Nabonga
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

USA, NR, 75 m, 1988
Directed by Sam Newfield. Stars Buster Crabbe, Julie London, Ray Corrigan, et al.

Nabonga is yet another substandard jungle flick from PRC, and it’s done up with the kind of vulgar trimmings the studio was notorious for, such as oodles of incongruous stock footage and Ray Corrigan jumping around in a dime store gorilla suit. Herbert Rawlinson plays T.F. Stockwell, an American businessman who is hiding out in Egypt after embezzling a king’s ransom in jewels and stock certificates from his trust company. Facing extradition back to the states, he high-tails it out of North Africa in a small plane with his ten-year old daughter, Doreen (Jackie Newfield, director Sam Newfield’s daughter in her first and last movie role). The aircraft comes upon a brutal storm, and crashes into a jungle somewhere below. Incredibly, there are no casualties, but Stockwell is so paranoid that someone might try to take his cache of ill-gotten treasures that he whacks the pilot. (And the only person that could’ve got the grasping idiot airborne again.)  

Elsewhere in the jungle, a white hunter and his company of half-naked natives come upon an enormous gorilla (our ol’ pal Corrigan), and they respond to its growls with a fusillade of bullets and spears. Later, Doreen, who has wandered away from the plane wreck, comes upon the wounded ape and offers him comfort. When dad catches up to this scene, he freaks out and tries to finish off the creature. But Doreen’s tearful pleads persuade him to put down his gun. (He probably just figured he could use the gorilla to protect the box of loot from any potential robbers.) Stockwell up and disappears one day, leaving Doreen to be raised by the ape she eventually names Samson. (He’s referred to in the closing credits simply as “Gorilla,” and there’s a winking acknowledgement citing the inexplicably spelled “Nbongo” as its player.)  

Years pass. Doreen has grown into a Sheena-type jungle babe played by “The Liberty Girl” herself, Julie London. The local yokels, having not seen many Caucasian faces, believe her to be some sort of supernatural figure. Samson is still her fierce protector, pummeling the shit out anyone that looks at her askance. The dashing Ray Gorman (Buster Crabbe) has ventured to Africa to retrieve Stockwell’s booty and return it to its rightful owners. You see, Ray’s father was Stockwell’s business partner, and the poor bastard was blamed for the aforementioned misappropriation of funds after Stockwell split the scene. This drove Ray Sr. to commit hara-kiri, and his son is now on a mission to posthumously clear his name. He hears tales from some villagers about a “white witch,” and he somehow deduces that it must be Stockwell’s missing daughter. So, he embarks on an epic trek through the Dark Continent, which really just amounts to Crabbe winding through the same cruddy jungle set time and time again, stopping off occasionally to do battle with some archive shots of wild beasties. Meanwhile, other parties have caught wind of Ray’s mission, and they’re out to nab the goods from Doreen before he does.   

Well, this all goes on and on. The tedium is momentarily broken when Ray wrestles a rubber alligator in what has to be one of the most laughably staged fight scenes since Bela Lugosi (or his stunt double) took on an octopus in Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster. There also a big smackdown between Ray and Samson that I could tell you is worth the price of a rental. But that would be a lie.

August 5, 2007 

Ó Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.