Green Hell ** (1940, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Joan Bennett, John Howard, George Sanders, Vincent Price, Alan Hale Sr, George Bancroft) – Classic Movie Review 7,421

James Whale’s 1940 jungle adventure film Green Hell stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Joan Bennett, George Sanders and Vincent Price. Fairbanks Jr called it ‘hell’. Price said it was ‘one of the funniest films ever shot’.

‘DARING TRAIL-BLAZERS OF UNTROD JUNGLE!’

The exceptional director James Whale and an out-of-the-rut cast (Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, Vincent Price) lift producer Harry Edington’s in-the-rut 1940 adventure movie about South American natives attacking a jungle expedition searching for lost Inca jewels in the steamy Amazon regions nicknamed the Green Hell.

Hey, wasn’t that the plot of several Tarzan movies? Frances Marion’s original story and screenplay are often risibly poor, with some unspeakable dialogue, but the movie can be entertaining as it has some camp fun value.

Price said: ‘It was one of the funniest films shot anywhere in the world. About five of the worst pictures ever made are in that picture. We all adored making it because there wasn’t a single word in it that was real. The sets were terribly opulent but it had the most preposterous story.’

Douglas Fairbanks Jr recalled: ‘Some of us had not thought much of the story, but we were all clients or friends of Harry Edington, who begged us to make the film at minimum fees and as a special favour.’

Even with a cheap (though delightful) cast and cheaper (though luxurious) sets, and with Whale working fast, it cost $750,000 and became an expensive flop.

Nevertheless, maybe the sets only look cheap. Universal Pictures built a massive indoor jungle set on a sound stage, and constructed an Inca temple 125 feet high, 225 feet wide, and 45,000 square feet in area. Universal tried to cut their losses by reusing it as an Egyptian temple for The Mummy’s Hand (1940), Inca? Egyptian? One temple looks much like another!

Also in the cast are John Howard, Alan Hale Sr, George Bancroft, Gene Garrick, Ray Mala, Francis McDonald, Peter Bronte and Lupita Tovar as Native Girl.

Cinematographer Karl W Freund shoots in black and white.

Running time: it’s all over in 87 minutes.

Release date: January 26, 1940 (US).

Douglas Fairbanks Jr said Green Hell was ‘hell. Every jungle cliché was trotted out. Joanie Bennett says it remains her worst movie. I remember George Sanders saying he held his nose every time he had to say a line. James Whale had just lost it. He didn’t care about it at all.’

Whale completed only one more film, the 1941 World War Two romantic melodrama They Dare Not Love, with George Brent as an exiled Austrian prince fighting the Nazis.

Vincent Price and George Sanders also made The House of the Seven Gables (1940) together.

Lupita Tovar

Lupita Tovar (1910–2016).

Mexican star Lupita Tovar (1910–2016) died on 12 November 2016, having made the grand old age of 106. She played Eva Seward (the Spanish-language counterpart of Helen Chandler’s Mina) in Universal’s Spanish version of Dracula (1931).

The cast

The cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr as Keith Brandon Joan Bennett as Stephanie Richardson John Howard as Hal Scott, George Sanders as Forrester, Alan Hale Sr as Doctor Loren, George Bancroft ‘Tex’ Morgan, Vincent Price as David Richardson, Gene Garrick as Graham, Francis McDonald as Gracco, Ray Mala as Mala, Peter Bronte as Santos, and Lupita Tovar as Native Girl.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,421

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