The Golden Idol

The Golden Idol has the youthful Bomba The Jungle Boy in pursuit of a The Golden Idol that the Watusi tribe worships. Perennial movie villain Paul Guilfoyle plays the evil Arab sheik who stole the idol and he and Johnny Sheffield as Bomba have some history between them.

Bomba is quite the jungle cop in his own way, throughout the twelve picture series always on the side of law and order which in this case is represented by Leonard Mudie as Commissioner Andy Barnes. Those tribes accepting British rule will always find a champion in Bomba.

Allowance has to be made as the Bomba series was for the juvenile trade, but watching them as watching the Tarzan you would never know about the forces of anti-colonialism that were spreading like wildfire across the continent. Three years after this film was released, the British Commonwealth cut loose by mutual consent the Gold Coast colony which became the nation of Ghana. In the next several years new nations came in abundance. The Tarzan films accommodated the new reality eventually, but the Bomba series ended before all that.

Anyway The Golden Idol shows a little wear and tear of the character as originality has left the series if it was ever there in the first place.