Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald
Tags: cult, murder

Plot synopsis:
A German expedition is in the jungles somewhere in Africa doing an unidentified mission there. During this mission, Thoren (Hardy Krüger) is attacked and captured by the local natives called the Botos. Before they can kill him at their village, the Botos then notice the arrival of a long-haired, topless wild woman (Marion Michael) wearing only three necklaces and a loincloth made of beads, shells, and some feathers. The wild woman communicates with the Botos to spare him and let him go. When Thoren leaves, the wild woman heads into her treehouse. Later that night, Thoren tells the others of his experience with the wild woman and is told by one of them to take him to where he saw her. The Botos are shown doing entertainment as the wild woman plays with her pet lion cub Simba.
The next day, the wild woman grabs onto a vine and swings over a lake before she lets go to drop into the lake and go swimming. When she is spotted by Thoren, she escapes into the jungle only to be later caught in a big game net by Kersten and Keller which is spotted by one of the tribesman who alerts the other Botos. Later that night, Thoren arrives and has part of the net removed from the woman's head and feeds her a banana. When the Botos attack in retaliation, Thoren hooks up a tape to a loadspeaker which frightens off the Botos as Dr. Jacqueline Goddard (Irène Galter) undoes the net and lets her rest. After the Botos escape, the wild woman gets up and is attacked by an expedition member only for him to be beaten up by Thoren who warns him to keep his hands off her. Thoren carries her body back to the tent to let her rest. Thoren and Jacqueline then notice that one of necklaces around her neck has a good luck charm with an L engraved into it. Thoren then decides to bring it to Professor Danner to figure it out.
The next day, Jacqueline gives the wild woman a bath which she enjoys, cuts her unruly hair to shoulder length, and puts her in some new clothes. Thoren comes in and tells Jacqueline that the whole world is asking for information about the white girl they found. Jacqueline says that her name is Kiyahi, but couldn't understand anything else she said. Thoren and Jacqueline then teach her some of their language and states that she must've originally come from a good family before being taken in by the Botos.
Meanwhile, in Germany, shipping tychoon Theo Amelongen (Rudolf Forster) and his nephew Viktor (Reggie Nalder) look at the article about the wild woman that was found and Theo suspects that it might be her long-lost granddaughter Liane who went missing 18 years ago when the ship she and her parents were on went down with a speculation that her Liane at 2 years old had somehow survived. Theo decides to have his agents look into this.
Back in Africa, Thoren takes Liane with him and Jacqueline. When Liane's tribesman friend Tanga (Jean Pierre Faye) and Simba show up, he ends up sneaking on the ship. While Liane, Thoren, and Jacqueline are playing cards, Tanga catches up with them and they end up taking him and the lion cub with them. When the ship arrives in Germany, the press swarm over Liana until Thoren sends then off.
When the group ends up at Theo's house, he is reintroduced to Liane as well as being introduced to Tanga and Simba. Viktor is told by his lawyer that Liane will be inheriting the fortune. This causes Viktor to take matters into his old hands without Theo finding out. He ends up locking her into a room and ends up getting attacked by Tanga. At his company later, Viktor hires a man named Jensen who was one of the survivors of the ship Imperia sinking and asks to testify that he had no survivors without mentioning that Viktor hired him for this.
While talking with Thoren as a bikini-clad Liane plays with Simba, Theo tells Thoren that he will watch over Liane until he gets back. They then see Liane climb up a tree and dive into the lake that she swims in until breakfast is served. Theo then commented that she had inherited her mother's swimming abilities. Theo and Thoren then look at the last letter Liane's mother wrote which says that she had given her milk to her fox terrier Terry and enjoys climbing. Later on, Blackie the dog find a piece of paper of the letter that was crumpled up. When Thoren asks who would want to try to dispose of the letter, Theo asks his maid where Viktor is. Theo then arranges to meet with Viktor tonight. When the counselor comes that evening with Viktor, they find Theo dead in his study. Moments later, the police are called in where the counselor and the maid are questioned about Theo's death. They found the evidence of the pencil and string which the inspector thinks the culprit would end up getting in to the study. It is then discovered that Viktor was responsible for his uncle's death as he makes his escape. Viktor then gets into his car as Thoren and the police pursue him. The car chase goes down the street until Viktor ends up driving his car off the bridge to his death.
Back in Africa, Professor Danner gets the news that Liane has inherited the Amelongen fortune and gets a news article that Liane is heading back to Africa to visit the Danner expedition. Professor Danner considers this as a homecoming with Thoren and Tanga arriving with her. The Botos also rejoice with the news that Liane and Tanga are coming back. Liane, Tanga, and Thoren arrive with Professor Danner. While the Botos celebrate, Liane runs off into the jungle, gets naked, and goes swimming in a lake. She is then joined in her swimming by Thoren.

Review: Topless Jungle Girls, Cute German Division.
German expedition to Africa's darkest jungle region stumbles upon topless blonde girl whom natives revere as a goddess.
Is she possibly the long-lost granddaughter of wealthy Hamburg industrialist?
(Would there be a movie if she wasn't?) Well, then, let's take her back to the BRD and reunite her with her family.
Therein lies the conflict.This was strictly adults-only US release of the 1950s and played for years as a "special".
The NYT critic of the day declared it virtual pornography, though the exploitation material consists of some seminude Africans in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC-type footage and a few peeks at the bare breasts of heroine Marion Michael, a fresh-faced German teenager.
Her long fake hair, and the lion cub she frequently carries around, protect her modesty considerably.
(Compare Tanya Roberts in SHEENA, which showed more and drew a PG from the MPAA.)If, and I'm not naming names, you were too young to see this in the 50s or even the early 60s, when it played your nabe, and you always wondered what kind of positively adults-only thrills you might be missing, LIANE is available in a not-bad (but not-great) print from Sinister Cinema and you can satisfy your curiosity.The storyline is pretty thin and is laid out point for point in the IMDB synopsis above.
Marion is cute as a button and looks a lot more like a 1950s SEVENTEEN covergirl than a denizen of the tropischer Urwald.
Sinister describes this as its best-selling Jungle Thrills entry, so apparently I'm not the only one who was waiting for this to hit video.
Like so many other long-deferred delights, the anticipation was rather more rewarding than the fulfillment..
Recommended for All Eleven-Year-Old Boys.
An expedition discovers young topless Liane (Marion Michael) cavorting around the jungle, where she is worshiped by the locals as a goddess.
There, she must remain fully clothed, as another relative intrigues and murders to prevent Liane from inheriting the family fortune.I saw this movie at my neighborhood theater around the time it was released in the USA (1959).
It was on a double bill with "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which was the only reason I was in the theater that day.
Imagine my surprise and fascination when Liane first made her appearance, swinging on that rope flashing her bare breasts!
I was eleven years old, and it was the first time I had ever viewed a woman's breasts.
I'm guessing that they were only on screen for a few seconds, but to me it seemed like forever.
Once removed from its jungle setting, the movie becomes rather pedestrian and uninteresting.
Still, because of its promising beginning, "Liane Jungle Goddess" has made a lasting impression on my life.
I would rate it "5" for the cinematic experience and "10" for the breasts..
LIANE JUNGLE GODDESS was released for the school holidays in Sydney Australia in January 1959 and rated G: as in FOR GENERAL EXHIBITION..
haha..it played for 3 weeks in the glorious starry ceiling CAPITOL theatre all 2337 seats, now the home of THE LION KING on stage.
The ads for the first two weeks escaped press censorship and had the dear 17 babe NUDE on a rope, obviously swinging from tree to tree.
Were'nt we liberated and having a laugh all those years ago.
A later ad featured Liane, same pose, and in a drawn on polka dot bikini which means somebody complained.
but who cares, by then the kids were back at school and The Capitol was running a double of...wait for it..
a molesters double that ran one ghastly week.
Great for Teenage Boys in 1956.
Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956)* 1/2 (out of 4)A German expedition through Africa turns up a beautiful blonde girl (Marion Michael) who the locals think is a goddess.
The crew kidnap the girl and take her back to the press who has a field day with her and soon it turns out she might be the long lost daughter of a very important man.This is a pretty strange film that I'm sure was loved by teenage boys back in the day.
This Tarzan-wannabe was filmed in German but it was sold throughout the world and in many locations it played matinees to where kids could watch it.
They would have loved that because of the beautiful blonde in the lead plus the fact that she wasn't very many clothes and at times we see a few slips of nudity.
Obviously, it's easy to see why so many teens from this period have such a fondness for the film.As it stands today, the film is pretty weird because it starts off as a Tarzan rip-off but then it quickly turns into some weird drama where people are fighting over who actually owns the title character.
I'm really not sure why they decided to leave the jungle because that's where all the fun was.
These early scenes contain shots of the wildlife and it was rather fun seeing the young girl in her natural location.All of the fun gets sucked out once we get back to civilization and the girl get taught how to speak English and how to be proper.
This stuff is just told in such a boring way that you can't help but wish they were back in the jungle.
Michael certainly has the appropriate look for the role and she's certainly fun to watch.
Hardy Kruger is fun as the lead male and we also get Reggie Nalder playing a bad guy.
LIANA, JUNGLE GODDESS really isn't that good of a film.
I'm sure when you watch it in life will determine how much entertainment you actually get out of it.
For me personally, the film is harmless fun at the start but it slowly grows more boring as it moves along..
When I say that it's a jungle out there, you believe me!.
It's clear that this movie's target audience is 14-year-old boys.
"Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald" ("Liane, Jungle Goddess" in English) has little purpose beyond showing off Marion Michael's body, especially the upper half.
And boy is there something to show off!
I understand that Marion Michael was known as Germany's answer to Brigitte Bardot.
As expected, the movie got treated as an adults-only movie upon its initial release (although you can bet money that a number of boys went to see it and it helped them become men).Obviously the movie has a colonial mentality in its depiction of the Africans.
We can understand that and simply luxuriate in all the shots of Marion Michael swinging from the vines wearing as little as was allowed..
The perfect film for sexually repressed 12 year-olds!.
"Liane, Jungle Goddess" is a slight film but one that pubescent boys would generally love.
This is because in this Tarzan knockoff, the queen of the jungle is a good looking teenage girl from runs around topless (and wearing little else) during the first portion of the film.
It's the sort of film that they simply couldn't have made in the US at the time due to censorship laws and I wasn't surprised that it was a German film (dubbed into English).When the film begins, you see the usual stock footage of Africa--for the most part.
It is less grainy and looks good, but it's also random--with Toucans (a South and Central American bird) and natives with blowguns (they use them in the Pacific and South America) in Africa!
This sort of thing isn't that unusual in a 1940s and 50s jungle epic--and as I mentioned above, the quality of the footage is pretty good otherwise.A group of explorers learn that there is a white teen living in the jungle amongst 'those savages', so they kidnap her and take her back to civilization.
A problem arises, however, when an unscrupulous man contemplates harming Liane because she might be the heir to a family fortune--and he's counting on having this money for himself.
For this sort of movie, "Liane" is actually pretty good.
While it's not a must-see or even a very good movie, it's a mildly enjoyable B-movie that has slipped into the public domain (and can be downloaded from the link on IMDb).
My only serious reservation is that the actress playing Liane was only 16 and I worry that pervs might watch the film for all the wrong reasons.
12-18 year-old pervs are welcome...old creepy guys watching it are not!By the way, I was really surprised when one of the characters was referred to as 'Mr. Goehring'.
Considering it was made only a little over a decade after the war, I certainly was not expecting to hear this name in a German film!.
Family film + breasts = "special" film.
I first learned of this film in the 1980s while looking through hundreds of random movie stills for sale in a movie memorabilia store in Hollywood.
One of those stills was of a young lady with a cute Hayley Mills type face, a lady labeled as Marion Michael, squatting down in her jungle outfit while performing a dance, her long blonde hair covering her breasts.
"She's gorgeous!," I thought, "Who is she?" I later looked up the movie title mentioned on the still, along with her name, and tried to obtain the movie but it simply wasn't available back then.
(I did find a few more stills of her and of this movie, however.) It wasn't until 2014 that I was finally able to see the movie on YouTube, and I wasn't disappointed.The movie left me with a good feeling, the same kind of homey jungle feeling I used to get as a kid when seeing Tarzan family movies from the '30s, and I thought about the movie the rest of the day.
Admittedly it's clearly a B movie with a predictable, trite plot, and shallow, stereotypical characters, but the combination of several elements made it work well, in my opinion: a beautiful young lady in scanty clothing, pretty (California) jungle scenery, cool jungle drums, wildlife footage, a '50s style family movie feeling, amusing character foibles, downplayed violence, and a happy ending.
There is a lot of atmosphere: a treehouse, a toucan, a cute lion cub, tikis, natives attacking with blowguns, several topless black tribal women with jiggling breasts as they beat on drums or dance, some fragments of spoken Swahili, etc.
It has the look and feel of Adventureland in Disneyland, with jungle tents, a bicycle-powered generator for a Morse code radio, British pith helmets, rifles with scopes, palm-thatched native huts adorned with antlers, etc.
I think it would be a great film for boys who are Tarzan fans if only parents weren't so prudish about breasts.
Kudos to Germany for being less prudish than Americans regarding the human body, then and now: Marion Michael must've been only 16 or 17 when this was filmed.Some minor oddball weaknesses...
The footage was oddly sped up in some places, especially to make it look as if Liane could climb a tree faster.
(Old Tarzan films did the same thing, however.) Liane's treehouse is in a disappointingly barren tree with all its limbs cut off.
The cranes-alligator-snake scene sequence was used in both the beginning and end, in absolutely identical footage (would it have been that difficult to at least show those same animals a few seconds later?).
Toucans such as the toco toucan shown perched in the tree near the beginning aren't found on the African continent, only in tropical America.
The pronunciations of Liane, Jacqueline, and Vodos/Wodos shifted constantly throughout the film.Some miscellaneous observations...
Liane still looks great in shorts, abbreviated blouse, and swimsuit while living in civilization.
It's clear by the plant species--pampas grass, Washingtonia palms, Canary Island Date Palms--that most of the jungle scenes were shot outdoors in some Southern California studio set, but I felt that added to the feel rather than detracted from it, since California vegetation is denser and more picturesque than African veldt vegetation, and it captured the feel of those great old Hollywood jungle sets of the 1930s.
Most likely the native tribe (described as Vodos/Wodos) with its dances, drums, and food preparation wasn't authentic, but if not, it certainly looked very authentic to me.
Nowadays it looks funny to see men and women lighting up stinky cigarettes right next to each other during romantic scenes, but this was made in the 1950s, and we've matured a lot since then, except that some of us men still prefer "pretty little bubbleheads," all the same!If you liked this film, films with a similar character you should check out are: "Sheena" (1984), "Tarzan and His Mate" (1934), "Little Indian, Big City" (1994), "Jungle 2 Jungle" (1997)..
A wonderfully naive plot and theme.
*Spoiler/plot- Liane, Jungle Goddess 1956.
An African expedition consisting of Germans find a blonde native girl in the jungle.
Research proves that she is the heir to a German billionaire's industrial fortune.
The heir is brought back to civilization only to get involved in family drama.*Special Stars- Marion Michael, Hardy Kruger.
*Theme- Kindness and help will benefit the weak.*Trivia/location/goofs- German, B&W.
Very early screen appearance for actor, Hardy Kruger.
Some suggested jungle nudity in swimming and dancing.
Many 50's & 60's German character actors are included.*Emotion- A wonderfully naive plot and theme for a foreign jungle film.
It's fairytale story keeps you wondering where the drama will start.
It does and keeps you interested till the final scene.
Simple film with easy virtues..
B-movie that delivers the goods in entertainment value..
LIANE gives the audience more than you'd expect.
Much better than "Greystoke" and much better than most 2010 movies where "stupid" reigns supreme.Of course we expect a sexy blonde with lots of leg; not just for 10- year old boys but for old geezers as well.
Not to give the plot away but there are two short scenes taking place in Hamburg, Germany where the legs get covered up by a dress!
Ugh!Still, the entire movie is strictly G rated in spirit and content.Very nice scenes of the African jungle, lots of animals, including the lake where all the flamingos (usec to) flock.
Hardy Kruger is the handsome young hero who has to contend not only with Liane but with a pretty cute female doctor who's set her eyes on him.The thin plot is never boring and will keep the interest of the kind of audience that loves good movies but wouldn't waste 5 minutes on Kick-Ass or Iron Man 2.LIANE is now in DVD, in color, doubled with another good B movie (about Devil's Island).
Hot female blonde Mowgli?.
"Liane, das Mädchen aus dem Urwald" is a West German German-language movie from 1956, so this one has its 60th anniversary this year already.
But it is really not too accurate to say German-language as all the versions I found of this slightly under 90 minute movie were dubbed in English.
This was certainly done to make the film more appealing to foreign (American) audiences.
And it must have turned out successful enough as several sequels followed in the years afterward.
But for as much as I care, not a single sequel was justified as this film here was extremely mediocre already.
It does not work as a drama, as an erotic film or as an adventure story.
The action is as generic as it gets.
For people who prefer brunettes like myself, they brought in Irene Galter as a young stunning scientist.
Blonde lovers can go for (the late) Marion Michael playing Liane.
The biggest name in the cast, however, is certainly Hardy Krüger.
All in all, the writing here was simply too bad to let me recommend it.
I am not sure who is the one to blame, the original author or the people who adapted her novel.
Watch something else instead..
***SPOILERS*** Blond beautiful and topless, this in 1956 when the Hayes Commission was still in effect, Liane played by German actress Marion Michael has been having the time of her life swinging on vines and living rent free in her jungle tree-house for the last 18 years after she was washed up on the coast of Kenya and adopted by the local Botos tribesmen and worshiped as their jungle goddess.
This all came to an end when she and her pet baby lion Simba was captured by a number of white Europeans, Germans, hunters lead by handsome blond and Aryan, like herself, looking Thoren, Hardy Kruger, and brought back to civilization in Hamburg Germany for study & observation.
It soon becomes apparent that Liane, all the facts about her checks out, is the grand daughter of German shipping tycoon Theo Amelongen, Rudolf Forster, who had given her and her shipwrecked parents up for dead 18 years ago.It's Theo's nephew Viktor, Reggie Nalder, who's to inherited his shipping business who feels that Liane is a threat to his career and does everything to discredit her as being old man Theo's biological grand daughter.
Try as he does all the evidence to Liane's relationship to Theo stands up and Viktor in an act of desperation ends up murdering the old guy and pins the blame of his murder on Liane's manservant Boto tribesman Tibor Teleky, Peter Mosbacher.
It doesn't take long for the smart as a whip Thoren Aka Thor to see through the scam and expose Viktor as Theo's murderer.
That after a wild car chase in the streets of Hamburg that rivals the great car chase scenes in both "Bullet" and "The French Connection" that were in fact made some 15 years later!****SPOILERS**** After all the action in the movie that took place in Hamburg Germany in the end Liane not wanting what the civilized world offers her as well as the late Theo's shipping business is back in the jungles of Kenya with her pet lion Simba swimming in the nude with the now, he doesn't care for civilization either, jungle man Thoren as the film ends.