Sheena Queen of the Jungle

Sheena Queen of the Jungle - Episode 3
The Sacred River (© 12 Oct 55)

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Director

Arthur Pierson

Producer

Edward Nassour

Screenplay

Terence Maples

Story Supervision

Joel Murcott

STARRING

Sheena

Irish McCalla

Bob Rayburn

Christian Drake

Chim

Neal

COSTARS

Pepe

Edward Noriega

Bashi

Frank Riguera

PLOT - NOTE: Spoiler warning
Pepe Da Vega, a spoilt and headstrong playboy, accompanies Bob on a mission to persuade the belligerent Chipala tribe to allow neighbouring tribes to use their sacred river to transport their trade goods. After seeing Sheena Pepe wants to exploit her and in the ensuing argument Bob is knocked unconscious. Pepe follows Sheena into the jungle alone and when he stops to cool off in the river for a swim Sheena is forced to rescue him from a crocodile (right). The Chipalas find them standing in the river and decide to sacrifice them by drowning but Bob rescues them. An unseen warrior strikes Bob with a branch, but Sheena, whose bonds have been cut, manages to escape. She returns to rescue Bob and Pepe who the Chipalas have now chosen to sacrifice. She frees them unnoticed and then directs them to go to the Chipala village. Sheena then appears and persuades Bashi, the Chief, that the river has spared these two good men. Bashi is convinced and he also agrees to let the other tribes use the river. Pepe is apologetic for all of the trouble he has caused and appears to have matured and learnt to appreciate Africa and her people.

COMMENTS
This appears to be the first episode filmed in Mexico. The evidence for this is that is the first episode to feature Raul Gaona, the Mexican trapeze artist, behind the opening credits (see above). In fact, the scene used behind the credits occurs three minutes into this episode. It also has the earliest recorded copyright date given by The TV Collector magazine (see above). This episode is also very prominent in the evidence that suggests that Irish McCalla's vine swinging accident may have ocurred the very first time she attempted it (see Page 9: Irish's Accident in the Filming In Mexico section for the full details). In interviews Irish said that it took four days to film the scene of her fighting the crocodile and she was ill and weakened by dysentery at the time. Despite this, she is quite physical in this episode, climbing trees, swimming both above and below the water, and of course, fighting a crocodile. Edward Noriega, the guest star in this episode, also appeared in The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), the Nassour brothers' next project after Sheena, also filmed in Mexico (see also Page 1: The Nassour Brothers in the Filming In Mexico section). This episode also features one of many Sheena-in-bondage scenes from the series.

MOVING PICTURES

Click on the images below to see two short scenes from this episode:

FRENCH TÉLÉ ROMANS (Photo Novels)

Click on the image below to see the complete episode illustrated with photographs, and with French captions:

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SOURCES
• The production credits and plot were taken from my DVD of this episode
IMAGES
• The episode title is a screenshot from my DVD of this episode
• The photo of Sheena fighting the crocodile is from TV Star Parade magazine Feb 56
• The photo of Sheena and Pepe being sacrificed to the river was kindly donated by Frank Bonilla
• The two video clips were uploaded to Youtube by me to use on this web page
• The montage of Télé Romans covers are from my personal collection
LYNX
• See a a very extensive Robert Foulk filmography at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
CAPTURE
• Bag yourself a copy of this episode on VHS from Moviecraft; beware the high contrast and heavily cropped versions of these episodes currently available on DVD

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