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Upon invitation of the Maharajah of Tata (Edgar Barrier), jungle doctor Ramar
(Jon Hall) & his companion doctor Ogden (Ray Montgomery) are invited to
India, where, before they can even as much as meet their host, an old Guru
warns Ramar of forthcoming perils ... & really, it's not long before Ogden
is attacked by a man in a gruesome mask, & a mark - the Mark of Shaitan -
scratched upon the back of his hand ... & as the legend goes, once the mark
has faded away, its bearer will die.
& as if that wasn't enough, at the Maharajah's court, the Maharajah's
friend Kruger accuses them of wanting to rob the treasure of Shaitan, since
only those who try to do so would bear the mark. Still, Ramar & Ogden,
along with their native guide Zahir (Victor Millan) head for the jungle, where
Ogden's health steadily worsens, & when the native bearers see his mark,
they panic & decide to sacrifice him, & Ramar & Zahir too. But then
Ramar has an idea: since he has found out that the man who has inflicted the
mark upon Ogden lives in one of the neighbouring caves, he just goes there
& unmasks him - & wouldn't you know it, it's Kruger himself -, which
pretty much ruins the natives' belief in the Mark of Shaitan ...
But ... Ogden is still dieing ... until Guru comes along, prays a little,
& Ogden is as good as new - because, Guru says, not some poison was causing
his decay but only his belief to have been poisoned ...
After a successful run of the series set in Africa, the producers decided,
in the middle of season one, to switch locale to India, just for a change ...
though actually rather little has changed, since the stzudio sets that in the
past represented the African jungle, now were supposed to be India, the natives
were as naive, savage & sacrifice-bent either way, only the spliced in
stock-footage dffered slightly. For season 2 however, it was back to Africa
again for the remainder of the series' short run.
This episode, the first of the Indian period, suffers severly from an
incoherent script that seems to take plottwists into just about every direction
rather deliberately, with no regard to storytelling, which makes it pretty hard
to figure out what's going on - even though this is just a naive junglöe
adventure.
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