Jungle Siren * (1942, Ann Corio, Buster Crabbe, Evelyn Wahl, Paul Bryar) – Classic Movie Review 11,540

‘SHE’S A ONE-GIRL LOVE-BLITZ! It took this American he-man to teach her the manual of ARMS… and what a pupil she made! ‘

The ONE-GIRL LOVE-BLITZ is Ann Corio (November 29, 1909 – March 1, 1999), who got her brief chance in the movies but she was renowned as a prominent American burlesque stripper, working at Minsky’s Burlesque in New York City and Boston’s Old Howard Theatre.

But when New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia closed down the city’s burlesque houses in 1939 as being ‘obscene’, Corio went to live and work in Los Angeles. Between 1941 and 1944 she appeared in several Hollywood poverty row B-movies featuring her in scanty costumes, beginning with 1941’s Swamp Woman. But the best known of them is 1942’s Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) jungle adventure movie Jungle Siren, starring billed above the title, with popular star Buster Crabbe, who must have wondered why he wasn’t billed above the title.

Corio plays Kuhlaya, a woman who was raised in the jungle, who helps Captain Gary Hart (Buster Crabbe) and his friend Sergeant Mike Jenkins (Paul Bryar), a couple of Americans working for the Free French in Africa, to battle Nazi plans to start a native uprising.

Another Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) movie, Isle of Forgotten Sins [Monsoon] (1943), re-uses footage from it.

It was first shown on US TV on 11 February 1946.

Ann Corio performs ‘Song of the Jungle’ (written by Johnny Lange and Lew Porter).

Later, in 1944 Corio made Call of the Jungle and Sarong Girl.

The cast are Ann Corio as Kuhlaya, Buster Crabbe as Captain Gary Hart, Evelyn Wahl as Frau Anna Lukas, Paul Bryar as Sergeant Mike Jenkins, Milton Kibbee as Dr Thomas Harrigan, Arno Frey as Herr George Lukas, Jess Lee Brooks as Chief Selangi, Manart Kippen as Major Renault, James Adamson as the native Johnny, and Greco as chimpanzee.

It is written by George Wallace Sayre (story) and Milton Raison (story), and George Wallace Sayre (screenplay) and Sam Robins (screenplay).

Buster) Crabbe’s role in the Tarzan serial Tarzan the Fearless (1933) began a career in which he starred in more than 100 films, playing the top three syndicated comic-strip heroes of the 1930s: Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,540

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