Bomba and the Hidden City (1950)

Waste of time

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

I wanted to but couldn't!

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Bomba has to help the beautiful Sue England (who has kind of a cute Bettie Page bangs thing going on), who is the rightful heir to the throne, but is instead forced to marry the dastardly Hassan who seeks to steal the kingdom. Silly, low budget, and completely unoriginal, but I will say I enjoyed this one slightly more than the other Bomba films I've seen.

A silly entry in the Bomba series, this has Bomba ending up rescued by a mysterious native princess who is about as Arabic as Johnny Sheffield is. Bomba's legend has him the subject of a manhunt, and after being supposedly disposed of, floats into the hidden city where he is rescued by Leah, warrior princess, yet suffers the disapproval of her father. Sheffield seems to have added more than muscle since growing up, showing a rather pudgy face, not quite the muscular, lean star of the last Tarzan films and the first few of his own series. Bomba does manage to tackle a wild bull (what's a wild bull doing in the middle of the jungle?) and foil his enemies while aide wimpy princess Sue Englund, badly miscast in this mediocre entry in the series. Bomba seems rightfully annoyed by her presence, and even a twist concerning her doesn't make her character any more endearing. While the first three certainly tested the imagination, this is more amateurish and juvenile than any of the most mediocre of Tarzan, Jungle Jim or previous entries in this series. The presence of some cute monkeys and other wild life makes it a little more than barely watchable, but after an hour, I really found myself counting the last 10 minutes so I could move on. The highlight of the script is the curse, "May the fleas of a thousand camels nest in your beard!"

Bomba and the Hidden City (1950) ** (out of 4) Extremely far-fetched but entertaining entry in the Monogram series has Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) witnessing a political assassination and years later the evil ruler (Paul Gulpoyle) plans on marrying a woman (Sue England) against her wishes. It's up to Bomba to try and save the girl as well as help her remember her past. This fourth film in the series is pretty camp and there's no question that it's over-the-top but I found it to be slightly entertaining simply because of all the craziness going at. At just 71-minutes the film doesn't last too long, which is always a good thing but it also manages to be rather fast paced, which was a first for the series. Director Ford Beebe actually keeps the film moving very well and we even get some decent action scenes from start to finish. This includes Bomba taking quite a bit of abuse as he tries to flee from the bad guys who are constantly shooting and throwing knives at him. The entire mystery of who the girl isn't all that hard to figure out and I'm sure the 3-year-old kids in the theater at the time figured out who she was long before it's revealed. Sheffield once again does a good job in his role of Bomba as he certainly fit the part and has no trouble playing it. England is fairly entertaining as the girl but this film clearly belongs to Gulpoyle as the crazy one. The actor really gives it his all and you can just see the glee in his eyes from getting to play a bad guy. With all of that said, this is still a low-budget Bomba movie so the various negative things are still present.

"Bomba and the Hidden City" is a slipshod chapter of a very cut rate series of adventure sagas. It was directed, however, by a master of the serial form, Forde Beebe. This kiddie clunker was the kind of thing Beebe could direct in his sleep and judging from what follows the title, that's where he spent most of his time, jungle hammock style, collecting a cool $150 salary while waiting for the bus to another part of the forest.The storyline follows our semi-intrepid jungle boy, by now really filling out his French cut Tarzan loin wrap. He galumphs and swings through the eucalyptus trees of the Santa Anita Racetrack Botanic Gardens, searching for some supposed hidden city. This "city" more of a couple of shacks with a forlorn palm-tree and a few added stumps,seems to be known by everyone especially the Arab suits, read villains. The plot is something like "Tarzan's Desert Mystery" or "Tarzan's Nazi Adventure" or "The Return of Somebody with a Name like Schnarzan". Forgive me, sometimes I get carried away with all the excitement. The city, hidden or not, has the sister of another member of the cast who may or may not have been there before. Nobody knows for sure. Also, in the village is somebody called "Ferengi", perhaps an escapee from a space opera, though that is probably doubtful. As can be expected, Bomba makes everything right while hardly having to fling his spear.The bad guys get their well deserved drenching and just when we are sitting on the edge of our thrones with the possibility of the jungle boy getting his first lady friend, the end comes. But one big thing we can be sure of, in the next outing of our titular hero, he still won't have any body hair, a true "child" until all the film runs out!