A party goes to Africa to find the City of the Dead. It turns out to be the ruins at Ankor Wat in Cambodia. Buster Crabbe, the hero, takes a swim in the Mekong River for serum (to cure a dread disease) that went down with a sunken freighter. The river has (freshwater) sharks, enough said. There are cannibals and tigers and lions to deal with.
The story is classic 30s jungle fare. Too bad the writers flunked geography.
Worth watching if you like Tarzan-like movies and can ignore the bad geography lesson.

It's a better way to amuse yourself on a sleepless night than watching infomercials. Which, by the way, is how I first saw a lot of these old movies. In the old days, when used car dealerships and cigarette companies liked running ads all night local television stations could run old movies all night.

But about this one...it isn't a great movie...it isn't even a good movie. One part is watching Crabbe's character try to find a cure for "Maleka" a deadly fever (his character, here, is more Young Doctor Schweitzer than Doc Savage) and the rest is about a couple of guys searching for "The City of the Dead" which, when found, bears a curious resemblance to Angkor Wat. (Mostly because it IS Angkor Wat most of the time). We never see the inside or find a lost race or get attacked by vampires, leopard men, or anything else that might have made for excitement. There are a few cannibals around but they don't really do much except creep around the jungle trying to appear menacing. Oh one does manage to get himself eaten by Charles Middleton's pet tiger---YEAH I said TIGER---don't worry the reason for the presence of a tiger in Africa is explained in this flick---unlike earlier films about Africa in which the cast and crew seem to think tigers are indigenous to Africa. (They aren't).
But, as other reviewers have said, the cast does their best with what they are given (which, admittedly, wasn't much). This appears to be the only screenplay Rita Douglas ever got produced and one can see why. It isn't very good---but it isn't the worst of the worst, either---it's a sstory that always seems to be building up to some climactic event that never arrives. Butsre Crabbe swimming through a sea infested with sharks (well, we are TOLD it's infested but we only ever see ONE and he doesn't seem interested in what Buster is doing).
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Like I said, if you can't sleep this will help you to keep your mind on something other than your financial woes or whatever it might be that's keeping you awake.

Forget Wasting Time On This One...Mpeg 1 Version......Full Of Green Dropouts....Bah....This Film Is Titled "Drums Of Africa".....All Films With Dropouts Should Be Removed!

This is not the worst bottom-of-the-bill Jungle picture ever made but it comes close. It's one third stock animal footage, which doesn't advance the plot, and it's slow and tedious going most of the way in a seen-it-all-before sort of way. However it does have some saving graces. Buster Crabbe does very good work with what he's given. Unless you are familiar with his early sound films, Charles Middleton is a surprise as a kindly priest with a broad smile and a sunny demeanor. The "name" value of both Crabbe and Middleton probably got some customers in the seats as well. Weldon Heyburn and then new-comer Robert Carson (extraordinary character actor after his hair turned gray) give good performances as well. Sheila Darcy left pictures shortly after this film and one or two more were made to marry Preston Foster. Enough said. From PRC. O.K. print and sound. You've been warned.