Kimbar of the Jungle (TV Short 1949) Poster

(1949 TV Short)

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5/10
Worth watching only just for the great Steve Reeves...
HarryLags8 August 2018
The five stars I gave this are for it's exaggerated value because it's really pretty baaaaaaaad. I mean, Steve was always quick to admit that he was never a GREAT actor but I always thought he was pretty good, but honestly - with dialog like this, what was he supposed to do?

When I first heard of this, I thought it was a pilot for a film, but it's the first of what would have been 13 episodes of a serial. What makes this even peculiar was that its producers wanted to make a classic, old-fashioned serial for TV, complete with cliffhanger endings, only they were shooting for a time slot of just 15 minutes (!) and so the leftover we have is just 12 minutes or so. This is it unfortunately, and so we will never EVER know what happens next as this was the only episode actually filmed, because they lacked the funding to make any more of this. So that's it.

Conclusion - It's fun to watch, though, even if Steve swings from a vine that looks suspiciously like a rope. I just wonder how the rest of the story would have turned out .... Worth watching only just for the great Steve Reeves...

Rated this 5/10
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5/10
Still waiting for the next, exciting chapter of Kimbar!
McFrogg28 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Originally supposed to be a 13 part serial, this 11 minutes Tarzan-ripoff stars muscleman Steve Reeves (Hercules) as "Kimbar". It's hard to say if this would have been good or not, since there's only one episode.

It opens with a hilarious scene where a bunch of Africans beat on drums like crazy and shout things like "BONGA! Bonghana...". Suddenly, two men dressed as lions attack and kill a man in front of his wife. Then, we're introduced to three characters, a blonde woman who's searching for her lost father, a butterfly collector and the district commissioner. Suddenly, they hear jungle drums telling about evil spirits that have possessed the lions.

The commissioner wants Kimbar, "lord of the jungle" to check it out, and they send Kimbar's pet chimpanzee "Tamba" as a messenger. We see Kimbar for the first time in the top of a tree, smiling and looking at stock footage of animals, suddenly, he spots two men who try to trap a lion in a net. He jumps down from the tree, snatches the leader's rifle and cuts the lion loose. Kimbar meets Tamba, and while they play around, the three people we saw earlier, and some tribe members, finds the body of the man who was killed in front of his wife. Then, a black panther sneaks out of the bushes and attacks the blonde woman. Kimbar swings down from a branch and saves her without harming the panther.

The three friends show Kimbar the dead body. Kimbar tells them that it's the work of men, not evil spirits. He leaves Tamba and goes to investigate, but unfortunately, there was a spy among them. The spy tells the lion men that Kimbar is on his way. The episode ends with Kimbar getting his butt kicked by the roaring lion men. Since this was the only episode, I think they actually managed to murder Kimbar.

Kimbar of the Jungle is just your typical black and white jungle nonsense. Bad acting, stock footage and made-up languages. Steve Reeves looks convincing as the lord of the jungle. He talks like Weissmuller's Tarzan. The other actors are okay I guess, but the woman sounds like she's reading directly from the script. The lion men look silly, like something made for a school play. The eyes are a bit creepy though, and I'm not sure how they learned to roar like lions. There's no real action in the episode. Too bad they only made one episode, it would have been fun to see Steve Reeves beat up the evil lion men and save damsels in distress.

The episode is entertaining enough if you like jungle adventures, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea to show it to small children, since it ends with Kimbar getting attacked by scary lion men, and we never even get to see if he survived or not...

Rest in peace, Kimbar.
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