JIVARO (1954)

Rio (Fernando Lamas) runs a trading post in a Brazilian village and he pilots a small cargo boat up and down the Amazon River. His friend Jerry (Richard Denning) had big plans to build a rubber plantation and bring his fiancée Alice (Rhonda Fleming) over from the States to live in jungle luxury, but Jerry has become a drunkard, dreaming of finding a legendary lost treasure in the land of the headhunting Jivaro people, and taking Maroa, a native girl (Rita Moreno), as a mistress. He asks Rio to finance a trip into the jungle to the Valley of the Winds where he thinks the treasure lies, but Rio tells him to shape up. While downriver in another village, Rio meets the lovely Alice who has come to visit Jerry, though the letter from Alice telling Jerry this was intercepted and torn up by the jealous Maroa, so her visit is a surprise. Rio agrees to take her back with him on the overnight trip; he gets her drunk on warm beer and the two become friendly. Back in the village, Jerry is nowhere to be found. Alice stays in his hut and discovers evidence of his affair. The next day, a burly prospector named Tony (Brian Keith) offers to take Alice up the river to a mine he's working, saying he can show her Jerry's plantation from there. She goes, only to be stranded with Tony (on purpose), who tries to assault her. He is stopped by the timely intervention of Rio who is clearly establishing himself as her protector. But when they get the news that Jerry has led a small group into dangerous Jivaro territory to find the lost treasure, Rio and Tony join forces to accompany Alice through the jungle to find him.

The exotic jungle melodrama had been an established film genre for years, at least as far back as 1932's RED DUST with Gable and Harlow, and in the 40s it remained alive in many B-films (the Tarzan and Bomba movies) with B-stars (Maria Montez, Sabu). But in the 50s, as movies tried to fight back against the popularity of television, exotica returned in Technicolor, widescreen, and with big budgets. This one is not terribly well-remembered today; it was shot in 3D but by the time of its release, the 3D fad had already faded so it was released in traditional form. But recently, the 3D version was found, restored, successfully shown at a 3D film festival and is now available on home video. I don't have a 3D screen or player so I can only report on the 2D DVD version (which looks clear and colorful), but the 3D gimmicks that were thrown in are obvious: early on, a native thrusts a shrunken head directly at the camera, not once but twice, and later on, fiery arrows are shot right at the audience. In 2D, this is a colorful if sometimes sluggish melodrama, notable for the presence of mostly bare-chested and very sweaty men, and a couple of nifty fisticuffs scenes. Fleming feels out of place here (as did many female stars who were cast as helpless women searching for their unworthy men in the jungles), dolled up in full make-up and well-coiffed hair. Lamas (pictured with Fleming), however, is quite an attraction here; he's masculine but not bombastically so, always wearing a shirt open to the waist (except when he's not wearing a shirt at all), and quite (sweatily) handsome. He and Fleming do work up some good chemistry in the last half of the movie. Keith, in one of his first major roles, does well as the villain—and gets to show off his beefy physique. Moreno mostly skulks around with a guilty face, and Lon Chaney Jr. gets fourth billing even though his "likeable lug" character only has about five minutes of screen time. OK viewing for a lazy weekend afternoon, or for fans of 50s adventure movies. [DVD]