White Pongo (1945)

Excellent but underrated film

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Or as everyone in the film calls it, White Ponga. The title refers to a legendary albino gorilla, who may or may not be—you guessed it—the missing link between humans and apes. Following a sighting by a white man, a scientific expedition of upper-class Brits combs the jungle for the creature (passing the same tree several times). The character named Baxter sounds like an American trying badly to impersonate an Englishman (which he was). The others talk in accents thick enough to merit sub-titles.WHITE PONGO features boat-rowing, walking through the jungle, and stock footage galore, designed to pad out the film as the plot was too anemic to support a feature. There's also a romantic sub-plot, but who cares?As with any low-budget jungle film of this era, the gorilla suits are just plain awful. They remind me of the Don Martin/Mad Magazine story, "National Gorilla Suit Day." The jungle scenery looks like a movie set designed by white people whose closest encounter with Africa was "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." And of course, the pacing is glacial.Other items of note:The African character named Mumbo Jumbo.The scene in which a native points to footprints in the dirt and exclaims, "Bwana, bwana! Pongo tracks!" Do white gorillas have noticeably different tracks than black ones?

This is your average run of the mill 1940s jungle B-film complete with people dressed up in gorilla suits, tribal people, rich white adventurers, stock footage of real animals, lame comedy, a budding romance between 2 lead characters and lots of silly dialogue. If you've seen one of these films then you've basically seen them all.It takes the group half of the film to get to their destination. The film padded heavily with scenes of real animals and lots of stuff of the budding romance and other unrelated stuff to the heart of the story.The film is not worth watching unless you are like me and found it in a 50-pack and simply want to watch all the films in the pack and review another seen film. BTW I acquired this in the Sci-Fi Classics 50-Pack and it's NOT a Sci-Fi.2/10

F*ckin hell! I'm the most forgiving film guy in the world, but when you fill your film full of basically people walking around, travelling from one place to another, you've got a real problem there. I mean, last night I watched Queen of the Amazons, and rather enjoyed it. But this film is just padding, padding, padding, with an ending that'll have you logging into the IMDb and starting a film review with "Sh*te Mongo".Basically, some guy is rescued from some African native's camp in Africa with some diaries pertaining to the missing link, namely a white gorilla that's been kicking about. The guy who escapes catches jungle fever but gets those diaries back to some folk who now set off to catch the white Pongo, also known as 'some guy in a suit who doesn't do much'. Basically, the whole main portion of the film involves folks travelling to the location of the white Pongo, who spends that entire time following the group. Be infuriated as a) We watch folks sailing down a river b) Pointless romantic interludes c) 'hilarious' jokes at the expense of ethnic minorities, an ending that'll have you foaming at the mouth.Honestly, I had real trouble trying to pay attention to this one. I had high hopes for it and then it ended up being a torture session. At the halfway point I couldn't believe I hadn't watched the whole film. In the battle of Man vs Film this is a pure win for Film as I had no idea things were going to get so bad.

As low budget jungle movies go this one isn't that bad. The production values are reasonable and the acting is perfectly ok. The script and storyline just aren't up to much and the whole film drags badly in the middle section. Not that there's much of a climax either - they just don't seem to know how to use the white gorilla effectively. Of course he steals the girl - they always do. As far as the gorilla costumes etc are concerned believe me they are nowhere near the worst you will ever see in films of this vintage. Enjoyable fun and a decent print on the alpha DVD I saw.