The Phantom Jungle

Nickel & Dime Productions presents The Phantom Jungle, based on a story by Peter McDonald

Darkest Africa 1902
Africa is been raped of all its natural resources & the natives are restless as their homelands are been destroyed by the white-man's companies' charged with keeping the peace is Colonel Tuttle of the British army.

Sgt Vindaloo out on petrol find the poor soul.

When native woman is found in a canoe on the river, delirious with fever claiming to have been sent by Reverend Pimple-Bottom from the Missionary station up the river to seek help, as the Missionary is now surrounded by bloodthirsty Maju tribesmen & something far more terrifying, with her dying breath the woman cries out "Phantom Jungle Phantom" the Colonel decides he must launch a rescue at once, well at once been after a few more glasses of  the good stuff.

Fearing the white magic of  Rev Pimple-Bottom, the natives have not attacked yet waiting the arrival of their Witch-Doctor Tutu, but strange noises are coming from deep within the jungle, could it be the Spirit of the Phantom.

As the Reverend, his daughter Rosey & the faithful man servant Puki pray for salvation Tutu arrive's just as night is falling & tells his men they must cleanse the jungle of the white magic on the following day to quell the spirits of the Phantom.

The next morning as they ready for the attack a load whistle rings out over the jungle.

Col Tuttle center leads the men a shore.

Help arrives in the shape of Col Tuttle, Lt Binderly, Lt Smythe, Sgt Vindaloo Sgt Mulligitani & 20 man of other ranks who are not important enough to have names in this movie.

Between them & the Missionary is a couple of miles of jungle that is teaming with natives.

Ok I know if you look real hard you can only see 22 natives but this is nickel & dime stuff after all

The plan such as it is, is for Lt Smythe & 5 men to stay on board to protect the boat & give covering fire, while the Col & the rest of the men make for the missionary, what could possible go wrong ?

Bottom left the British, top right the Pimple-Bottoms & Puki, everywhere else natives thousands of them. 

As British head off the natives start to close in, & for some reason unknown to the producer of this movie the 3 in need of rescue decide to head over to the animal pen.

T2

Sgt Mulligitani far left in the blue turpin just so you know.

They had not gone very far when the natives start to close in, I told you the place was swarming with them.

Gunshots rings out in the jungle as the British claim first blood, but why they want to claim it I've no idea, I guess its some kind of British thing.

Tutu's the guy in front with the white feather, well he's really over to the side but that's just the camera angle. 

Over on the other side of the jungle the three O have now climbed into the pen & spotting  Tutu & some of his men,  Rosey & Puki open fire, the Rev just takes a swig from his hip-flask but don't worry he can hold his liquor.

More shooting & 

 dying.

T3

Meanwhile back at the pen, the natives move closer & let out war-cries of haba muba jaba, well you know the kind of thing I mean.

The good Col Tuttle with Vindaloo & a squad of 5 men push on while others

shoot

fight &

die, but not necessarily in that order.
T5

With the rest of his men cut down the war-party leader rushes Sgt Smythe & his squad billowing out something, but as nobody here in the studio's knows the meaning for it I can't tell you.

Our hero's  close in on the missionary, but there maybe trouble ahead, so while there's moonlight & love & romance lets face the music & dance, soon we'll be without the moon humming a different tune & then, oops sorry about that I got a bit carried away there.

Looks like their playing ring a ring a Rosey with the war leader, these British have a strange sense of humor, with not much else happening we'll head back over to the Col Tuttle.

As I thought he's under attack,

as is Lt Binderly, well at least someone got killed here, back to Tuttle

na nothing to see here lets move on.

Hang on maybe we were to fast, it looks like Tuttle & his men are getting to grips with things.

Should we go to an intermission here ? no you all yell your to engrossed in the movie & not in need of refreshments.
T's 6,7 & many others.

In trying to get back over the fence the Rev slips & pulls Puki down with him, looks like he can't hold his liquor after all.

My favorite party of the movie as our biggest star make his debut.

He set upon by some natives, who failed their smarts test but passed their guts test.

Been the star that he is he turns to face them, but we'll leave it there for now & go see what else is happening.

 The Rev & Puki haven't gotten back to their feet yet leaving poor Rosey to face Tutu & his guys alone, tune in next week when you will here Rosey say"Take on all 6 of you ? what kind of girl do you think I am ?

Ok I know you want to come back over here.

Hmmm tasty 

There goes the PG cert, I told the director to try keep the gore down, I'll have to have words.

Violence &

  more bloodshed, this is definitely heading for an 18s cert.

The plan works & dizzy from watching the lads go round & round the Warlord falls over.

I guess you where wondering what the guys on the boat were doing all this time weren't you? well they were shooting at natives.

Just as he had finished off the last of the natives your leading man ! comes under attack from some more, yes you guessed it failed smart test & passed the guts one, you could say their all balls & no brains, well as this is an over 18s movie I can say that kind of thing.
Raaarr those spears are sharp be careful where you point them.

Lots of fighting & shooting going on over here, but will  Col Tuttle & his men be able to save the Pimple-Bottom's & Puki ? do you lot even care ? no your just interested in how Mr Rex is doing.

Well as you can see he's still busy killing natives.

 A long range shot for those of you that like them.
Turns, well the rest of them.

All most there, but all is not well for the British, as

Mr Rex finished munching on natives decides he like something a bit different to try, but the nasty British shot him GGRRRAA oops I think they might have upset him, not a good idea.

Yet more natives.

& more

 As Col Tuttle goes about trying to save the Pimple-Bottoms & Puki

yet more natives are coming, but

help is at hand as Lt Binderly & his squad near the missionary, about blood time to.

but it doesn't look like there's much help for these poor blighters.

A big brawl

an ever big brawl.

more shooting & dying, by you guys are getting value for money.

I think the other guy where tastier, these British are a bit tough for my liking.

Extreme close up, I hope you lot in the front couple of rows didn't get splattered with blood.

It looks like the Brits have gained the upper hand.

Take that yells out the brave Sgt Mulligitani

Take this comes the reply, I guess that Blue Turpin isn't blue any more.

The natives are still trying to gain the boat & still getting shot for their troubles.

  Thing is when there's so many of them their bound to make in the end.

But the boat might not be the best place to be as it comes under attack.

This is so gruesome I don't think I can watch.

 Carnage utter carnage.

Col Tuttle finally gets to grips with Tutu &

  puts him to the sword, with the witch-doctor dead the rest of the natives flee, &

deciding he's had enough fun in his first starring roll Mr Rex turns & heads back into the jungle, much to the relief of some on looking British.

                                                                           Fin

Designers note, Well if any of you are still in the theater I think you might need to see a shrink :)
I don't know which I enjoyed more playing that out or writhing it up, but I can only hope I've done it in the right spirit, as when the script says the the person that's playing the British is to make loud whistling noises as the boat pulls up to the dock & that the Rev Pimple-Bottoms spacial ability is, Can hold his liquor, well what can I say.
If this is your first time coming here or you not seen the last post I'll give a link that might help explain what you just seen, but it in no way proves I'm not insane :)
http://nickelandimeproductions.blogspot.com/2018/10/astounding-tales-astounding-adventures.html

I'm also posting this on LAF with a link to here in the hope that Patrick R Wilson might see it, he at least will understand, maybe ;)

As always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to be a movie critic your comments would be welcomed :) 

Astounding Tales & Astounding Adventures

A couple of years back I bought Astounding Tales & the 3 copies of Astounding Adventures from the Wargaming Vault, these where published by The Virtual Armchair General which is a company run by  (from what little dealing I had with him)  a very charming gentleman named Patrick R Wilson, who some of you might know from having dealings with or from LAF.

Now at the time I was a bit of a lost soul hobby wise & couldn't seem to figure out what I really wanted my hobby to be or about, the basic idea behind the rules is you play the game out in the guise for your making movie's, this to me was a light-switch been turned on in my head.

Now you can play these rules as a straight up RPG or  a RPG using models, with the GM becoming the director & players becoming actors (eat your heart out TV7 :) now I could imagine how with the right mined people & a few bottles of good scotch how this game would work, but sadly I could never see how it could work as a solo game.

So did I waste my money ? hell no as I found them a very fun & enjoyable read, plus I'm a great believer of that things can often be useful in a different way then the one you bought them for & there are many gaming adventures with in the books that could be played out using other rules.

Why are you telling us all this Frank  you ask ? fair question, well the sets props & makeup departments of the studio's have all been very busy lately but all those high payed stars have been hanging around doing nothing & how is a studio's meant to turn a buck if its not releasing movies ?

So looking for a story I turned to Astounding Adventures to see if I could find one that I could pull off  with what I had & settled for one called Phantom Jungle, this is whats called a two reel movie, in other words there are to games in the adventure, but I did just the first one after throwing a few rules together, well as its says in the book pulp gaming is all about the story not the rules :)

The movie is now in the can & should be released in the next couple of days as there's just the finial bit of edition to be done, when I shot it I was going to just play it out as a straight movie but  as I started on the edition it just didn't feel right, so I though why not do it in away as to pay homage to the spirit behind it.

So after a few bottles of good scotch :) I set to work, will this film turn out to by the flop that they were hopping to make in the Mel Brooks classic movie  The Producers ? tbh I don't know but you guys have been warned so if you pay in to see it & don't like it don't go looking for a refund as none will be given :)

That's a rap for this post, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)