Adventure Girl

I took a look at JOAN LOWELL, ADVENTURE GIRL "from the book of the same name with narration by JOAN LOWELL HERSELF, and an extensive foreword that notes that "A year ago, Joan Lowell returned from a trip to the vastnesses of Central America, with a tale of well-nigh incredible adventures." How had I not heard of JOAN LOWELL herself before, I wondered, when even her boat has her name on it and I expect the dog has it tattooed on its belly?

In the end, I decided, it was because it was a load of amateurish hooey, with a silly script about searching for some emeralds in a lost city. The production was shot wild, supervised by Herbert Raynmaker, an actual professional who hadn't worked much recently, so that part is OK. JOAN LOWELL herself had appeared in several movies ten years earlier, so she moves OK, but she narrates the movie like she has never heard the words before and is trying to get through them as swiftly as possible.

The movie was given a cheap polish by Amadee Van Beuren's team and released by RKO -- apparently there were hopes that the reenacted "adventures", which included being saved from a cobra by a mongoose tying it literally in knots would yield Frank-Buck-like profits. Given that JOAN LOWELL herself gave up the movies and went into newspaper work -- where, I hope, her stories were more credible -- they probably weren't.