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At-A-Glance Film Reviews

Queen of the Amazons (1947)

Rating

[1.0]

Reviews and Comments

"Professor, this is probably one of the first double weddings to take place in the jungle."

Queen of the Amazon is a jungle adventure with a rock bottom budget. The acting and writing are pretty awful. The story might be salvageable, but not the way it's handled here. I didn't care what happened. I didn't even care to keep all the characters straight. There looked to be about three leading men, all effectively the same, so I didn't make much sense of the love...pentagon, I guess. The basic idea is that a woman puts a safari company together to go out in the jungle and find out what happened to another safari company, which included her beloved, that never returned. Eventually they run into rumors of a mystical white lady, a queen of a tribe of women. I always want to know how lost jungle tribes of women got to be all women and how they sustain themselves. This movie doesn't answer that question, but it impressed me by addressing it.

The reason people go to see jungle adventures, though, is to see attacking wild animals. There are a lot of animals, many of which do not belong where they are found, and there is one great shot of a lion chasing down a native. Alas, that one shot is about the only thing this movie has to offer for real entertainment.

For those who like to laugh at movies, though, there is one more. A lion attacks a man, and the women with him screams. Everybody rushes over to her...and then seem to need to be told what is happening right before their eyes. It finally dawns on one of them, and he goes after the lion with a log from the fire. Meanwhile, one guy asks another -- and keep in mind they are about ten feet from the fight -- "What's happening?" "Gary's fighting a lion!" is the reply. "A LION!" exclaims the first. I love great writing like that.

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