Or, more appropriately, "Kings of the Meanderers"
As if the elephants weren't already embarrassed enough.
I decided to watch this old flick, if only because I hadn't yet reviewed one of those old jungle films plied with wall-to-wall stock footage. It turns out I wouldn't be disappointed. It's no Jungle Hell, but it certainly qualifies as prime B-movie jungle junk.
We begin with a shot of the proverbial globe and zoom in on India. The name "Akbar" appears on screen. I'm assuming that's the specific name of the place we're going to, since the credits already appeared. Some stock footage of a street festival complete with parading elephants is shown. In what looks like another film, three white folks appear. Among them is a young woman named Jean, who asks, "Isn't it exciting?" What, to watch some grainy stock footage? Not particularly. A small old man with glasses, known as the Professor, agrees with Jean anyway. To piss on the proceedings is the other older man, Colonel Jones. The Colonel dismisses the parade as "… rather provincial but things are like that in the Far East"; I suppose he was hoping for a parade with more modern, dignified elements like clowns and drunk fat guys driving tiny cars.
Col. Jones exposits that the current situation in the Far East is disturbing. Since the term "Far East" technically encompasses over half the Earth's population, I'd say this is a tad vague, like saying your favorite film is the one starring "that guy". Eventually, I was able to decipher that he meant the natives are unhappy with their local government.
A young man named Wayne shows up and tries to convince Jean to cancel the remainder of her trip. As it turns out, Jean is looking for her missing fiancé, a guy named Greg Jones, who also happens to be our vague Colonel's son. The last they heard was that Greg went on a safari. Either the Colonel or Wayne (I forget which, as they're both arrogant turds) points out that neither the English nor Americans are well liked in these parts. If the locals have met Wayne or Col. Jones, I can understand their prejudice.
In a hotel lobby, Jean asks the desk clerk if he knows anything about Greg's whereabouts. Wayne moans about how their search is nearly impossible, despite the fact that they've just started. I hope Wayne doesn't own a car; if he lost his keys, he'd probably whine then go buy another car. The desk clerk doesn't turn out to be very helpful, but a mysterious local girl watches the visitors from a distance. After Jean, Wayne, Col. Jones and the professor leave, the clerk calls some mysterious man to inform on them. We only see the man's silhouette as he tells the clerk to detain the party. As he hangs up, he surprisingly doesn't laugh loudly to himself. I guess he's still in bad-guy school, having only learned the 'talk on phones in front of lamps' technique thus far.
Ma'am, I don't give a crap what Priceline told you; do I look like Bill Shatner?
Don't call me now! I'm in the middle of making rabbits and ducks!
In her hotel room, Jean is visited by the mysterious local girl from before, named Tondra. Tondra tells Jean her husband Moya may know something about Greg's disappearance. She describes a recent safari where a couple of party members were attacked by tigers while we see said events on-screen. Tondra is afraid to give Jean any further details, which makes me wonder why in hell she bothered visiting in the first place. After some prodding and some money, Tondra agrees to bring Moya to Jean's room.
Cut to some more stock footage of elephants walking around town. We see a sort of game where two elephants are playing tug-of-war with their trunks, while the Professor and Col. Jones ostensibly look on. The Colonel describes what we see as something akin to football or baseball, heavily followed and wagered on by locals. Oh, no, wait. It wasn't the Colonel talking to the Professor; it was the narrator, played by the actor playing the Colonel, describing the events for our benefit. It can be rather confusing when the narrator is also one of the actors on-screen. After a few sentences, I finally get the hang of it - When John Miljan (Col. Jones) speaks as the Narrator, his voice sounds lower and a bit slurred. I'm hypothesizing that Mr. Miljan showed up to record the narration part stewed to the gills that day. Anyway, not to be outdone by Wayne's bitching, Col. Jones (back to his sober self) complains about Wayne going to the marketplace to find clues. The Colonel still has his panties in a bunch about the local unrest, though we see nothing but calm and/or happy citizens in the stock footage.
The tension mounted as the Mormons continued to knock.
Moya shows up in Jean's room. Jean shows him a picture of Greg, showing him smiling and fashionably holding a cigarette. Don't worry; this was back in 1947 so this doesn't mean Greg is evil, unlike modern films. Moya confirms that he saw him and begins describing everything he knows. I now wonder what the whole point was of his wife Tondra first approaching Jean. Oh, padding the film, how could I forget? Moya says that the safari Greg went on was actually way out in Africa. Now I wonder why we had to begin the film over here in India, oh jeez, padding! I keep forgetting. Apparently, the filmmakers really wanted to use stock footage of tigers, but were still intelligent enough to know they aren't found in Africa. Anyway, before Moya can continue his story, someone behind a curtain fires a gun and kills him. How this assassin got inside this one-door room I have no idea; I can only guess that the X-Men are involved.
Wayne returns to the room and asks the Colonel, who has also returned, what happened. The Colonel, broken record that he is, says he doesn't know but fears trouble from the native unrest, as well as the police now. Outside the window, we indeed finally see some of the aforementioned unrest in stock footage of natives running around and fighting, which looks like it may have been lifted from some silent film. It isn't mentioned how Wayne calmly came back into the hotel, since I would assume he'd have had to have just walked through the rioting. It also isn't mentioned how Moya's killer escaped this one-door room without being noticed by Jean or Tondra. I'm just gonna stick with my X-Men theory. Kitty Pryde is my best guess, as Nightcrawler would've left a puff of smoke in his wake.
Our collection of alternately dense and naïve heroes decide to make their escape. I get even more confused as John Miljan, in his low, drunken Narrator voice, speaks as if he and the Colonel are now the same character, as well as the same actor: "We were lucky to get out of the country without further trouble and catch the clipper out to Africa." On a side note, so much for that desk clerk 'detaining' the visitors, that mysterious guy with the phone and bright lamp is gonna be pissed!
