 Tarzan, the Ape Man   W.S. Van Dyke
  5 Stars 1918 Tarzan of the Apes   Scott Sidney
    5 Stars 1936 Tarzan Escapes   Richard Thorpe
  5 Stars 1986 The Mission   Roland JoffĂ©
  5 Stars 1992 Medicine Man   John McTiernan
  5 Stars 1937 Elephant Boy   Robert Flaherty
    5 Stars 1991 At Play in the Fields of the Lord   Hector Babenco
  4 Stars 1998 Mighty Joe Young   Ron Underwood
  2 Stars 1997 Anaconda   Luis Llosa
  2 Stars 1995 Congo   Frank Marshall
 
 
 
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