White Pongo
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

USA, NR, 71 m, 1945
Directed by Sam Newfield. Stars Richard Fraser, Maris Wrixon, Lionel Royce, et al. 

The genre pictures cranked out by the, er, cost-conscious studio PRC often managed to look a cut above the competition, but they lacked the dissident humor that characterized Monogram’s far grubbier efforts. God knows PRC’s White Pongo could’ve profited from a more ironic approach; its manner is impossibly stilted. Written by Raymond L. Schrock (who ought to have traded the fourth letter in his surname for one that would’ve helped spell out something more evocative of his wordsmithing) and directed by Nabonga’s Sam Newfield, this run-of-the-mill jungle yarn reunites The Ape’s Maris Wrixon and Ray “Crash” Corrigan. (It probably doesn’t say much for my social life these days that I’m becoming an authority on the careers of third-rate show people.) Wrixon plays a spirited daddy’s girl along for an outing somewhere in the Dark Continent, and an uncredited Corrigan plays the albino gorilla that abducts her. I’m not going to recap any more of the plot; you’ve seen it all before. Though you may not have seen a black ape challenge a white ape to a twig fight before. I guess that depends on what kind of shit you’ve been smoking. 

Putting an actor in a yak-haired monkey suit and having him jump up and down while beating his chest is de rigueur for zoologically inaccurate junk like White Pongo, and ol’ “Crash” gives a performance here that’s every bit as broad as his work in The Ape and Nabonga. Although he’s given a bit more screen time in White Pongo, he spends most of it crouched behind some bushes and spying on the leading lady. The filmmakers want desperately for us to know that they weren’t limited to shooting on a soundstage, so they pack the movie with some long (and I mean looonnng) sequences that feature the white explorers and their half-naked African escorts trudging over this mountain or paddling down that river. An abundance of stock footage tells us that PRC didn’t flip the bill for Newfield to film anywhere near Africa, though the resulting discrepancy in picture quality isn’t as glaring as it was in Bride of the Gorilla. Still, the insertion of hand-me-down clips from what could be any number of long forgotten safari flicks undermines White Pongo’s bid for authenticity.  

Most of White Pongo just plods along, trying the patience of even the most ardent B-movie aficionado. The leading culprit behind all of this may be editor Holbrook N. Todd, who cuts with such disregard for momentum that any opportunity for suspense is frittered away. What we’re left with is just about a handful of moderately diverting scenes: Pongo (inexplicably pronounced Pawn-gah) slips through the camp’s security so he can look in on our heroine as she cops some z’s; a pet chimp exhibits some clumsy table manners; and a portly huntsman tests the reliability of a ground trap by doing his best gorilla imitation on top of it. (The onlookers appear to be just as grateful for some genuine comic relief as we are.) The limpest gag has to be naming one of the more prominent native characters “Mumbo Jumbo,” although I think that accurately describes the garbled (and culturally disparaging) dialect poor Joel Fluellen is forced to speak in. The other cast members elude humiliation, but they’re framed with such indifference that they barely make an impression. Speaking of unimpressive, Richard Fraser is on hand as the grim-jawed adventurer who must save the damsel in distress. It proves an easier task than saving this god-awful bore.

May 9, 2005 

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