Queen of the Amazons (1947)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Great Film overall

Absolutely the worst movie.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

A safari travels from India to darkest Africa to rescue a survivor from the clutches of the legendary amazon women. Along the way, however, the travelers are plagued by a mysterious murderer. From the title, I was expecting 60-minutes of pure camp. Instead I got about 15 and those come at the end, mainly with Amira Moustafa as Zita, the amazon queen. The trouble is she's got to be one of the worst actresses I've heard in a while, even if she's all kinds of eye candy in that tight wrap-around sarong. No wonder she only had three movies. But what's the delectably fine actress Morrison doing in a z-grade production like this. She had such an erratic career, yo-yoing between prestige and programmers. Z-grade or not, I did enjoy the lengthy stock shots of the real Africa, the wild animals and natives on the savanna. Actually, the cheapo production did a pretty good job blending exterior studio shots with the stock footage. Then there's the poetry spouting Bromberg who adds a colorfully creepy element, while Lowery, a veteran of low-grade horror, lends an energetic touch when he could have just walked through. On the whole, the campy title tells a lot, but there are unexpected compensations.

"Join us on a woman's thrill-packed expedition in search of Greg, the love of her life, who seems to be lost in the African jungle. Unfortunately, her guide, Gary, sees her, and all women, as dead weight on such a trip. Despite this, he agrees to help her while searching for ivory poachers. In the course of their journey they must face imminent danger from man-eating lions and a plague of locusts. Eventually, they encounter a lost tribe of Amazon warriors. Is Greg held captive by their desirable 'White Goddess' (titular Queen) or is he there of his own free will?" asks the DVD sleeve synopsis. You won't care.Some of the zealously inserted stock footage isn't bad, but it's edited in too sloppily to have any good effect. Leading players Robert Lowery (as Gary Lambert) and Patricia Morison (as Jean Preston) are about as good as you can get, considering the material; they appear to see the humor in the material, without breaking into fits of laughter. A couple of the supporting players appear to be taking their roles far too seriously, which helps make the movie unintentionally funny. Former silent child star Wesley Barry is credited as "Assistant Director," which became a moderately successful second career.** Queen of the Amazons (1/15/47) Edward Finney ~ Robert Lowery, Patricia Morison, J. Edward Bromberg, John Miljan

(Some Spoilers) The movie "Queen of the Amazons" takes place not in the Amazon Basin in the jungles of South America but in darkest Africa's lion and elephant country. As for the fierce and feared, by the natives in the region, Amazon women warriors there about as threatening as the women on HBO's "Sex and the City" and as far as I could see-or count- there was only two of them in the entire movie.The movie actually begins in India where Jean Preston is looking for her husband, or is it fiancée, Greg who was lost on a tiger hunting safari a month earlier. As it turns out Greg ended up in Africa where he was taken prisoner by a group of woman Amazon Warriors lead by their leader the fearless and beautiful Queen Zita. With the switch in locations, from India to Africa, we get to see lots of stock footage of life in the wild as well as natives doing their thing in dance routines body piercing and an amazing, all caught on camera, lion hunt where the natives take on the king of beasts with nothing more then spears and arrows!To spice the story up a bit we have Greg working undercover for the local authorities to infiltrate and smash a contraband ring dealing with ivory tusks. Greg ends up-being the only man around- becoming Queen Zita's lover which greatly, after she finds that fact out from the Queen herself, upsets his fiancée Jean Preston. The real hero of the movie turns out to be Great White Hunter Gary Lambert who together with his friend and five star chief, or cook, Gabby leads the expedition into the jungle to find Greg.Gary soon realizes that there's a traitor-who's working for the illegal ivory smugglers-in his group that includes, besides Gabby, Greg's father Col. Jones this nutty professor & friend of the Preston family Wayne Monroe. Gary as well as the films director also realizes, in the movie really going nowhere fast, that he has to find out who the traitor is before the entire movie audience falls asleep from boredom!Well you can say the movie did pick up in the final minutes with Gary & Co. having it out with the contraband ring and the person behind it, after he came out in the open, getting his just deserts; A poison dart shot from a blowgun by the other Amazon-besides Queen Zita-in the movie. As death was quickly overtaking him the guy-the traitor- still had to go on reciting his awful poetry that besides those of us watching had even the wild animals, like monkeys and exotic birds, going nuts!

One of Edward Finney's most well-known films, Queen of the Amazons is the story of a young woman (Patricia Morison), her guide, father-in-law, an absent minded professor, a cook and a man scorned who all go on safari to hunt down her missing fiancé. The film includes a number of subplots ranging from the romance to murder mystery, and somehow, it is all linked up to illegal ivory smuggling. The safari, inexplicably, launches from colonial India, and the search takes up more than half the story.Most of the story is driven by transitional scenes between stock footage of African wildlife, jungle scenery and well-acted action scenes including animal attacks. The script, which takes on the responsibility for drawing everything together and driving it along, is not really up to the task. Dialog is used to establish virtually everything the stock footage can not. Besides the bland camera-work, the often laughable stock footage, and the over-taxed script, the directing and editing are good. There are a few continuity errors, but not as many as some reviewers have claimed. After all, this is Queen of the Amazons (who were written about by ancient Greeks 1500 years before Europeans arrived in South America) not "Queen of the Amazon" (a river named after the Greek stories). One, however, is worth watching out for. Pat Morison is examining some stock footage of African Savannah animals running away through binoculars. Just as she says "why are they running away so fast?" we see a herd of gazelles in the binoculars - running in very slow motion.The cast performs very well given the limitations of the script and story. The only acting disasters belong to the nevertheless likable Amira Moustafa (who had a remarkably short career). Many of the other actors were veteran character actors, or on their ways to becoming so.What the film fails to do, despite a fairly strong effort, is to generate any sense of drama or urgency. Nevertheless, it is not a complete mess, and the stock footage is actually quite nice!