A new colony of white men, created in the middle of the jungle, exports various products including minerals from a mine. The goods are transported down the Magi River to the coast. Recently valuable cobalt was discovered. The colony and the mine are run by John King (Steve Darrell). He lives in the colony with his ward Luora (Judy Walsh). The Commissioner (Charles Evans) is on hand to inspect the progress of the colony and to supervise the first shipment of cobalt.
On the river, adventurer Johnny Weissmuller (Johnny Weissmuller) finds the body of a man. Clenched in his hand is a piece of cobalt ore. It appears as though the man was killed by a crocodile but Johnny is suspicious. At the colony John King says that the man was escorting a shipment of cobalt down river. The rest of the men that were accompanying the shipment, the boat and the cobalt are all missing. King sends his head man, Rovak (Bruce Cowling) to investigate. Johnny decides to investigate on his own. Luora follows Johnny and makes a pass at him but Johnny isn’t buying. The next day, after Luora heads back to the colony, Johnny finds an injured man. He turns out to be Arnold King (David Bruce), John’s brother. Arnold and John don’t get along. Johnny finds out that Arnold was supposedly banished to work the mine but Arnold is the one that found the cobalt in the first place. When more cobalt shipments go missing Johnny has his work cut out for him trying to find who is responsible. Things point to a tribe of former cannibals called the Shenzi, that worship crocodiles. But the tribe isn’t working alone. Suspicion falls on everyone and Johnny needs to figure out who is a friend and who is a foe. “Cannibal Attack” was released in 1954 and was directed by Lee Sholem. It is a jungle adventure film and the 14th movie in the series of 16 Jungle Jim movies starring Johnny Weissmuller. Weissmuller was under contract to do 16 films. This is the first of three films that dropped the Jungle Jim name and only referred to the jungle adventurer as Johnny Weissmuller. This was due to copyright issues using the Jungle Jim name. Columbia produced the film but supposedly didn’t renew the rights to the Jungle Jim name and turned over the making of the last three films to its subsidiary Screen Gems. Rights to the name Jungle Jim were not owned by Columbia so the Jungle Jim name was not transferrable. The only other changes done to the character are; Johnny’s pet monkey is named Kimba and he no longer wears the slouch hat as in previous movies. The film is still based on the original Jungle Jim character. The Johnny Weissmuller character and the final three films are widely accepted as part of the Columbia Jungle Jim cannon despite not having the rights to the name. There are no cannibals in the movie. There are, however, lots of crocodiles. There are also fake crocodiles. In the highlights Johnny battles a leopard and a bird of prey. The bird of prey scene is stock footage from a previous Jungle Jim movie. The stock footage also includes several crocodile swarms. One of the characters in the movie, Arnold, battles a crocodile. It’s a decent addition to the series and has all the standard jungle film tropes. Kimba’s as much of a pain in the ass that Tamba was. As far as I’m concerned it could be the same monkey.