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# The abandoned city's treasure chamber in the 1942 “Jungle Book” as a model for cinema
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/odna-iz-velichaishikh-sokrovishchnits-v-mirovom-kinematografe-tainaia-zala-s-bogatstvami-zabroshennogo-goroda-iz-britansko-amerikanskoi-ekranizatsii-knigi-dzhunglei-1942-goda/
- Published: 2019-12-04T13:10:22.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:57:55.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Cinema, Pop Culture

One of the greatest treasure houses in world cinema: the secret chamber of riches in the abandoned city from the 1942 British-American adaptation of "The Jungle Book". The treasury is shown in two scenes. In the first, Mowgli finds himself in the deserted palace of a vanished principality with his friend Mahala, but the children take nothing except a single coin, after the cobra who guards the hoard warns them of a curse. The second time we see the cobweb-shrouded treasury, when the scheming shopkeeper, barber and priest creep into the secret city on Mowgli's heels and are driven out of their wits by the incalculable wealth before them.

One way or another, the set design of the "Jungle Book" treasury became the model for many later hoards in world cinema. Look closely and you may recognise both Scrooge McDuck's pool of coins and the gold beneath the mountain in "The Hobbit".

As for the skeletons in their jewels and crowns, they are strongly reminiscent of the richly adorned remains of saints in the Roman catacombs and in the sacred reliquaries of European churches, as seen in Paul Koudounaris's legendary photographs

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