Panther Girl Of The Kongo!

I have one word for you in regards the serial Panther Girl of the Kongo -- Crawdads! This movie purports to have monsters, but it turns out those claws are actually attached to enormous crawdads or as they are known in other parts crayfish. I grew up with an Appalachian creek only yards from my house and we spent many an hour playing with crawdads. I might even have been pinched once, but never would I have felt threatened. Now make them the size of Volkswagens and maybe you have something and I guess that's the deal here. But I just keep seeing crawdads.

This is a pot-boiler, with a steady stream of action, but the action has a sameness to it that robs it of the vitality usually associated with these Republic outings. Phyllis Coates is the eponymous "Panther Girl" though why is largely speculative save for one chapter clipped from the Jungle Girl serial in which she fights a lion dressed as panther maybe. Much of Panther Girl's jungle antics are from Jungle Girl but that doesn't bother me, I'm used to that kind of economy. There was just so little imagination used in fitting it all in.

The plot is dead simple. Myron Healey plays "Larry", a great white hunter type who comes to aid Panther Girl stave off some claw monsters -- the aforementioned crawdads. This use of giant crawdads is a ruse by a scientist and two thugs to keep folks away while the plunder a diamond mine. mine. (As is often the case more financial return by far could've been had with the hormones used to made the crawdads big, but no one gets that for some reason.) There are just crawdads in the distance they shoot at and a giant claw prop that reaches in and grabs a few folks, but that's about it.

One thing that did bother me about this serial and about most of the jungle girl serials is that why to varying degrees they are damsels in distress, the ones who kick butt really shouldn't scream. It's out of character. Also the natives in this one span the distance from unfortunate stereotypes to a king who talks normally and should've been the model for all of them. This one is kind of a snore to be honest.

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