Alan Dean Foster - Luana

[andydecker]

Alan Dean Foster – Luana (Ballantine Books, 1974, 182 pages)

A novelization of an Italian and West-German movie from 1968. Luana la figlia delle foresta vergine or Luana, the Girl Tarzan as it was called in the US didn't exactly set the box office on fire. When it came to the US some had high hopes though, so they commissioned a novelization by young writer Alan Dean Foster. Anecdotes say that Foster had no English script and had to watch the un-dubbed movie to write the novel. Those were the days.

Comic publisher Warren also saw a profit, especially as the movie poster was done by Frank Frazetta who had done a lot of famous early covers for horror mags like Eerie and Creepy. So the movie was also done as a short comic, courtesy by writer Doug Moench and artist Esteban Marotto. Vampirella 31 in March 1974 also featured the Frazetta movie poster as a cover.

The movie is on Youtube, and it is as boring as most reviews say. Theoretically it has all the elements which made jungle movie so successful at the time (even if the argument is valid that in 1974 it was past its expiry date.) A pulp heroine, raised by the animals of the jungle, an expedition in peril, villains and some treasure, etc. But the movie couldn‘t put it successfully on the screen. Also thanks to its production time the star Mei Chen Chalais had one of those strategically placed wigs glued to her breasts to cover them. Even this is boring.

Mei Chen Chalais - who doesn't have a word of text - has 6 movies on her credit, one role is as an nude extra in Jean Rollin's first movie Le viol du Vampire.Blink and you miss her.

I have never read the novel, bought it only for the great Frazetta cover. But it wouldn‘t surprise me if Foster‘s version of the story is much better than the movie. The comic adaption has some nice art by Maroto but is burrowed at the back of the issue of Vampirella.