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Avid Sheena collector, Frank Bonilla tracked down a copy of the film on DVD but was unable to find any information about where and when it was released. Frank has had a search for the name in eBay for many years and has never found a poster or any lobby cards for the film. There is also no mention of it on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), which may suggest the film was never released.
When
Frank informed Christian Drake, the actor who played Bob Rayburn
in the series (on left in photo below), about it the film he said he had
never heard about it, and theorised that the Nassours had kept it a secret
so they didn't have to pay the actors. However, an article in TV
Headliner magazine from July 1956 said Irish McCalla "made 26 episodes
last year and for ABC syndication - and a feature film in which she'll play
Sheena again."The credits of the film give a 1956 copyright date and indicate that the Nassours formed a separate production company, Nasbro Productions, to release the film. The Sheena series was made by Nassour Studios, Inc. The Nassours obviously planned the whole venture and used the same actors and characters in all three episodes, which are collectively referred to as "The Bull Kendall Trilogy", after the central character, an escaped thug and murderer. He is played by 6' 6"/198 cm ex-heavyweight prizefighter, Buddy Baer (on right in photo right). Buddy had earlier appeared in another Nassour brothers production, Africa Screams (1949), an Abbott and Costello comedy, which also featured his older brother, Max Baer. Max was the World Heavyweight title holder for 364 days in 1934 and 1935 and was the father of Max Baer Jr, who played dim-witted Jethro Clampett in the The Beverly Hillbillies television series (1962-71).
The film is interesting because it is currently the only surviving copy of the lost Sheena episode, Land of the Rogue. However, as a film, it is a pitiful piece of trash. While the recurring motif of the search for the Ninomo tribe's valuable musk ties the three episodes together, they are really three different stories, giving the "film" a very disjointed structure. It is also disconcerting that Bull Kendall is eaten by crocodiles at the end of the first episode, and then mysteriously reappears again in the second episode with no real explanation and with no injuries or torn clothing.
Bull's wife, Helen, played by Roxanne Reed (centre photo below), also has a recurring role in all three episodes. It is minimal In The Lash, but in Land of the Rogue is is expanded slightly to include a minor romantic liason with Howard Evans, the local trading post proprietor, who believes
she
is now a lonely widow. Evans is played by Chim's trainer, Howard Bryant.
In the third episode, The Rival Queen,
Helen takes centre stage when she is hypnotised by Kendall's occomplice,
Turpin, an ex-vaudeville magician, and is forced to impersonate a mythical
Ninomo goddess. Turpin is played by an actor named John Lang, who
had appeared in a different role in the first episode, The
Lash, billed as John Langley, I suspect his real name (far right
in photo).Unfortuanetely, so much screen time is devoted to Kendall's schemes and recurring escapes that Sheena is almost inconsequential, although Irish does get to perform her wonderful bullwhip scene in The Lash (see the video of this scene at the Irish McCalla Audio-Visual page).
Both Buddy and Max Baer had successful film careers, often playing heavies and villains. Buddy appeared as the giant Ursus in Quo Vadis (1951), with Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov; he played the giant in Abbott and Costello's adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk (1952): and played Stan the hanchman in the Dale Robertson western, Hell Canyon Outlaws (1957). In the 1960s he did a lot of work on television, appearing frequently as the oversized-villain opposite the king-size western heroes like James Arness, Clint Walker and Chuck Connors. His television credits include Cheyenne (1955-63), with Clint Walker; The Adventures of Superman (1952-58), with George Reeves (he played a giant named Atlas); Have Gun Will Travel (1957-63), with Richard Boone; Wagon Train (1957-65); and Peter Gunn (1958-61).
Max Baer's film career, like his brother's, also included westerns and gangster films, but he also starred in several films about boxers - The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933), with Myrna Loy; The Champs Step Out (1951); and the near-autobiographical, The Harder They Fall (1956), Humphrey Bogart's final film.
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Bull Kendall, a convicted murderer and bullwhip expert, is travelling with his wife Helen and they are searching for the Ninomo tribe, who they know have a hidden treasure of musk oil. Kendall teams up with another thief and murderer, Rafik, but Sheena stops them and Kendall he falls into the river and is eaten by crocodiles. Kendall survives the crocodile attack and he and Rafik go after the Nimomos' musk oil. They create a ruse to panic the Nimosos into revealing the hiding place of their musk by shooting and wounding many wild animals, which causees them to become stampeding rogues. They manage to get the jars of oil but their distrust of each other allows Sheena to trick them and they are apprehended by the Commisioner. In prison Kendall and Rafik team up with an English vaudeville magician named Turpin and all three escape. Turpin hypnotises Kendall's wife Helen, who now works at the local trading post, and transforms her in the sacred Mazuma to incite the Ninomos into attacking the their friends, the Wajinas. Sheena is captured and forced to help Kendall poison the river to fulfill the Mazuma's prophecy (left), but she escapes and breaks Turpins's spell over Helen. Kendall, Turpin and Rafik are arrested and sent back to prison and the local tribes are at peace again.. |
• Personal correspondence with Frank Bonilla
IMAGES
• All photos are screenshots from my DVD of this film
LYNX
• Read an extensive Buddy Baer filmography at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
• Read a Buddy Baer biography, complete with boxing photo, at BoxRec.com
CAPTURE
• This film has never been released commercially
SHEENA
© is the property of Sony Pictures Corporation
This independent, fan-based analysis of the Sheena material is copyright © 2005-2008 Paul Wickham
This independent, fan-based analysis of the Sheena material is copyright © 2005-2008 Paul Wickham