Daughter of the Jungle
Italy 1982. Director: Umberto Lenzi
Cast: Sabrina Siani, Renato Miracco, Sal Borgese
Aka: Incontro nell'Ultimo Paradiso

1982 was apparently the funny-year for Umberto Lenzi. Apart from this obscure title, he also offered us this year two rare comedies in The Revenge of Pierino the Plague and Cicciacomba (with Anita Ekberg) plus Ironmaster, which is almost bad enough to be fun as well. On the paper at least, Daughter of the Jungle completes the director's cannibal trio, being the third cannibal movie in two years. It has the cannibals, it has the obligatory stock-footage of wild animals and it has some violence. But that's on the paper and that's about it. The cannibals don't eat humans at all and are hilariously aware of being just a tourist attraction, the violence is of the slapstick kind and no animals are killed whatsoever. This is a nice movie for kids of all ages. And as if to complete the irony, the script is co-written by one John Morghen who made a movie career appearing in some of the nastiest movies ever made (including Cannibal Ferox). He doesn't appear here, though, which is just as well maybe.

The story starts out with two American students who are on holiday in the Amazon jungle (actually the Dominician Republic). After some splendid encounters with "Frenchy" and his gang of ruthless emerald-hunters they run into the mysterious blond jungle-girl of the title. The girl is named Susan (and is played by Sabrina Siani) whose parents have been killed in an helicopter accident, leaving her alone and naked in the jungle. They team up, fight the bad guys and somehow ends up finding enough fuel to escape in the helicopter back to civilisation. Happy ending, music roll over credits etc.

The film is perhaps best described as a harmless romantic adventure comedy for kids of all ages. All of the actors, especially Sal Borghese (later to team up again with the director in Wild Team) goes for broke, acting extremely over-the-top, as so often in Italian comedies. Lots of silly accents and rolling eyeballs. And there are lots of things to look at. Sabrina Siani (born 1963 as Sabrina Seggiani) has since appearing briefly in Jess Franco's Cannibals gathered a huge amount of fans through the years for appearing in many films in a similar wordrobe (Blue Island, Conquest etc). As for a final judgement on this film, well, I know I liked the film the first time I saw it, but watching it again a second time I'm not so sure about it. It isn't one of Lenzi's best movies, but at least it shows he can direct in all genres. So if nothing else it's a fair shot at something else.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.