This film star Lex Barker but it is one that I have no recollection of at all.

Lex Barker and Howard Duff play two men at odds over the possession of a gold mine – and the love of a beautiful girl played by Mala Powers.

In the same year I remember Howard Duff having a leading role in a favourite of mine ‘Tanganyika’ with Van Heflin and Ruth Roman – a film I saw as a youngster at the cinema and which was in Technicolor, Cinemascope with plenty of action and set in the African jungle. Great stuff.

Made in Hollywood by Universal Pictures, TANGANYIKA  released in the USA in the summer of 1954  has its action taking  place in 1903 in the territory of East Africa  and  Tanganyika. The story centres on a hunt for a fugitive white man who’s stirred up the “Nukumbi” tribe of natives into making raids on white settlements and outposts.  

Leading  the hunt is  John Gale (Van Heflin) who leads a group of native porters from East Africa into Tanganyika.   On the way he picks up Peggy Marion (Ruth Roman), a schoolteacher from Canada, and her young niece and nephew (Noreen Corcoran, Gregory Marshall), after rescuing them from a native attack that killed Peggy’s brother.

He also picks up a wounded white man, Dan Harder (Howard Duff) who, we learn early on, is the brother of the renegade white man, although he keeps that fact a secret.   Gale leads the party back to his camp only to find it plundered and his partner Duffy (Murray Alper) dead. So they all forge on into Tanganyika to locate the village where Abel McCracken (Jeff Morrow), the wanted man, holds court and rules the natives.

ADOVE – I saw this being advertised earlier. It is the ‘typed-out’ screenplay for Tanganyika dated September 1953

‘Tanganyika’ does not get good reviews in some quarters but it is a colourful, exciting and action-packed film in my view and one very well worth viewing if you can find it to view that is.

The ‘baddie’ is played by Jeff Morrow who had a long career as an actor although never really hit the top in starring roles – after this he was in such films as ‘The Giant Claw’ , ‘This Island Earth’ and ‘The Creature Walks Among Us’ although it is fair to say that he was a very busy actor at that time, and was in a lot of films and TV shows – as well as Theatre maybe.

Later in life, when the acting roles were less, he became an illustrator – so he was obviously a man of many talents

Speaking about his part in ‘The Giant Claw’ he said :

We shot the film before we ever got a look at this monster that was supposed to be so terrifying. The producers promised us that the special effects would be first class. The director -Fred Sears  – just told us, “All right, now you see the bird up there, and you’re scared to death! Use your imagination.” But the first time we actually got to see it was the night of the premiere. The audience couldn’t stop laughing. We were up there on screen looking like idiots, treating this silly buzzard like it was the scariest thing in the world. We felt cheated, that’s for sure, but they told us afterward that they just ran out of money. They couldn’t afford anything but this stupid puppet. But it was just terrible. I was never so embarrassed in my whole life.

This is a summing up of the film :-

This is a 50s favourite about a “bird as big as a battleship” from outer space that not only attacks the Earth and builds a nest, but it also laid an egg at the box office. The butt of jokes for years, and an embarrassment for those involved, this titanic turkey has an inept charm most films of its type can’t replicate. Undercooked in design and execution, the mutant muppet nonetheless gets more screen time than most other movie monsters do.

The only giant bird film made in America I am told.

It has to be said though, that this film is very well remembered even though most B movies of that time are not.