Baghdad Ka Jadoo, aka Magic of Baghdad (India, 1956)

Despite the contributions of Indian special effects wizard Babubhai Mistry, Baghdad Ka Jadoo's title is something of a misnomer. For the most part, the only magic that the film alludes to is that of star Fearless Nadia's 1930s heyday, the recapturing of which seems to have been at least a tertiary goal. And, in that, Baghdad Ka Jadoo appears to have been largely successful. For present here are all those fabled elements that second hand knowledge has taught us were the hallmarks of Nadia's -- sadly, now largely unseen and unseeable -- classic stunt films:  our heroine's lusty laughter in the face of danger, the wall-to-wall acts of daredevilry punctuated by the frequent trademark "HEEYY!"; the men hoisted up on shoulders and gleefully tossed, etc. We even see that Nadia can still do the splits!

Of course, alongside this are telltale concessions to Nadia's age, among them the cutaways to stunt doubles that were a rare occurrence in her salad days, as well as a scene where a dance started by Nadia is quickly taken up by another, younger female star. But the tone of Baghdad Ka Jadoo is so jaunty and good natured that it's hard to see much pathos in any of that, as, overall, one gets a sense of a past that is being celebrated every bit as much as it is being relived.

At the time of making Baghdad Ka Jadoo, Nadia had been with longtime lover Homi Wadia's Basant Pictures for fourteen years. Though it was under the Wadia Brothers/Movietone banner that she had first achieved fame, her career continued at full steam following the split that lead to Basant's formation. Still, by 1956, public enthusiasm for the stunt film formula was on the wain, and the regular release of Nadia's trademark actioners would trickle to a stop within just a couple of years. Given that, it's hard not to see something elegiac in a later film like Baghdad Ka Jadoo, whether it was intentional or not. For instance, along with the aforementioned return of many narrative elements warmly familiar to Nadia's fans, we also have a return by Nadia's frequent costar, John Cavas, here not only taking his customary place at  her side, but also directing.

Given its stunt film framework, the plot of Baghdad Ka Jadoo is impressively convoluted (the original program booklet's synopsis, reprinted over at Indian Film Trade,  manages to go on at dizzying length without even touching upon the whole "lost and found" aspect of the story). Suffice it to say that Nadia and Cavas play a pair of merrily thieving gypsies who fall on the wrong side of a corrupt sultan, thus necessitating their repeated breach of the castle walls in order to free members of their band who have been wrongly imprisoned, not to mention cause other varying forms of righteous trouble. This scenario provides the opportunity for all manner of showy leaping up and down parapets and onto the backs of charging horses, much of which is thrillingly impressive regardless of who was actually doing it.

One such episode involves Nadia entering the palace in the guise of a visiting prince -- such gender bending masquerades being another signature aspect of her classic screen adventures -- and meeting with the unintended consequence that the young princess' heart is set aflutter by her dashingly bearded visage. Nadia then goes so far as to woo the young girl, even performing a romantic duet with her in which a concealed Cavas, in the tradition of Cyrano, acts as her personal on-site playback singer. And while these scenes are played for laughs, they nonetheless can't help but carry a racy, transgressive charge; all told a pointed demonstration of how, when it came to Fearless Nadia, Bollywood's normally rigid gender boundaries somehow found themselves helplessly crashing in on themselves.

Baghdad Ka Jadoo ultimately fulfills its titular promise during its final minutes, folding in elements of the Arabian Nights style fantasies that were, at the time, Basant's bread and butter. This episode sees Nadia sidetracked on an abbreviated magical quest that ends with her riding to the rescue on a flying chariot as, meanwhile, Cavas leads a rousing peasant revolt against the palace. In the spirit of Baghdad Ka Jadoo overall, it's gloriously, triumphantly silly. And if throughout Nadia and Cavas aren't having the absolute time of their lives, they're certainly doing an uncannily good job of acting it.

Jungle Ka Jawahar (India, 1952)

Let’s face it: Jungle Adventure Month hasn’t been easy on any of us. That’s why, after suffering through the stubborn just-there-ness of Jungle King, I thought I’d turn myself over to the professionals. And that brings us to Jungle Ka Jawahar. It was produced and directed by the king of Indian stunt films himself, Homi Wadia, and stars his queen -- and wife -- the Australian-born Mary Evans, more legendarily known as Fearless Nadia. But, wait, that’s not all! The film also benefits from the set design and special effects work of the great Babhubai Mistry, who was not only a pioneer of Indian special effects, but also the director of a number of captivating Bollywood fantasy and mythological films in his own right.

Granted, the forty-something Nadia looks a bit matronly here, but she’s still game enough that I think we can extrapolate from Jungle Ka Jawahar what those stunt films from her 1930s heyday might have been like. (Which, sadly, is all that we can do for the moment, as none of those films are currently available for our viewing.) While some of her feats of daredevilry are filmed from a safe enough distance that they could conceivably have been performed by a double -- or are aided in part by rear-projection trickery -- in the film’s many acrobatic fights scenes we can clearly see, for the most part, that it’s Nadia getting down and dirty in the thick of things. She even pulls off one of those Dara Singh moves where she twirls a guy over her head before tossing him back at her opponents. (Which, now that I think about it, could just as easily have been an original Fearless Nadia move that Dara Singh later borrowed.) Hers is definitely a commitment to hands-on, sweaty, rough-and-tumble action that is very far indeed from what we’d expect to see from the typical Indian film heroine of this, or any previous, era -- which is another way of saying that Nadia indeed delivers in full on her reputation here.

The film’s story concerns a perpetually pissed-off jungle queen called Sheena -- played with fiery-eyed petulance by Leela Kumari -- who is scheming to return to her tribe a sacred scepter that has somehow fallen into the hands of a kindly jungle doctor played by Aga Shapoor. Aiding her in her scheming is one of those awful big city fortune hunters who so often arrive in the jungle to stir things up, in this case played by Dalpat.

What these two hadn’t counted on, however, is the facility that the doctor’s daughter, Mala (Nadia), has with swinging from vines, high diving, leaping from her perch high atop the backs of elephants, and generally kicking ass in the name of keeping things in the jungle status quo. And, by the way, I love the switch-up that Jungle Ka Jawahar pulls by having a fur-clad character named Sheena who, despite being -- like the famous comic book character from whom she takes her name -- the Queen of the Jungle, spends the whole of the movie stomping ineffectually around her cave lair in a big snit, while it is the dowdy Nadia, in her sensible safari wear, who takes part in all of the traditional jungle heroics.

Aside from that, however, Jungle Ka Jawahar doesn’t throw much at us that’s not covered in Jungle Adventure 101. Present are all those elements that have seemed to become part of the very air we breath here at 4DK over the past month: Pith-helmeted explorers tied to elaborately carved posts as natives dance in supplication to a creepy giant idol, one of their number eagerly stirring a giant stew pot in anticipation of the meal to come; someone wrestling with an uproariously fake looking stuffed lion; the outrageously phony gorilla costume; and, of course, the climactic elephant charge. What Jungle Ka Jawahar brings to this stew of familiar elements is an enthusiasm that works somewhat toward belying their not-so-freshness, as if this oft told tale was instead being told for -- well, maybe not the first, but perhaps only the hundredth time, rather than the thousandth.

The film also benefits from a sort of antique charm, even by the standards of Bollywood circa 1952. Take away the abundance of novelty musical numbers and comic relief sequences, and what you have is almost indistinguishable from a Hollywood movie serial from the 30s, complete with all of the last minute escapes, diabolical traps and rowdy physical stunts that entails. Even the film’s music, with all of its big band dynamics and whimsical clarinet leads, seems anachronistic, often coming across as a sort of Cab Calloway take on jungle exotica. All of this works together to instill the movie with an appropriately “gee whiz” kind of breathlessness, granting it just enough of an air of innocence and sincerity to keep the reeling out of its tropes from becoming tiresome.

Babhubai Mistry’s work here also goes a long way toward weaving a little bit of old fashioned magic around Jungle Ka Jawahar’s otherwise modest presentation. While clearly some location shooting was involved, the film is largely a backlot affair, and Mistry’s fancifully stylized sets -- from the jungle environs to Sheena’s expressionistic, idol-adorned cave lair -- conjure happy associations with set-bound Hollywood jungle adventures from the 30s and 40s like The Most Dangerous Game and King Kong. (I also couldn’t help thinking of the recent Filipino film Independencia, whose self-consciously artificial jungle sets were designed as an homage to such films.) It also has to be said that Mistry’s miniature work here is top-notch, and definitely on par with what was being done elsewhere in the world, Hollywood included -- which leads me to wonder again what the hell happened to Bollywood special effects, and why in later years they fell so dramatically (and hilariously!) behind pace with what was being done in the field elsewhere.

Most importantly, perhaps, Jungle Ka Jawahar manages to let us know that it doesn’t take itself all that seriously without lapsing into complete parody. Intermittent winks toward the audience cumulatively serve as a good natured invitation for us to check our incredulity at the door and simply thrill along as god and Homi Wadia intended. A parting shot, in which even the ridiculous looking man-in-suit gorilla waves goodbye to the triumphant Nadia as she speeds off in her plane, lets the viewer know in no uncertain terms that, if he or she spent the previous two hours worrying over Jungle Ka Jawahar’s general silliness or crudeness of construction, he or she just missed out on a whole lot of fun.

This review is part of "Stranded in the Jungle", a month of jungle adventure themed posts at 4DK.

Zimbo Finds a Son (India, 1966)

Even though it came out a full eight years later, Zimbo Finds a Son is far more of a direct sequel to the original Zimbo than its immediate predecessor, 1960's Zimbo Comes to Town. I'm still trying to figure out what that whole business of Zimbo starting out Zimbo Comes to Town as a hairy faced beast-man was all about. For that reason among others, a trusted keeper of the Zimbo legacy such as myself has no choice but to consider Zimbo Comes to Town, despite its undeniable entertainment value, a non-canonical work.

This is not to say that some changes haven't been made in Zimbo Finds a Son. True to the gender-imbalanced laws of Bollywood shelf-life, the conspicuously flabby Azad is allowed to return in the title role, while Chitra has been replaced by the younger Tabassum in the role of Zimbo's lady friend Leela. Also on hand is the actress Indira as Princess Zulina, a role suspiciously similar to that of Zimbo's Princess Maya, who was played by a different actress whose name, I'm sorry to say, escapes me.

Of course, this wouldn't be a Zimbo movie without the presence of the original Funky Monkey, Pedro the Ape Bomb. Unfortunately, our old pal isn't afforded the screen time he was in the comparatively Pedro-intense Zimbo Comes to Town. Still, he has his moments, such as a scene in which he cackles and hoots maniacally while braining a bunch of bad guys with rocks. There's also a nice bit where he plays a flute while marching around in a sort of drunken goose step.

The film begins in a nightclub, where we meet two big city scoundrels by the names of Rashid and Ratan. Through a chance encounter with one of Zimbo's acquaintances from the civilized world, they learn that Rashid bears a striking resemblance to Zimbo. This is not surprising, of course, since Rashid is played by Azad, here stretching his acting skills in a dual role for the approval of the academy. While Rashid and Ratan scheme how to make best advantage of this coincidence, we are taken to the jungle, where Zimbo discovers a young boy, Mala (Master Sachin), in the wreckage of a small plane. Mala is either very adaptable or has the most cloyingly adorable case of traumatic shock ever seen, because he seems to take to the idea of living in the jungle as Zimbo and Leela's son immediately and quite cheerfully. It's important to note, however, that despite the film's title, Mala won't be central to the plot of Zimbo Finds a Son at all. As things play out, a more fitting title for the movie would be Guy Who Looks Like Zimbo. Or something. I'm not in the industry.

Anyway, no sooner does Zimbo have Mala in arm than the two of them are captured by Princess Zulina's men and taken back to her palace, where Zimbo is thrown at the Princess' feet. In a very obvious concession to the popularity of Dara Singh's movies, he is then forced to participate in an extended wrestling match with a burly, mustached fellow by the name of Tonga.

Zimbo handily wins the match, and in sparing Tonga's life wins the love and undying loyalty of his muscular and well-oiled opponent. Tonga is not the only one impressed by this act of gallantry, however, as Zimbo's irresistible sexual magnetism, despite the markedly increased doughyness of the body hosting it, is still in full effect. As such, the Princess is an easy mark for his charms, much to the obvious chagrin of her suitor, the conniving Torak.

Eventually Rashid and Ratan, disguised as beardy scientists, mount an expedition to the jungle -- which of course includes Rashid's nightclub dancer girlfriend and a useless comic relief guy. It is not long before they are set upon by Zulina's men and Zimbo and Pedro have to rescue them. Zimbo then welcomes the group back to his camp, affording Rashid ample opportunity to study Zimbo in preparation for the dastardly masquerade he has planned. Once feeling confident enough to go full Zimbo, Rashid worms his way into Zulina's palace and tricks the princess into giving him access to her vast treasure chamber (not a euphemism, by the way).

Once the inevitable theft of the palace treasure is discovered, Torak, who only needed the slightest excuse to go all vengeful on Zimbo and his clan, dispatches a group of his foot soldiers -- who are inexplicably garbed in these sort of leopard print bat suits, complete with flappy wings -- to capture Leela, Mala, and Zimbo's man friend Tonga. It is then, of course, down to Zimbo to breach the palace walls and save his little family, in the process coming face to face with his double.

If the plot of Zimbo Finds a Son sounds like it's about five hundred times more complicated than it needs to be, that's because it is. Still, that does not prevent director John Cawas (Zimbo director Homi Wadia limits himself to the producer role this time around) from, in stalwart B movie fashion, including all kinds of useless business to pad out the running time. This includes a bit where Azad, Master Sachin and the comic relief guy all camp it up to an instrumental version of "Limbo Rock" that's playing on the radio.

There's also a bit where Master Sachin does a drag act, which is more than a little disturbing.

Come to think of it, while I'd never previously considered the relative gayness of the individual Zimbo films, I'd have to say that Zimbo Finds a Son is, hands down, the gayest of them all.

I'm just saying.

This, of course, does not preclude -- and, in fact, necessitates -- all kinds of displays of manly valor. And so we get a couple of instances of Zimbo fearlessly fending off life-sized dolls of the jungle's most vicious feline predators.

Mind it!

Zimbo Finds a Son, like its predecessors, is a rousing piece of entertainment, but I could nonetheless not help being disappointed by its relative lack of Pedro action. We don't even get to see our Most Valuable Primate wildly waving a gun around the way he did in chapters 1 and 2 of the saga. Of course, Pedro was a pretty big star by this time, and it just might be that he felt such antics were beneath him. Who knows? Perhaps I have yet to discover those films that marked the next stage in Pedro's career. Could they be romantic dramas in which Pedro plays the hero to the likes of Sadhana and Asha Parekh? I wouldn't count out the possibility.

Zimbo Comes to Town (India, 1960)

Okay, let's start off by getting this out of the way...

This moment of moral instruction brought to you by SHEMAROO!

Back in the days before movie sequels had catchy titles like Zimbo II: Moose on the Loose or whatever, they were instead just given titles that described what happened in them, like, for instance, Zimbo Comes to Town. There is indeed a town, and Zimbo does, in fact, come to it. But, ah, the convolutions that must first take place before said visitation can occur -- that, my friends, is where Zimbo Comes to Town's fascination truly lies. For this is less a simple follow-up to the earlier Zimbo than it is a retelling of that story with elements of King Kong unaccountably mashed into it for extra seasoning.

Somehow since we last saw him, Zimbo, the fair-of-face but thick-of-wit lord of the jungle, has been transformed into a fugly and savage beast-man. When he's encountered by a trapping expedition lead by lady lion tamer Sarang, the unscrupulous Sarang decides to capture him and make him an attraction in her circus. This is easier said than done, however, because Zimbo is a wild and untamed thing, and can only be soothed into submission by the song of the circus's star trapeze artist, Manasi (Chitra, returning from Zimbo, though as a different character, albeit one who is strikingly similar to her character in Zimbo).

Happily, the circus doctor has a medicine that can cure beast face. Once the treatment is completed successfully, Zimbo's old irresistible sexual magnetism kicks in, and the ladies are all like, "Thank you, doctor saab!" To tell the truth, though, Azad looks to have put on a good bit of flab since last playing Zimbo a couple years earlier, which makes me a little scared to watch the next Zimbo movie, which was shot a full six years after this one. In any case, handsome or not, if he's planning to rule the big top, Zimbo's gonna have his work cut out for him, because the circus's star attraction is none other than...

...Pedro! Pedro-watchers will be happy to know that Pedro, who is this time billed as "Pedro, the Ape Bomb", plays an even greater part in the action this time around than he did in Zimbo. In fact, this whole show pretty much belongs to Pedro, as he seems to get more screen time than Zimbo himself. This means that, over the course of Zimbo Comes to Town, we will see repeated demonstrations of how Pedro loves to do all of those things that we humans love to do...

Like wave guns around...

Sullenly down highballs...

Drive jeeps (preferably after downing those highballs)...

Subject others to second hand smoke....

Compose moving photo essays about the lives of inner-city schoolchildren...

Rock the maracas...

And lick microphones...

In addition to other, more traditional activities that I think we can safely call "monkeyshines".

Anyway, because Manasi is the only one who can control Zimbo, he is put in her care, and soon, thanks to her civilizing influence, has stopped eating her make-up and throwing his poop at people. (Okay, he never really did that last thing.) In no time, he has turned into a proper gentleman and has become Manasi's partner in her trapeze act. Love blossoms, much to the chagrin of Sarang, who, as any woman with a pulse obviously would, wants all of Zimbo's sweet Zimbo love for herself. Zimbo feels differently, of course, which prompts Sarang to go all homicidal and make with the kidnappings and the bull whipping and the crony-assisted beatings. Fortunately, there's a monkey on hand who's not only an accomplished stunt driver but also none-too-shy about putting a cap in people, so we know things are ultimately going to turn out in Zimbo and Manasi's favor.

God, the Zimbo movies are awesome. Even if Azad ends up looking like Nash Bridges-era Don Johnson in the next one, I'm going to check it out, because there's always enough else going on to make the experience well worthwhile. By which I mean...

Aw, yeah.