This 1942 movie is another Korda production. However, because of WWII it was filmed in Hollywood. Again the star was Sabu Dastagir, "Sabu" to American moviegoers. I saw it four times during the summer of 1942, at three different neighborhood houses, the Plaza, Euclid, and Little Five Points. At the Euclid I sat through it two times in succession. At the time I just called the movie "Sabu." After all he was the star and the Johnny Weissmuller films were always called "Tarzan." Besides, like Tarzan, Sabu could talk to the animals, swing through the trees, and swim. To me, he was sort of an Indian version of Africa's Tarzan. I believe it was when Jungle Book played at the Little Five Points that the showed a newsreel with the horrible aftermath of the RBBB menagerie fire in Cleveland, OH on August 4, 1942. I well recall the film's showing a Grevy zebra badly burned but being treated. It too succumbed. In fact the fire wiped out all the show's camels (13) and zebras (9). |
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
From Richard Reynolds #2
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Coinciding with the 1942 opening of THE JUNGLE BOOK, RCA Victor released a set of records (on its prestigious “Red Seal” label) featuring Sabu narrating a synopsis of the movie story, accompanied by excerpts from Miklos Rozsa’s superb score for the film. This rare album is now considered one of the very first Hollywood soundtrack recordings ever produced.
Of the films the Goebel compound supplied animals for, I heard more about JUNGLE BOOK than any other. All the veteran trainers on the picture spoke fondly of it. They liked Sabu for the same reasons they like Johnny Weissmuller--both were good guys to work with, and both got along well with the animals. Benny Bennett liked to tell of Sabu, who was a Hindu, expressing curiosity about strong drink, which for him was forbidden by his religion. He went on about it, and finally began to insist he get a shot of this whisky he heard of. One night Bennett and some of the other Goebel men spirited Sabu away from his handlers, and took him to the famous Rock House, a bar and restaurant on Thousand Oaks Boulevard. He liked his first shot of whisky, but needed a quick water chaser. Then he took to it, and before long he was falling-down drunk. They got him home and in bed without alerting anyone they had to explain things to. Sabu was severely hung over the next day, and his drinking career opened and closed in one.
This picture boasts some of the great character actors of the era. John Qualen, who is cast as The Barber, had earlier that year played Berger, the Norwegian refugee eager to make contact with Paul Henreid's Victor Laszlo, in CASABLANCA. He was Muley in John Ford's classic THE GRAPES OF WRATH, and Natalie Wood's uncle in Ford's THE SEARCHERS. Whenever Qualen appeared, great character work was assured, and his IMDb post has a most impressive list of roles spanning 5 decades.
Some of us remember Rosemary De Camp as Bob Cummings's sister on his 1950s sitcom. In JUNGLE BOOK, she was quite a fetching Indian woman.
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