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| King of the Congo | |
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| Directed by | Spencer Gordon Bennett Wallace Grissell |
| Produced by | Sam Katzman |
| Written by | Royal K. Cole Arthur Hoerl George H. Plympton |
| Starring | Buster Crabbe Gloria Dea Leonard Penn Jack Ingram Rick Vallin Nick Stuart William Fawcett Rusty Wescoatt |
| Music by | Mischa Bakaleinikoff |
| Cinematography | William Whitley |
| Editing by | Earl Turner |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  May 1, 1952 |
| Running time | 15 chapters (252 min) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English - B&W |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
King of the Congo (1952) was the 48th serial released by Columbia Pictures. Based on the comic book character "Thun'Da, King of the Congo", created by Frank Frazetta.
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Plot
The film series is a complicated serial with more twists than a maze that basically centers around a U.S. Air Force captain and his quest for missing microfilm that contains vital information. The heroic Buster Crabbe plays Captain Roger Drum, who shoots down an enemy plane on its way to Africa with the secret microfilm. Intent on revealing the subversive group that the message was for, Drum assumes the pilot's identity and flies to Africa himself and crashes in the jungle. He is rescued by the pacific Rock People, led by Princess Phi (Gloria Dea), and is renamed Thunda, King of the Congo, after he rings a temple gong in alarm. With the subversives believing Thunda is their missing pilot and under constant attack by another tribe called the Cave Men, our hero plots to bring down the subversives who are searching for a new metal more radioactive than uranium. At the end, Thunda (or Drum) clear the jungle of villains and reunites the Rock People and Cave Men for well.
King of the Congo also was the seventh and last serial starred by Buster Crabbe between 1933 and 1952.
Cast
| Buster Crabbe | Thunda/Capt. Roger Drum |
| Gloria Dea | Princess Pha |
| Leonard Penn | Boris |
| Jack Ingram | Clark |
| Rick Vallin | Andreov |
| Nick Stuart | Degar |
| William Fawcett | High Priest |
| Rusty Wescoatt | Kor |
| Alex Montoya | Lipah |
| Frank Ellis | Ivan |
| Lee Roberts | Lt. Blake |
| Neyle Morrow | Nahee |
Chapter titles
- Mission of menace
- Red shadows in the jungle
- Into the valley of mist
- Thunda meets his match!
- Thunda turns the tables
- Thunda's desperate chance
- Thunda trapped!
- Mission of evil
- Menace of the magnetic rocks
- Lair of the leopard
- An ally from the sky
- Riding wild!
- Red raiders!
- Savage vengeance!
- Judgement of the jungle
Filming locations
- Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California.
Sources
| Preceded by Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere (1951) |
Columbia Serial King of the Congo (1952) |
Succeeded by Blackhawk (1952) |
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