Jungle Drums (animated short)

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Jungle Drums
series = Superman


caption = Title card from "Jungle Drums".
director = Dan Gordon
story_artist =
animator = Orestes Calpini
H.C. Ellison
voice_actor = Joan Alexander
Jackson Beck
Bud Collyer
Julian Noa
musician = Winston Sharples
Sammy Timberg
producer = Sam Buchwald
studio = Famous Studios
distributor = Paramount Pictures
release_date = March 26, 1943 (USA)
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 8 min. (one reel)
preceded_by = "The Mummy Strikes" (1943)
followed_by = "The Underground World" (1943)
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0036475

Jungle Drums (1943) is the fifteenth of seventeen animated Technicolor short films based upon the DC Comics character of Superman.

Plot

Deep in the jungle, a tribe of aboriginal warriors is having a celebration. Their leader is a tall man in a white cloak. Secretly, he's really a Nazi commander, and the tribe's sacred temple is really an underground Nazi outpost. The Nazis eagerly await the arrival of an American convoy with information about an Allied attack. When a military plane flies overhead, the Nazis shoot it down. The commander sends the warriors to search for survivors.

At the wreck site, the mortally wounded captain hands his secret documents to the crew's only survivor, Lois Lane. He tells her to protect the documents with her life. Then he dies. Lois runs into the jungle and avoids capture long enough to hide the documents under a rock. She is then captured and brought back to the temple (outpost) for interrogation. When she refuses to talk, the commander orders the warriors to burn her at the stake.

Meanwhile, Clark Kent and another pilot are flying out to meet with Lois's convoy. They spot the wrecked plane not far from the aboriginal village. Clark parachutes down to investigate. Once on the ground, he changes into Superman. He flies to the village. Lois is already being burned at the stake with the commander watching her. Just then, one of the warriors approaches the commander and gives him a set of papers. It's the documents Lois hid in the woods. Overjoyed with success, the commander has his men radio headquarters and send the Nazi U-boats to attack the Allied fleet.

Clark arrives and saves Lois from burning to death. When the warriors see a man who can walk through fire, the run in terror. The Nazi soldier futilely fight back against Superman. Meanwhile, Lois takes a spare white cloak and sneaks in to use the radio. The commander catches her (her ladies shoes aren't will hidden under the cloak), but before he can do anything to stop her, Superman comes to her rescue. She sends a message to the American headquarters, warning them about the Nazi subs.

Out at sea, the Nazi subs prepare to decimate the Allied fleet. Before they can attack, they are bombed by a squadron of Allied bombers sent in response to Lois's warnings. The subs are destroyed, and the Allied fleet is saved.

In Berlin, Adolf Hitler listens to a newsflash about the defeat of his U-boat force. Angrily, he flips a switch on the radio, and the tune Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition plays as the cartoon fades out.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036060/ Jungle Drums] at Internet Movie Database