Perils of Nyoka

Perils of Nyoka (1942)

Professor Campbell's expedition into the hills of Libya obtains a papyrus which might reveal the hiding place of the Golden Tablets of Hippocrates, containing lost medical secrets. Also in the region is intrepid Nyoka Gordon, still seeking her father, lost on a previous expedition. She alone can translate the papyrus, which directs our heroes through deadly perils (including the Tunnel of Bubbling Death) into the land of the Tuaregs. Opposing them are Vultura, Queen of the Desert, and her Arab ally Cassib, both greedy for the treasure...

Date of release
1942-06-27
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
4h 21m
Genres
Action
Director
William Witney

Casting

Interesting facts

Perils of Nyoka is a 1942 Republic serial directed by William Witney. It stars Kay Aldridge as Nyoka the Jungle Girl, a character who first appeared in the Edgar Rice Burroughs-inspired serial Jungle Girl.

Production

Perils of Nyoka was budgeted at $169,296 although the final negative cost was $175,010 (a $5,714, or 3.4%, overspend), making it the most expensive Republic serial of 1942. It was filmed between March 20 and May 2, 1942, with the outdoor action sequences shot primarily at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California.

The success of the original serial Jungle Girl prompted the sequel, but the studio did not want to pay licensing fees to Burroughs again, so it avoided any repetition of the term Jungle Girl, for which he owned the rights. Nyoka, the name of the main character in the first film, was instead placed in the title of the sequel, as that name was an original creation of Republic's writers, not of Burroughs.

Republic cast Aldridge in place of the popular Frances Gifford because Gifford was on loan from another studio for Jungle Girl and was not available for Perils as she had moved on from serials to feature films. The success and popularity that Aldridge gained from the role made her the star of several other Republic serials.

In his autobiography, director William Witney stated that the studio used a different actress to ensure that there would be no actionable copyright infringement.

Nyoka was one of the few serials where the serial heroine was opposed by a serial villainess, in this case Vultura, played by Lorna Gray. In the decades since the serial's release, reviewers have noted that it was unusual for the lead women to fight each other.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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