Saturday, December 1, 2018

NABONGA - "Weird Loves" (1944)

I think it's about time for another Gorilla Suit Saturday Night Special in The Dungeon, so tonight I've got one of the true classic gorilla suit movies, from 1944, it's Tabonga's third cousin on the primate side......

......"NABONGA" also known as "GORILLA."

An  African Airways plane full of stolen Jewelry has gone down in the jungle! The only passengers are a man and his young daughter.

After the plane crashes, the devious man shoots the pilot, and the girl is whisked off into the deep dark depths of the jungle by a large gorilla!

 The next thing you know it must be about eight years later, and all the local people know about the white witch of the jungle who has powers over some of the animals, especially one gorilla in particular!

A few days ago he was drinking martinis with Ray Danton, and now he's back in the jungle where he belongs! Barton MacLane is Carl Hurst, but he reminds me a lot of George Bush!

Buster (Flash Gordon) Crabbe as Ray Gorman needs to find that treasure, and Prince (South of Suez) Modupe as Tobo is more than happy to help him, since Ray just stopped another man from stabbing him.

Fifi D'Orsay as Marie was actually Canadian but you'd never guess it from the her accent or this outfit!
She's Carl's little henchwoman!

Tobo draws this very detailed map that shows how to get to the downed plane wreckage!

Ray Gorman has no idea what he's getting himself into!

Julie London was only 18 when this film was made!

If you spent as much time in thrift stores as I have looking at records, you would have seen Julie London's whole catalogue of music at some point. The smokey, sultry, sexy singer was probably only outdone by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in the 'donated to charity' department!

Buster does a good job of looking genuinely terrified by Ray Corrigan, the man inside the gorilla suit!

Ray Gorman and the white witch have a tentative relationship. He kind of likes her, but he really only wants the jewels, and she kind of likes him, but she's not giving them up because they're hers!

Somebody should have remade this film a few years ago, and used Drew Barrymore as the white witch! Asking who does her hair or where she gets her clothes would almost make as much sense as asking.......

......How Ray and Marie put this gorilla trap together in about 15 minutes!

Carl and Marie end up getting their just rewards!

Dig deep folks! We still needs it!!

More not truth in advertising! Her picture isn't even in this one, and in all the other posters Julie London has the smallest credits, but then Ray Corrigan has no poster credits, and is known only as Nbonga, so I guess it all works out!!

2 comments:

TC said...

AFAIK, Ray "Crash" Corrigan was never listed in the credits when he played an ape or monster in movies. He played gorillas in The Ape (with Boris Karloff), Dr. Renault's Secret, Captive Wild Woman (with John Carradine), The Strange Case of Dr. Rx (with Lionel Atwill), and the Three Stooges shorts Dizzy Detectives and Crime On Their Hands. His last on-screen appearance was as the alien creature in "It! The Terror From Beyond Space."

He also played an ape-like beast in the first Flash Gordon serial (1936), which, of course, starred Buster Crabbe.

He was also a star in "B" westerns. He and Max Terhune co-starred with Bob Livingston (and later with John Wayne) in the Three Mesquiteers series in the late 1930s. In the 1940s, Corrigan, Terhune, and John "Dusty" King co-starred in the Range Busters series.

Ray also owned the Corriganville ranch, where a lot of western movies and TV series were filmed.

Barton MacLane played bad guys in about a bazillion westerns and gangster movies from the thirties through the fifties. In the 1960s, besides drinking martinis with Ray Danton in a Honey West episode, he was a semi-regular on I Dream of Jeanie, where he played an Air Force general.

EEGAH!! said...

You know if I was smart TC, I'd contact you before I do one of these old movies and get all the pertinent info I'm too lazy to look up beforehand! Sounds like a good idea to me! It'd save us both some time, provide more info, and make me look more smarter!

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