QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS (1947)

I don't know if it's possible to make a film entirely out of stock footage, but QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS came awfully close.

The so-called "plot" involves the search for one Greg Jones, who went on safari and never returned. The search party includes his father, Col. Jones (no first name), and his fiancee Jean, who is only allowed to go because she's excellent with a gun. Hired to lead the jungle search party is one Gary Lambert, the venerable Great White Hunter and rank sexist. 

The party ends up at a village ruled by Zita the Amazon Queen, a white woman who was shipwrecked in Africa as a child and has never known life outside the jungle. Greg is there too, the sole survivor of an attack on his safari by ivory smugglers. It turns out, Greg was on an undercover mission to root out the smuggling ring. With Zita's help, he finally identifies and apprehends the ringleader. As often occurs in these films, there's a romantic sub-plot. In fact, there are two, but I'll spare you the banal details.

For a good 75% of this hour-long film, we're watching stock footage of the African jungle. You could go to the kitchen and make a sandwich in the time it takes to get from one plot point to another. In one scene, Jean watches gazelles through a pair of binoculars and asks, “Why are running so fast?” Then we see stock footage of the gazelles that is clearly in slow-motion. Jean is portrayed as a sharpshooter, but she suddenly turns helpless when her beloved dukes it out with the bad guy. The same thing happens to Zita, the supposedly fearless leader of a tribe of Amazon warriors. As soon as the hero and villain start throwing their fists around, Zita cowers in fear while her brave warriors all run away. The fight scene itself is hard to follow because the same stunt double was used for both the hero and the villain. Sure, it's a low-budget film, but give me a break! And of course, the Amazon warriors, who've spent their whole lives in the jungle, somehow look like they just stepped out of a beauty salon.

QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS fails to establish the slightest sense of urgency or drama. We're told of all the dangers the search party could face, but rarely does the film show any. On the other hand, I never would have guessed the villain's identity, so kudos for that.

My nickname for this film is “Mutual of Omaha's Wild Queendom.”