Clint (Roger Browne) is a rugged adventurer who leads an expedition into the jungles of Borneo in search of diamonds. There, they encounter a lot of nature stock footage and scenes from other movies. After a headhunter attack, the party is led to safety by the beautiful jungle girl Samoa (Edwige Fenech) who gives them shelter in her neighboring village. Eventually Clint learns the natives use diamonds as offerings in their secret shrine and he soon makes a plan to pillage the village.
Samoa, Queen of the Jungle is a (oh so) slightly better than average jungle picture that’s not too far removed from the genre pics of the ‘30s and ‘40s. All the usual cliches still apply. There’s a white jungle queen, a love triangle subplot, the asshole who butts heads with the hero every step of the way, and of course, a lot of stock footage.
The big difference is the stock footage is a lot more graphic. The longest bit involves Browne standing around watching a snake swallowing another snake whole. The funniest attempt to blend old stock footage with the new movie comes when the tribeswomen bathe in the river. The camera keeps cutting back and forth from grainy shots of real topless natives to pristine shots of sexy topless movie stars in a completely different river.
Samoa, Queen of the Jungle starts off well enough, but it loses its way in the third act once it becomes a barrage of interchangeable, repetitive scenes of the explorers gunning down spear-wielding and/or poison dart-blowing natives. The scenes of the group turning on one another, though inevitable, feel rushed too. Because it occurs so late in the game, the betrayals and backstabbing don’t land like they should. (Treasure of the Sierra Madre this is not.) We do get a decent death by quicksand scene though, so it’s not a complete wash.
Although the bare bones for a solid jungle adventure were here, it really needed a heavier concentration on exploitation elements to be a winner. Edwige looks great in her native tube top and all, but she only gets one sex scene, and even then, most of her anatomy is obscured by a stupid flower montage that is superimposed over the action. (I think it’s supposed to signify her being deflowered... I guess.) In fact, there’s more nudity in the stock footage scenes of the native women than there is in the “real” movie, which is pretty telling.
Edwige fans will be curious enough to sit through it once. Jungle movie fanatics will find some merit here as well. Anybody else will likely find Samoa, Queen of the Jungle to be a royal pain.
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