Jungle Jim
January 2003 Reviewed by: Anthony Di Marco Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Way before television existed and series like 24 and Law & Order became popular, their precursors, the weekly serials, were shown at local theaters. These film shorts were feature-length movies stretched out over several weeks, a chapter at a time. Branded as "cliffhangers," each chapter would end at the story’s most exciting moment, so that the audience had no choice but to return the following week to find out what happened next. Cliffhanger storylines are still used in series television, such as Fox’s 24, to attract viewers and build ratings.

One of the first and most popular of these cliffhanger serials was Jungle Jim, a 12-chapter run modeled after the popular comic strip of the time. It tells the story of an explorer who braves the dangers of Africa (to rescue a wealthy woman who survived a shipwreck 15 years earlier), and a greedy killer named La Bat. Like the majority of serials, Jungle Jim pioneered the cinematic device known as double jeopardy, which placed the hero in situations where more than one hazard threatened to clean his clock. Today, filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas continue to use double jeopardy to create tension and excitement in their films.

It took me a couple of chapters to get into Jungle Jim. Black-and-white images, poor audio fidelity and a slow-moving storyline needed to break through conditioning that years of fast-paced, special-effects-loaded films have inflicted on me. The majority of Jungle Jim’s effects shots amounted to manipulating film speed to heighten the perceived impact of action scenes and models standing in for storm-battered ships. But even more impressive was seeing actors, not stunt men, wrestling with real lions! After this, Russell Crowe’s scene in Gladiator where he fends off digitally created tigers does not seem so impressive any more.

My favorite chapter was the "Bridge of Terror." It displays an old standby plot device: A bomb’s burning fuse and man-eating crocodiles wait for the moment when a flimsy bridge will double-cross the hero. These sequences didn’t impress me in the context of storylines as much as they made me aware of situations that have long since become well-worn film clichés.

Don’t expect three-dimensional visuals or multichannel surround sound. According to the DVD case, this two-disc package was transferred from a 35mm fine-grain black-and-white film print. Whether the print was off the original negative or several generations removed is unknown. And although there were scratches and some frame-alignment problems, the images did look good for a serial that was first projected some 70 years ago.

Having perspective also gives context to the quality of Jungle Jim’s monaural recording. Foley and sound effects do sound thin and lack punch when compared to today’s cutting-edge sound mixes. However, good vocal intelligibility focuses the strengths of early audio technology where it counts.

VCI does include some extras, including cast bios, trailers, and a well-done montage of crisp, still photos taken during production. By today’s DVD standards these extras could be seen as throwaway. In my opinion, though, they are reasonable considering the entire cast and crew have since passed away. It seems ridiculous to expect any interviews and retrospectives chronicling the 1936 production.

My grandfather, who just turned 78 years old in November, visited me on my birthday. On a whim I asked him if he had ever heard of Jungle Jim. Surprisingly his eyes lit up and he asked where he could watch it. He only had time to see the first chapter, but in those minutes I could have sworn he was subconsciously reminiscing about his childhood. It would seem that despite its low-tech special effects, bad lip-sync, and colorless image, Jungle Jim still managed to entertain him. And that’s what good cinema is all about.

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