Nabonga USA, NR, 75 m, 1988
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.
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