Jivaro (1954) User Reviews

Fun jungle adventure, shot in 3-D

[Stereo3dguy · 7/10 · 9 June 2003]

Cheesy in the extreme, this one is a lot of fun. Lon Chaney, Jr (The Wolfman) is in a supporting role. Rhonda Fleming's third 3-D movie and Fernando Lamas' second. By the time this one was released, the 3-D boom was over so it was shown flat. However,you can glimpse some 3-D clips in the IMAX 3-D film ENCOUNTER IN THE THIRD DIMENSION, which is available on DVD.

In September 2006, the 3-D version made its public debut (53 years after it was made!) at the World 3-D Film Expo II. It's even more fun in the intended 3-D form. The restored print was quite nice and it is wonderful that this film can be seen in the stereoscopic version as shot.

A Dash of romantic pentagon

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 4 January 2013]

Fernando Lamas and Rhonda Fleming starred in this Pine-Thomas Production set in the Amazon tributary source country in Brazil. Jivaro is not about the Jivaro Indians who are the native inhabitants, but rather about the danger they are to anyone else. Clearly they are not a people to be messed with especially on their own turf.

It's on his turf that Lamas trades with the Jivaro, at his trading post on one of the Amazon tributaries. Lamas also owns a boat that makes The African Queen look like the Queen Mary. And on it he brings a passenger in the form of shapely Rhonda Fleming who has come unannounced to the area seeking her fiancé Richard Denning who 'owns' a big plantation.

Denning barely owns the clothes on his person. He's a dissolute drunk who came to the area seeking fame and fortune and he's still seeking it in the form of ancient Inca treasure in some lost city deep in the middle of Jivaro country. He's writing lies to Rhonda and taking up with native girl Rita Moreno.

And Denning has up and gone into the Jivaro country before Fleming arrived. Fleming also has Lamas and Brian Keith both panting hot and heavy after her, Keith a lot more crudely.

Jivaro is a competent well made action film with a dash of romantic pentagon in the mix. The credits don't list where Jivaro was shot and I doubt Paramount spent the money to go to the Amazon head water country. But Pine-Thomas did a very good job in recreating it, they were good that way, made competent pictures that looked good and never strained Paramount's budget.

I'd give this one a look.

Great little gem

[searchanddestroy-1 · 6/10 · 2 January 2022]

A pure little jewell from Paramount Studios which it was the speciality, adventure, exotic, colourful yarns full of action, romance, that were never boring. Edward Ludwig and Lewis Foster were the more iconic directors, and Rhonda Fleming, Arlele Dahl or Yvonne De Carlo- though the latest was more involved with Universal Pictures - the usual lead females. The charm contained in those films is now totally lost, that's the reason I will never get tired of watching them. Nothing special to say about this one, except it's one of the best of Edward Ludwig. If you don't know anything about this period, in the fifties, try this one to begin, you won't be deceived.

Where the Americans are the bad guys

[kuciak · 7/10 · 8 July 2010]

I saw this film many years ago on American Movie Classics, when it was good and is not the AMC of today which has commercials and interrupts the film at odd times. two other reviewers have touched on the 3D of the film, and also the environmental aspects of the film and the Indian tribe that the film is named after. However, what really struck me about the film, is how different the film is in its politics of the time. American films up to this time always portrayed Americans as the good guys, but what I remember here was that the Americans led by Brian Keith seemed to be the bad guys in the film.

the good guys are led by Fernando Lamas, a Latin American. Lamas was suited for the role, born in Argentina, it was great that they did not rely on some American actor to play the lead. Certainly, I think the studio of the film (Universal), may have been responding to criticism earlier from Latin American countries on how they were portrayed in previous films, and I suspect that the Latin American market was looked upon as a possible future source of income for their films.

The lead is played by Rhonda Flemming, and she is quite attractive in this film. If I recall correctly, the Lamas character will get the American woman in the end, the American bad guys are defeated in the end.I doubt that such as casting or result would have been done some 20 years earlier. Lamas, sadly, while well known did not have a great career, Jivaro shows however that maybe it could have been better.

I give the film 7 out of 10, because I feel that it is an interesting film, and quite unusual for the time. the irony also is the director, Ludwig, and not so long before directed John Wayne in the overly patriotic Big Jim McClean. Did he see the irony of doing this film?

Fun it was, but not in the only available Spanish DVD

[mmmiguelmarias · 6/10 · 14 February 2020]

Shamelessly, this DVD loses its image/sound synchronism abot 20 minutes after the film starts, and never recovers it. Unwatchable. To avoid. Miguel Marías

Fernando Lamas and Lon Chaney

[kevinolzak · 6/10 · 11 November 2023]

1953's "Jivaro" was shot in color and Widescreen 3-D on location in Brazil as "Lost Treasure of the Amazon" or "Valley of the Winds," produced by the Pine-Thomas unit at Paramount, remembered for their frugality as 'The Two Dollar Bills.' Fernando Lamas toplines as Rio Galdez, a tradesman and bar owner dealing in the upper reaches of the Amazon while discouraging talk of vast riches deep in Jivaro country, the land of headhunters, as a shrine to their victory over the Spaniards. Into this heated background comes Rhonda Fleming as Alice Parker, expecting to wed her long absent fiancee after two years of waiting in California, instantly an object of desire for fortune hunting Tony (Brian Keith), who also covets the hidden treasure. 3-D thrills are plentiful, enough to offset the expected love triangle, with spears, arrows, and other objects hurled at the camera, saving the dangerous trek through the jungle for the final third (the 'Valley of the Winds' certainly earns its nickname). Apart from the handsome leads, supporting cast members are only on screen a short time, including Richard Denning as Alice's doomed beau, Marvin Miller in brown makeup as a native chief, and Lon Chaney as trader Pedro Martines, around just long enough for some good natured sparring with Rio over a worthless crate filled with rocks. This was easily the least of Chaney's films for Pine-Thomas, previously doing major villains opposite Randolph Scott in "Albuquerque" and John Payne in "Captain China."

A waste of time!

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 11 April 2018]

A Pine-Thomas film, produced and released by Paramount Pictures. Copyright 1 February 1954 (in notice: 1953) by Paramount Pictures Corp. New York opening (flat) at the Palace: 12 February 1954. U.S. release: February 1954. U.K. release on the lower half of a double bill: April 1954. Australian release (flat): 11 March 1955. Sydney opening on a double bill at the Victory. 8,228 feet. 91 minutes. U.K. and Australian release title: LOST TREASURE OF THE AMAZON.

SYNOPSIS: A cool but not overbright beauty comes looking for her fiancé who is lost in the Amazon jungle.

NOTES: Paramount's last 3-D feature played flat in most situations, though it did have some 3-D showings in Britain and the U.S.A.

COMMENT: Not exactly one of the Most Boring films ever made, but it certainly runs the Top of the Tedious pretty close. The swaggering Fernando Lamas, one of the most egotistical yet least personable of Hollywood's minor stars, is here joined by that regular Pine-Thomas lesser (if luscious) light, Rhonda Fleming in a cutdown variation of King Solomon's Mines.

Even in its 3-D version, the film comes across as a lackluster, snail-paced affair. It doesn't help that there are few 3-D effects - a shrunken head is thrust at the camera and a chair or two is thrown into the lens - and that the 2nd unit work is so grainy it was obviously blown up from 16mm. Many scenes like those with long-winded Lamas and frippery Fleming on the boat are completely superfluous and unnecessary. One wonders why the editor left them in, especially as at 91 or 93 minutes the film is too long for a "B" feature anyway. The support players come across as a trifle more interesting than the pedestrian principals, though only villainous Brian Keith gets much in the way of a dramatic opportunity. Cult hero, Lon Chaney, is confined to just one scene - true, it's one of the most exciting in the movie - near the beginning, while Rita Moreno has virtually no part at all. Ludwig's direction manages the difficult feat of bringing a dull script to an even less animated life. Production values are strictly "B".

In short, a waste of time. Even the Amazonian locations look synthetic. Although mildly stimulated by the opening scenes, desperate action fans will have deserted the movie long before the long-promised jivaro-attack climax. Maybe rabid followers of the loquacious Lamas and/or that equally dreary, equally unconvincing heroine, Miss Rhonda Fleming, a so meticulously groomed fashion clotheshorse of the studio backlot jungle - maybe fans of these two spoilers will get something out of Jivaro. Maybe.

Take a ride on the Amazon Queen.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 15 December 2020]

Okay so Fernando Lamas is no Bogart, and Rhonda Fleming is no Hepburn. The premise is different, too. No war, or at least not of the civilized kind. This deals with the possible dangers that Lamas and Fleming find as they trek down the river on Lamas's boat to take Fleming to her plantation owner finance, Richard Denning. But with Denning involved in a hunt for missing treasure, this opens up temptations for the lusty Lamas and the tempestuous Fleming whose red hair is no match for the red jealousy of native girl Rita Moreno, playing another one of her spitfire parts but barely saying anything, wearing hideous outfits and a hairstyle that makes her look like Flora Robson in "Caesar and Cleopatra".

Gorgeous colors about in this exotic setting makes me curious of how it would be in the initial 3D format. It does indeed look like a painting come to life which is an interesting perspective of the exotic nature of the story. Brian Keith and Lon Chaney Jr. also appear in supporting roles, with Keith obviously lusting over Fleming and Chaney, laughing maniacally in his one scene, serving no purpose other than to show the roughness of life in this deadly Brazilian paradise.

Visually, this is quite stunning, but cardboard characters and a rip-off plot from "King Solomon's Mines" makes this a standard, cliched action picture, no worse and certainly not better than the dozens of others of this nature released in the mid 1950's to bring audiences into the theater. Take away the minor romantic elements and the color, and you're left with a Jungle Jim or Bomba programmer, easily forgettable and not at all taxing on the brain.

Is DVD available?

[Barney_Beers1947 · 10/10 · 20 October 2008]

This is Mrs. Sheila Beers, writing with the permission of Barney Beers. I saw this movie on a black and white television as a child about 45-50 years ago, and I only can imagine how much better it is in color. However, through missionaries I had heard of the fierce Jivaro Indians, and I found "Jivaro" a compelling story. I still believe the film is much more than an adventure-romance story and that it has more to offer than viewers of the 1950s realized. Now that there is so much interest in saving the Brazilian rain forest, I believe "Jivaro" is even more relevant today. The theme is timeless, being the clash between primitive cultures and the modern world. Since New World exploration in the 1500s, the Jivaro Indians of South America were known as headhunters and cannibals, but a lesser known fact is that South America's richest gold deposits were (and still are) located in Jivaro territory. Although Brazil was settled by the Portuguese, the Spanish who settled Peru, Ecuador, and other countries that border Brazil, soon learned of the Jivaro's treasure and wanted the gold to defeat Protestantism in Europe. In spite of their primitive nature, the Jivaros (like other primitive tribes of South America) knew how to mine gold and refine it. Through their reputation as fierce headhunters and cannibals, the Jivaros protected their wealth. In the late 1500s the Spanish dared to build the city of Logrono, population 25,000, on the border of Brazil. The city provided housing for miners, settler families, and administrators who wanted to send the gold to Spain. Wanting to deflect the invaders, the Jivaros, armed only with spears and possibly blow guns and clubs, wiped out the city in 1599. They killed everyone but the young women they could assimilate into their tribe for breeding. The city, built mostly of wood, was burned to the ground and mostly absorbed by the jungle. For centuries afterward the Jivaros killed any Europeans or Americans who encroached on their territory. When the Jivaros eventually were Christianized in the late 20th century, missionaries noted some members of the tribe had lighter complexions and more body hair, attesting to their descent from the Spanish women taken from Logrono. Because of this fascinating piece of Brazilian history, I would like to see "Jivaro" made available on DVD. By seeing the movie, people could learn more about South Americam cultures and relate the story to current issues about the rain forest.

Another good 3d classic from late 53 -54

[mmcgee282 · 10/10 · 22 March 2019]

I read a review ,before I finally saw the 3D movie, the reviewer claimed that in spite of the D.T.S sound,the sound stayed in the middle speaker. How ignorant this movie was recorded for mono ,it was never stereo.The archive did not convert it to stereo.Sure the sound was a bit screechy,but it probably was that way due to how it was recorded or the age of the track.It seems in this picture they were promoting Fernando Lamas as a sexy hunk in this film ,obviously to get the straight female crowd.It could have been unintentional because it was suppose to take place in South America and it was shot at paramount , so , the film makers decided to portray him as having to keep his shirt half open too off to portray him being affected by the heat.The only mistake wasn't to show a little water on him to portrayed sweat.He's owning a bar out of no where in kind of a tourist trap in south America and you see all these visitor as if this was a great vacation place,really. This was Rhonda's third 3D.In this film she portrays her age,rather than an older teenager that she played in Those Redheads of Seattle.It looks as if her character was going down there on a promise from her fiance,for letter she got from him ,that he wanted to marry her and he now has a plantation,but in her expression she might be putting on. Richard Denning plays a secondary role as Rhonda 's fiance,who went down there to make money so he can get married to Rhonda,but, gets persuaded to quit his job and search for gold.This was his first appearance in 3D and the only one in color,mono pack Technicolor.His role is a bit shorter than it was in the creature from the black lagoon.The set were rather rather realistic.There were plans by Pine and Thomas to actually shoot in the Amazon,but,they changed their minds .Rita Moreno plays one of the Indian girls in the small tourist trap village in the Amazons,who is a Mistress or girl friend of Richard Dennings,who resents Rhonda when she found out that Rhonda is his fiance.When Rhonda finds out about her ,Rita, she acts nonchalant about it .It looks like Rhonda is out in the amazon more than just coming down there to marry him. Fernando Lamas also has a secret for the reason why he is in the amazon,in his boat there a picture of a women he seems to worship.You don't find out what this women was to him ,until later.There is the traditional throwing things at the camera ,but it's in connection to the story that it does not look abnormal.Like the scene which Fern is showing cloth material to the tribe leader,played by Marvin miller.The offering to Fern a shrunken head was very effective in 3D.I did not see Kay Johnson in the film,did they cut her out? she couldn't of played Rita Moreno's friend ,that woman was too young.I wasn't aware until recently that Brian Kieth was Robert Kieth,who appeared in many Samuel Goldwyn productions, son.He also played one of the hunky macho workers in the Amazons,not Amazon.com.He tries to seduce Rhonda by tricking her to go with him to the work camp ,lying to her that she would see Denning's plantation.He tries to rape her until Fernando comes to the rescue .This certainly was opposite of what Brian would play in the ,"The parent Trap,or t.v. show ,"Family affair ", but then he was not a goody two shoe actor.This was one of the few 3D films that had use of movement in the inter axial in ordered that different lens could be use in various close up and distance shots .Normally the inter axial was preset in making 3d film.Good Romance, hunks ,glamorous heroins all in 3D and premiered on home video Blu- Ray for the first time since the Hollywood 3d film festival in 2007, at the Egyptian.For the first time in it's wide screen perspective too.When it was released theater originally it was flat .Thank goodness for Bob Fermanek! 03/22/19

Phenomenal 3D in a very watchable adventure

[Sevenmercury7 · 8/10 · 22 February 2020]

Adventure n. 1 an unusual, exciting, and daring experience. 2 excitement arising from danger or risk.

While you could argue that Alice Parker's (Rhonda Fleming) initial journey to the Amazon trading outpost to reach her fiance meets the above requirements for an adventure, that part of her story isn't shown on screen. In fact, the only real adventure here takes place in the final twenty-five minutes. But what a glorious twenty-five minutes! A rope bridge over a raging river, dense jungle foliage with all the layering you could dream of, windswept ruins, hostile natives shooting flaming arrows at the camera: it's exactly what I wanted when I first heard about Jivaro.

The preceding hour-and-a-bit, quite frankly, isn't what was advertised. In fact, it's dramatically quite anaemic. The superbly underplayed romance between Alice and Rio (Fernando Lamas) would be perfect as a secondary plot element if the main story-her quest to find her fiance-had any weight. But it rarely does. And the conflict, provided by lascivious prospector Brian Keith, peaks during a bruising fist-fight but then gets swept up in the final expedition and promptly loses its steam.

As with several of these Golden Age 3-D films, I had to watch Jivaro twice, the first time for what it wasn't, the second time for what it was. On second viewing, I surrendered to the leisurely pace and found I could luxuriate in the sumptuous stereography, colourful production, fine acting, and the imaginative evocation of this Amazon setting on the studio backlot. You could say I jived with Jivaro and became a fan. Plus, I just love the 1950's Technicolor feel.

The 3-D is wonderful throughout. You're always conscious of it but never distracted by it, apart from the flying arrows and such near the end. It reminded me of the intuitive, naturalistic 3-D in Miss Sadie Thompson, which was strong without being ostentatious. The layering of dripping water in Alice's room when the rainstorm hits is one of my favourite effects: it's gritty and dream-like at the same time, and absolutely puts you inside the room with her. The sheeting rain outside is also great, as is the smoke in the saloon. There are several instances of characters jumping into the frame from negative space-remember Igor in House of Wax-and they work every time.

The film fulfils its 3-D action-adventure potential and then some as it reaches the finale, first with the rope bridge sequence and then, one of my favourites of any Golden Age 3-D blu-ray, the Valley of the Winds sequence. It's so exotic and striking and dangerous-looking, it kicks the film up several gears. Combined with the sound effects and some clever stereo touches-raging water, a swaying corpse, the positioning of the actors-it's transportive in all the ways I want a movie adventure to be.

High adventure, Fernando Lamas style

[tarwaterthomas · 8/10 · 17 July 2020]

Rio Del Val (Fernando Lamas) was a riverboat skipper working the villages in the Amazon Basin, until lovely and innocent Alice Parker (Rhonda Fleming) arrived in search of her fiance Jerry Russell (Richard Denning), who had been searching for a lost gold trove. So now Rio Del Val leads an expedition in search of the treasure. They are imperiled by vicious Jivaro headhunters who reside in the forbidding Valley Of The Winds. JIVARO is a well-executed jungle adventure, of the type that used to be so popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, and Paramount used to make quite a lot of them. Brian Keith scored as an evil-minded prospector. Filmed on a much bigger budget by producers William Pine and William Thomas, also known as the "Dollar Bills"; they were in charge of Paramount's B-movie unit, and a lot of their fractured flickers slipped into the public domain. According to the previous reviews, apparently JIVARO is not available on home video here in the U.S. and all I can say is, why not? Paramount needs to get on the stick, and have Olive Films put it out. There's a market out there for these jungle jitters. That's all, have a good weekend, and stay safe.