Marabunta!

I watched The Naked Jungle tonight. It is a strange film. Border-line racist at times it also contains a large number of belly laughs. Some of which, maybe all, were completely unintentional I'm sure; for example Charlton Heston appears to be 8 feet wide in some scenes. The laughs are contained in the first half of the movie. They stop when the word 'Marabunta' is uttered by Robert Conrad's Commissioner character. Marabunta being a vast army of soldier ants heading their way after a 27 year kip.

It's then that the film becomes of interest to Pulp Adventurers. They travel upriver by canoe; battle the jungle a bit; encounter ant scouts and, see the enormous ant army scoffing its way across the land. The final scenes reminded me of a more apocalyptic defence of The Alamo. All of these action points could be developed further to produce a rollicking adventure.

As for characters it has it all. A brooding anti-hero, a stalwart and feisty woman,  two brave and loyal  side-kicks, a human villain with a shark's grin, expendable extras and a cast of, literally, millions of 'bad guys'. (They're not really bad, of course, they're behaving in a perfectly normal way which humans object to).

As well as the posh plantation house there also a very charming steam river boat with a red and white awning. A jungle camp, canoes, water dams and some spectacular scenery. The film makers also provide a plan of the plantation which is very helpful of them. All of which is of interest to model makers and scratchbuilders.

Updates as they happen!

PS Welcome to new blog member ColKillgore. Thank you for following!