Line #24 Film/JungleGoddess


1	[[quoteright:266:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jungle_goddess_movie_poster.jpg]]
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3	''Jungle Goddess'' is a 1948 movie directed by Creator/LewisDCollins and starring Creator/GeorgeReeves, Wanda [=McKay=] and Ralph Byrd.
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5	Down-on-their-luck pilots Mike and Bob are hired to track down Greta Vanderhorn, a millionnaire's heiress daughter, whose plane went down in [[DarkestAfrica the central African jungle]] some years prior. Upon arriving in the jungle, the two are immediately captured by natives (with [[AxCrazy gun-crazy]] Bob killing one in the process) and brought before their leader Mata Greta... the very heiress they were sent to find.
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7	Turns out the natives, upon finding Greta in the jungle after her plane crash, instantly began to [[MistakenForGods worship her as a goddess]], apparently just because of [[MightyWhitey the color of her skin]]. She insists that Bob and Mike would have been treated similarly had Bob not murdered; but, while Bob the "white devil" awaits execution at the hands of the natives, Mike and Greta work up a plan to get the three of them back to civilization. But between the usual dangers in the jungle and the natives' ever-decreasing opinion of "Mata" Greta, escape won't be so easy...
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9	Not to be confused with the 1956 movie ''Film/LianeJungleGoddess''.
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11	For the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode see ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S02E03JungleGoddess here]]''.
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15	!!This film provides examples of:
16	* AmbiguousCriminalHistory: When Mike and Bob are imprisoned in the hut in the native village, Bob remarks that he's been in less comfortable jails than this. (In the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' riffing, Crow replies "That's nothing to be proud of!".)
17	* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Olonga and his pseudo-African gibberish yelling.
18	* DarkestAfrica
19	* TheDitz: Good Lord, ''Wanama!''
20	* DoubleStandard: When the male leads show up to "save" Greta the first thing they do is shoot dead an unarmed tribesman. Greta [[WhatTheHellHero calls the guys out for what they've done]], causing the men to express honest confusion over why she or they should care about an African being killed. ([[WhatMeasureIsANonCute What measure is a non-white]], apparently.) At the end, when a native kills Bob with a spear, Mike shoots him even though it appears Bob's all they wanted, and even though Bob was in fact trying to escape his own execution and the spear incident was justified.
21	* FurBikini: Greta wears a fetching leopard skin halter top and miniskirt ensemble, with a matching leopard skin cape for those chilly evenings.
22	* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Wanama tells Bob (the villain) that he's "very nice"... right after he insulted her by calling her "dumb" (she was never taught the word "dumb", so she assumed it was a synonym for "smart"). She wises up, though.
23	* {{Jerkass}}: The AxCrazy (or, in his case, ''Gun''-Crazy) Bob.
24	* JunglePrincess: Greta, the titular Jungle Goddess.
25	** Subverted a bit by the fact that she hasn't really fully "Gone Native" and wants to be rescued. She does become best friends with Wanama, though.
26	* MightyWhitey: The "Africans" in the movie actually ''worship'' white people, for '''absolutely no reason''' aside from the mention they'd never seen a blonde chick before.[[note]]In fairness, there ''are'' historical examples of Europeans being mistaken for supernatural beings (Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was thought to be a healer), but not always thought to be benevolent beings.[[/note]]
27	* MisplacedWildlife: In ''this'' African jungle, there are ''cougars'' (from the Americas) & ''orangutans'' (from Borneo).
28	* MistakenForGods: The African tribe assume the fair-haired Greta is a goddess, and [[GodGuise she plays along]] (presumably out of fear for what might happen if she doesn't). By the time Mike and Bob find her , the natives (spearheaded by the witch doctor) seem to be just starting to have doubts about her.
29	* NoIndoorVoice: The witch-doctor Olonga, a hefty walking stereotype whose only lines consist of busting in and yelling some gibberish ''really loud'' several times.
30	* SanitySlippage: It's implied that Bob suffers this, through a combination of fear of the natives and paranoia over Mike and Greta spending so much time alone together, jumping to the conclusion that they're colluding to escape without him.
31	* TokenEvilTeamMate: Bob is the villain but starts out as simply Mike's snarky, less virtuous friend, fellow pilot & companion.
32	* TrailersAlwaysLie: The movie poster makes the movie look WAY more exciting than it really is. Greta is not a "Temptress" or "Ruler of Thousands" and most of the flick is people sitting around talking with a couple of fistfights thrown in.
33	* TriggerHappy: Bob, whose reaction to anything unexpected is to shoot it. This includes him shooting a coconut dropped by a [[MisplacedWildlife very lost orangutan]].
34	* YouNoTakeCandle: The "Africans" who speak English (played by a Mexican actress & a Filipino actor). Everyone else are actual black people who speak gibberish.

Context Film / JungleGoddess