The Jungle (1952 film)

The Jungle is an 1952 American live action/animated musical comedy action movie directed by William Berke. It stars Rod Cameron, Cesar Romero, Marie Windsor and M.N. Nambiar in lead roles. The movie was the first science fiction film in India. The movie is mainly in English while the villagers speak in Tamil.

 Plot 
Princess Sati comes home to India, sent to her father, at the request of her council of ministers. They tell her that multiple villages have been destroyed by stampeding elephants. Her friend Rama Singh was tasked with stopping the attacks. He hired famous hunter Steve Bentley who took 10 hunters with him into the jungle and only he returned. When asked by Sita, Bentley says that he found out that the stampedes were caused by mammoths. Singh feels bad for hiring Bentley as one of the 10 hunters killed was his young brother.

 Voices and cast 

 Rod Cameron as Steve Bentley
 Cesar Romero as Rama Singh
 Marie Windsor as Princess Mari
 Sulochana as Aunt Sumira
 M. N. Nambiar as Mahaji
 David Abraham as Prime Minister
 Ramakrishna as Babu
 Chitra Devi as Dancer

 Production 
The film was made through British Film-Makers, a short lived production scheme that operated in Britain in the early 1950s as a co operative venture between the Rank Organisation and the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), whereby Rank would provide 47% of finance and the rest came from the NFFC.

Principal photography began in early August 1951, and wrapped on November 4, 1951. Much of the Jungle scenes took place at Tioman Island , which was the original inspiration for the setting, as well as Oak Grove, Washington County, Tennessee, at Shepperton Studios and at Group 3 Studios in Beaconsfield. Filming also took place at Pinewood Studios.

 Reception 
Writing for PopMatters in 2013, David Maine said that "Low on monsters, but the unusual setting and musical interludes lend it an undeniably different feel from other films of the decade. Still pretty dull though".

 References 

Category:1952 movies