Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) – Review

When one thinks of the iconic characters of Tarzan and Jane most think of Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan who starred in Edgar Rice Burroughs himself was so enamored with Maureen O'Sullivan that he told the studio heads that Maureen should play the heroine in all movies based on his books. This is a departure from his earlier views of Hollywood’s take on his books as the he was no fan of the silent movies depicting his most famous creation.  In fact it was his dislike of those movies that made him include in contracts that any future films would not be allowed to use elements from his book; just the names Tarzan and Jane, nothing else.

This is why the 1932 Tarzan the Ape Man has no origin story for Tarzan, there are no lost cities, and even Jane’s nationality is changed from American to British along with a last name change from Porter to Parker. Elements from the books won’t filter into the movies for decades to come.

The movie opens with James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) and his partner Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton), who runs a general store and trading post in Africa, deciding on an expedition to the Mutia Escarpment in the hopes of finding the mythical elephant’s graveyard with its millions of dollars in ivory. When James’s daughter Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) shows up unexpectedly things get a bit tense as she insists that she be allowed to come along despite the dangers. Anyone who has ever laid eyes on the sacred Mutia Escarpment is hunted down and killed by witchmen of the tribe who guard the escarpment with a supernatural dread. It’s clear that Harry has romantic designs on Jane so he helps sway her father into letting Jane come along, but before they leave they give Jane a tour of the outpost via some incredibly obvious rear screen projection.

 

“The stock footage is excellent this time of the year.”

As in almost all jungle adventure movies we then get our “heroes” forming a safari and delving into the dark and dangerous jungle. Unfortunately in most cases these films choose killing off the native bearers as a way of showing just how dangerous it is. And it’s during this jungle trek that the character of Harry Holt shows that he is clearly not going to be the romantic lead who wins Jane’s heart as we see him constantly threatening to shoot the natives for being cowardly, and has them whipped to keep them pressing forward. What is interesting is he is never really treated as villainous, as if his actions are completely justified; he even tries to kill Tarzan at numerous points in the film, and yet he actually survives the picture. Not something that can be said of any of the black members of the safari.

 

Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

The sequence where the safari builds a couple of rafts to cross a hippo and crocodile infested river is my favorite scene in the movie; the combination of full size puppets and footage of real hippos integrated with the actors is fantastically done and shows the real terror that these huge beasties instill in the locals.

Note: Hippos may look like large cute pigs but they kill more people annually than lions and sharks combined, and most Africans consider them to be the most violent animal in the wild.

Harry is even shown to not be a complete dick here by helping a wounded bearer back onto a raft while still in the water himself. With only a few casualties they make it across the water and soon find themselves in Tarzan territory. The first sign of the jungle man is an unholy yell that doesn’t sound like a man but is clearly not an animal. James Parker wants to turn back immediately as this is the last straw when it comes to danger for his daughter Jane. So crocodiles and killer hippos are nothing but a disembodied yell is the real threat? I don’t think they should have let Mister Parker lead this expedition. Eventually they finally encounter the owner of that unearthly yell and it is of course Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller), and when it's clear he doesn’t understand either English, or the even the various tongues of the native bearers, James threatens to shoot the white savage if he doesn’t come down out of that tree.  Apparently if you can't talk you're fair game.

 

Trivia: The line "Me Tarzan, You Jane." is never spoken in these movies.

Before any further dialogue can be attempted the group is attacked by a tribe of what look to be angry pygmies. Later, Harry informs Jane that they are not pygmies but dwarfs, and I’m really not sure why this film thought they needed to make the distinction but it provides another moment of seeing Harry not being a complete tool. Unfortunately this attack by the not-pygmies is just the distraction Tarzan needs to snatch Jane and disappear with her into the jungle. When Tarzan drags her back to his home, amongst the great apes (men in ape costumes with chimpanzees standing in for young apes), we get one of the more uncomfortable scenes in the entire series…attempted rape.

 

Jungle Love?

No, Tarzan doesn’t actually rape Jane in this scene, but when he pulls her into his “nest” it’s clear what his intentions are, and it’s only her constant crying and struggling that puts him off. So we at least see that Tarzan kind of understands the “no means no” code, if only a bit slow on the realization. This is a very disturbing scene and not something even remotely close to how they met in the book, the whole relationship of Jane in this movie is more like a woman succumbing to the Stockholm syndrome in record time. After getting fed up with a sobbing and screaming Jane Tarzan exits the nest to sleep alone on a tree branch, with a very disgruntled look as if she's just ruined his entire day. In the morning he tries to win her over by getting her breakfast, but while he is out finding food, with side stops to help a baby elephant out of a pit and avoiding hungry lions, Jane’s father and company locate her. When Tarzan returns he is greeted with a volley of rifle fire and one of the apes is killed.

 

Is this ape supposed to be Kala, Tarzan’s foster mother?

Needless to say this really pisses off Tarzan who proceeds to hunt down the safari, and kills off native bearers one by one. James and Harry want to kill Tarzan but Jane pleads for them to give her a chance to talk to Tarzan, but when she gets Tarzan to come out in the open Harry opens fire, and a bullet creases the ape man’s head. An injured Tarzan flees back into the jungle where, in a weakened state, he finds himself forced to fight a lioness and then her mate.

 

Even while wounded he kicks ass, cause he’s bloody Tarzan.

The Matai Escarpment may not have a 911 system but whenever Tarzan is in danger you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be an elephant nearby to come to the rescue or give aid of some kind.  So Tarzan is picked up and carried to safety by a noble elephant. My only question is…

 

Is that the best way to carry a guy with a head wound?

A group of Tarzan’s ape friend grabs Jane and bring her to take care of him, and this is when the Nightingale effect kicks in as Jane slowly falls in love with the big lunk. She bandages him up and soon he is back to being “jungle jerk” as his idea of fun is repeatedly dunking her in the river despite her frantic cries for him to stop. Somehow this treatment results in Jane going all gooey inside, “I love saying things to a man who can’t understand…who doesn’t even know what kisses are.”

 

So I guess we've moved passed the earlier abduction and attempted rape then?

Later they are having a quiet interlude in the jungle and Jane starts pondering things, “Tarzan, what am I doing here, alone, with you? Perhaps I better not think too much about that. Just be here…be happy. And I am happy. Not a bit afraid. Not a bit sorry.” It’s pretty clear what she’s not sorry about, that some time between them playing in the water to them lying down together in the trees there must have been some pretty awesome sex happening. Even in pre-code days this kind of thing would be considered rather touchy, but it’s obvious that the Tarzan as depicted here has only one thing to offer Jane that would keep her in this primitive world, and that would be the sex, earth shatteringly savage jungle sex. There is a good chance she was a virgin and this man just totally rocked her world for the first time, and now she’s willing to give up civilization to play house with a man with the apparent IQ of a high school jock with a head injury.

 

It will be paradise until she finds him spending too many nights playing poker with his ape buddies.

But paradise gets interrupted when once again her father and the safari approach and she realizes she can’t stay with Tarzan because she is all her father has in the world, and that she must return to him. She tearfully says goodbye to Tarzan and joins her people, but not before insuring that Holt doesn’t shoot Tarzan again. Holt is a bit upset that he can’t murder the man who has stolen his girl…twice. He doesn’t get to sulk about that too long as their party is soon ambushed by the not-pygmies. They are captured and taken back to their village where they will be sacrificed to a monstrous ape creature.

 

Gorilla at large!

The sacrifice/sport is rather interesting as not-pygmies in the rafters drop nooses over the captured safari, and after snagging one by the neck, they lower their victim into the clutches of the giant ape located in a deep pit. All the black bearers are killed, no surprise there, before Jane herself is dropped into the pit and her certain doom. Harry heroically leaps in, closely followed by her father, but they get tossed around as if they were toys. Luckily for Jane the ape Cheeta (not yet named in this film) had spotted the safari when they were captured and went to get Tarzan for help, and when things are about to get real the only proper response is...

 

Elephant stampede!

Tarzan arrives in the nick of time, leaps into the pit to fight the killer ape, and is actually knocked unconscious. Way to immediately fail, dude. It’s only the intervention of Cheeta that buys Tarzan time to recover and kill the beast, and then the elephants rampage through the village tossing the little people around or trampling them to death. The day is saved. Our survivors escape on the back of two elephants when James notices that the one he is riding is mortally wounded, he quickly realizes that this dying elephant will lead them to the elephant graveyard. I must say the levels of callousness here is right off the charts. Jane convinces Tarzan to go along with this plan, more sex in the future possibly clouding his judgement, and we finally arrive at the mysterious elephant graveyard. Surrounded by millions of dollars in ivory James Parker himself dies of his injuries.

 

Are we supposed to feel bad?

With her father dead Jane has no reason to give up sex with Tarzan and so she decides to stay. Harry is a bit concerned with leaving Jane in this godforsaken country, but Jane tries to reassure him, “You’ll be coming back Harry. I can see a huge safari with you at the head, bearing ivory down to the coast. Only this time, there will be no danger because we will be there to protect you every step of the way.”

 

So that’s a happy ending…I guess?

Tarzan and the Ape Man was MGM trying to capitalize on the success of the film Trader Horn, and director W. S. Van Dyke, who directed that picture, does an admirable job here. The action and plotting is well done, and the cast as a whole do excellent work here, but the stand out performer here is Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane. She manages to make what is normally just a damsel in distress character a fully fleshed out person, and she and Weissmuller do have excellent screen chemistry. Speaking of Johnny Weissmuller, as an actor he is one hell of an Olympic athlete. Seeing him fly through the water as if he has an outboard motor strapped on is truly impressive, and he does manage to pull off a little naïve charm when his character isn’t trying to commit sexual assault. Those familiar with the Adam West Batman series may recognize Neil Hamilton who played Commissioner Gordon. This film was immensely successful, and is really responsible for this franchise lasting as long as it has.

Final Question: If the elephant’s graveyard is located beyond this nigh accessible escarpment, how in the hell do the dying elephants reach it?
the early MGM Tarzan movies. 

Battlestar Galactica: Greetings from Earth – Review

 “Greetings from Earth” was a special two hour episode that has the our ragtag fleet finally encountering the first humans that were not part of the original Twelve Colonies, unfortunately part of that encounter involves Space Nazis.

While following the heading given to them by the “Ship of Lights” - that they encountered in the episode War of the Gods - Apollo (Richard Hatch) and Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) come across a sublight spacecraft, which the sensors detect has six life signs onboard. The readings from the craft are barely enough to sustain life, making them wonder if those onboard could even be human, but when the ship is towed back to the Galactica everyone is shocked to find six people in suspended animation; two adults and four children.

 

“If one of them turns out to be Khan we’ll jettison them all into space.”

The first half of this two hour episode is all about morality, and tonight the role of Captain Morality will be filled by Apollo. The technology of the craft is so foreign to the crew of the Galactica that there is a danger of killing the sleeping occupants if they screw around without a clue as to what they are doing, also the atmosphere onboard the Galactica could very well be lethal to these people, not to mention they could be carrying organisms that could spread disease throughout the fleet. We then get a strange scene where Athena (Maren Jensen) tries to explain the dangers of just exposing these new people to the air aboard the Galactica to her classroom of children, and it does seem odd that all of a sudden the people of the Galactica seem concerned about contamination when in the past they had no problem popping down to any planet without giving it a second thought. Note: This is the last we see of Boxey (Noah Hathaway) and Athena.

 

From part of the core command to school teacher and then to oblivion. Goodbye Athena.

Debate rages across the fleet, with members of the Quorum led by Sire Geller (Murray Matheson) wanting to open the sleeping containers so they can question them about the location of Earth, while Apollo doesn’t believe they have the right to risk the lives of these six people on the off chance it could lead to them all to Earth. Doctor Wilker (John Dullaghan) is confident he can figure out the mechanics of the ship’s systems, while Doctor Salik (George Murdock), Galactica’s Chief Medical Officer, is far from confident on their ability to keep these strangers alive.

 

“We have no time for silly stuff like medical ethics!”

Eventually Apollo wins over his father (Lorne Greene), with the argument that they had no right to interrupt the strange ships flight in the first place, and certainly no right to basically kidnap the occupants. Things get complicated when Michael (Randolph Mantooth), the adult male, awakens believing he’s been captured by something called the Eastern Alliance, and he shoots one of the fleet’s civilian police officers. Unfortunately for Michael the world he is from had 1/5th the atmosphere then what the Colonies are used to, so he passes out and is quickly popped into decompression chamber. So it’s up to Apollo, Starbuck and Cassiopeia (Laurette Spang) to sneak Michael back aboard his craft, and get them back on course to the planet Paradeen, which was where they were heading for before being so rudely interrupted.

 

Michael seen here armed with…a flashlight?

With Michael and the other five passengers all snugly back in their Sleep Pods, and with Cassiopeia onboard to monitor the equipment, they make their escape out of the Galactica shuttle bay. The Council of the Twelve demand Adama do something - the council does a lot of demanding - so he offers to send Apollo and Starbuck out to “bring them back.” Of course this is all part of Apollo’s plan, as they follow the spacecraft to the planet Paradeen. From Michael we learn that on the planet Terra there were two factions fighting a world war, with the Eastern Alliance being a fascist state that uses nukes and biological weapons to take out their opponents. The planet Paradeen was one of Terra’s colonies; it was mainly a farming community, supplying most of the food for the people of their war torn home world, and has since been abandoned.

 

This show is not subtle when it comes to Space Nazis.

Sarah (Kelly Harmon), the adult female onboard the ship, turns out not to be Michael’s wife, but instead a widow and mother of three of the children onboard, while Michael is only the father of the oldest girl. Upon arriving on Paradeen tensions mount when the expected welcoming by Sarah’s father ends in the revelation that he had been killed. Sarah declares her hatred of all technocrats, which Michael is, and that she’d rather die than marry one. All of this drama is completely undercut by the antics of two singing and dancing robots, Hector (Bobby Van) and Vector (Ray Bolger).

 

These two are a comedy black hole. Nothing funny escapes.

The first half of this episode was quite good, with Apollo making some solid moral points, and we got to see more of how the military and the civilian government don’t necessarily get along all that well. Getting into the “For the Greater Good” aspects of your story can lead to some nice debate, but sadly once they escape the Galactica and reach Paradeen all that screeches to a halt. Instead of further philosophical debate we instead get Sarah hitting on Apollo, because she can't stand the idea of living alone on this planet with Michael, and why she hates technocrats is never fully explained. She even goes so far as to sabotage their ships to keep him on Paradeen. Even stranger is that Apollo than asks Cassiopeia to work on Michael, saying “I want you to get close to Michael. Spend a lot of time with him. I mean really get close,” which kind implies that she is to either seduce Michael to get information on Terra or possibly make Sarah jealous so she will want Michael. Either reason is terrible.

 

“You use to be a Space Prostitute, so this should be easy for you.”

What's worse is how abrupt the episode ends; Starbuck and Hector visit a dead city, that’s population was wiped out by a neutron bomb or biological weapon, where Apollo hoped that Starbuck would find archives that would lead the Galactica and the fleet to Earth, but instead Starbuck passes out in the depths of one of the buildings due to lack of proper atmosphere, and while everyone is trying to rescue Starbuck an Eastern Alliance destroyer, commanded by Leiter (Lloyd Bochner), lands and they capture Sarah, demanding to know where the pilot of the strange crafts (the Vipers) are. Our heroes arrive in the nick of time and take out the Eastern Alliance soldiers with almost no effort. Sarah, for some reason - realizing maybe she does like Michael - helps Apollo and Starbuck commandeer the Eastern Alliance's destroyer and fly it back to the Galactica, with Leiter and his men as prisoners.

 

“Our spaceship totally kicks the crap out of your crappy primitive destroyer.”

Throughout this episode we get dribs and drabs of information about the planet Terra - which Adama reveals is Gemonese for Earth - and how the cruel Eastern Alliance basically enslaves or kills their enemies, but when we finally get to meet members of this evil fascist group the show is almost over, and so all we are left with is more cardboard pseudo-Nazis that have appeared in dozens of science fiction shows and movies over the years. The rushed ending, and the horrible comic relief robots, prevent this from being what could have been a really good episode.

Note: For the deserted city on Paradeen the show used the abandoned pavilions from Expo '67 located in Montreal, Canada.  It's really quite effective and creepy.

City Beneath the Sea (1971) – Review

Writer, producer, director Irwin Allen is probably most known as the “Master of Disaster” because of his successes with such films as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, but in the 1960s he was most notably a producer of high adventure science fiction television shows. Programs such as Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants and The Time Tunnel cemented him as the king of primetime science fiction, but not all his attempts were successful, which leads us to today's installment, City Beneath the Sea.

In much the same vein as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea this pilot has to do with undersea exploration but comes across as more of an overly melodramatic soap opera than anything else, which would explain why the Network didn’t pick it up to go to series. It takes place in the far flung future of 2053 where the massive undersea city of Pacifica is thrown into disarray when crisis strikes the surface world and only they can save the day.

 

Drilling platforms of the future!

It seems that the United States is being wracked with earthquakes that are causing things like drilling platforms to randomly explode, so the plan to move the gold supply in Fort Knox to the safer vaults down in the undersea city of Pacifica needs to be sped up. The President (Richard Basehart) forces Admiral Matthews (Stuart Whitman) out of retirement to take over the operation. The problem is that Matthews left Pacifica under a cloud of suspicion and anger and his second in command Woody Patterson (Robert Colbert), who now runs Pacifica, isn’t keen on being demoted so his old boss can have his old job back. But orders are orders so Matthews is yanked away from his cushy corporate job to tackle this impending crisis.

 

Notice Irwin Allen’s use of old models of Lost in Space’s Jupiter 2 for this futuristic skyline.

Re-used props and sets are not the only thing hampering this production as pretty much every character has the depth of a Saharan puddle. Everyone in Pacifica is pissed off at Admiral Matthews, and that seems to be their sole character trait; they all resent him coming back because they blame him for the death of Bill Holmes (Larry Pennell), who along with Matthews is responsible for the creation of Pacifica, but which we will of course later discover that he was not responsible for at all. Our cast of clichés are as follows.

 

Admiral Matthews, the take charge hero with a dark past.

 

Commander Patterson, the disgruntled second in command.

 

Lia Holmes (Rosemary Forsyth), wife of the dead co-creator of Pacifica who really, really hates Matthews.

 Elana (Susan Miranda), the Girl Friday to Matthews and probably the only competent person in this undersea world. This doesn’t mean she gets out of having to wear a very short skirt.

Aguila (Burr DeBenning), a man biologically altered to breathe underwater but has no gills or any outer appearance of being a fish person. Can we say “Budget cuts?”

 Brett Matthews (Robert Wagner), brother to Admiral Matthews and who is so obviously up to no good that everyone must be a moron to not suspect him.

 

Professor Holmes (Whit Bissell), father of Lia and lone voice of reason about Matthews’ guilt over his son’s death.

 Dr. Ziegler (Joseph Cotton), one of the heads of the civilian population who also hates Matthews and appears only long enough to cash a paycheque.

 

And for some reason boxing legend Sugar Ray Robinson.

The plot, if one could so far as to say this “movie” has a plot, is a mishmash of disparate elements thrown together in such a haphazard way that it barely holds together for its 98 minute running time. If you then look at the "science" element of this science fiction show it is even more insanely stupid; we learn that all the gold in Fort Knox is being moved to this undersea city so that it can be kept safe inside it’s titanium vault, but also coming along for the ride is a huge shipment H120A, an incredibly powerful radioactive material which a mere small portion of could power the world for years, and gold is the only element that can keep it from going critical. So it is super important that it is stored surrounded in gold.  That sounds logical and safe.

 

"As long as we have our visors on we'll be safe...right?"

Unbeknownst to Admiral Matthews, his brother and a shadowy syndicate of villains have been working on a plan to loot the vault for years. An accident is staged shortly upon the Admiral’s arrival that happens to be very similar to the one that killed Bill Holmes; it turns out that both incidents were part of a distraction to substitute weak titanium plates for the proper ones which would allow Brett and his cronies to cut through the vault walls as if they were tissue paper.

 

So basically Ocean’s Eleven, but at the bottom of the actual ocean.

But wait, things get even crazier when Matthews is called back to Washington and is informed that a planetoid heading towards Earth is what has been causing all the tectonic disturbances. Its immense density is three million times heavier than Earth and thus causing gravitational havoc on our poor planet. Worse is that the projected landfall is, you guessed it, Pacifica. So Matthews must hurry back to Pacifica to organize an evacuation to inland locations. Bullshit. I may not be a scientist but I’m pretty sure that if an asteroid, with three million times the mass of our planet was to strike us, moving inland would be about as helpful as that tiny umbrella Wile E. Coyote always used.

You know you’re in trouble when James Darren is your science advisor.

Admiral Matthews rushes back to Pacifica to start the evacuation process while his brother encourages his partners that their heist plan is still good even if an asteroid is going to obliterate the city in a matter of hours. By now it’s been revealed to all that Mathews was not responsible for the death of Holmes and that Quin, a flunky working under Brett, is the murderer. This turns Lia’s hate for Mathews into adoration, because that’s how emotions work, and thus she will refuse to leave his side during their impending doom. Matthew’s himself will come up with the brilliant plan to stay behind and launch Pacifica’s nuclear arsenal at the planetoid in the hopes of diverting its path away from Earth.

They go with this plan because Bruce Willis was unavailable.

So with the lives of everyone on the planet hanging in the balance, Matthews has to divide his attention between missiles launched without presidential approval and thwarting the robbery in Pacifica’s vault. With toolkit in hand he charges off to stop the heist and eventually kill his brother in an ironic fashion.

It would have been much cooler if he ran into Darth Vader here.

This movie was a mess. Even by cobbled together television pilot standards. None of the actors give even the slightest bit of a believable performance, with most of them clearly in paycheque cashing mode. The effects aren’t terrible for a TV production but for a show billed as City Beneath the Sea it mostly consists of people talking in rooms and hallways with not much actual undersea action. And I know that most 1960s science fiction movies weren’t bastions of scientific accuracy but this film reaches whole new levels of stupidity with its “science.” Not at all surprised that NBC passed on this one.

Available on Warner Archives for the morbidly curious.

Tarzan and the Trappers (1958) – Review

Tarzan and the Trappers is the result of producer Sol Lesser trying to get a Tarzan television series off the ground, but when all three networks turned it down he had the three pilots edited together as one 70 minute black and white movie. 

After an endless narration telling us all how awesome and dangerous Africa is the story finally kicks off with Tarzan (Gordon Scott) teaching Tartu (Rickie Sorensen), his and Jane's adopted Jungle Boy, some of the rudimentary vine swinging techniques, all while Jane (Eve Brent) is blissfully napping nearby. But as established earlier, Africa is a dangerous place, so shortly we see a venomous mamba slither towards poor Jane while she sleeps, but luckily Cheta the chimp was there to beat the snake to death with a stick. *sigh*  Note: If you find yourself being saved by Cheta you may want to re-examine your life. Eve Brent’s Jane is probably given the least to do of all the Janes in the series; in this cobbled together movie all she does is keep house for Tarzan and their adoptive son. Even when the villains need a hostage or bait to control Tarzan they capture Tartu or some local friend of Tarzan's. Jane is apparently not worth anyone’s time.

 

Tarzan even dumps on her for trying to teach Tartu to read.

The first portion of the movie once again deals with evil white hunters who have come into forbidden lands to poach the local wildlife. Schroeder (Lesley Bradley) and Rene (Maurice Marsac) have captured numerous animals but Schroeder, the clearly more villainous of the pair, won’t leave until he gets a baby elephant. Schroeder shoots a mother elephant and has two of his native bearers chain the poor baby to a tree while he and Rene go back for the trucks. Schroeder is warned numerous times that Tarzan enforces the law of the jungle around here, but he’s not afraid of any stupid ape man.

 

America’s greatest export is generic evil white hunters.

Tarzan shows up, confronts the natives, and embarrassingly makes them dance to prove they are local natives and not from another territory. Their dancing reveals them to be from out of town so Tarzan beats the crap out of them and frees the baby elephant. Meanwhile the ever annoying Cheta manages to get caged by Schroeder, and when Tartu shows up demanding they release his chimp they take the kid hostage. So not only are these idiots poaching in Tarzan’s territory but they then decide to up the stakes by kidnapping his kid and chimp friend. Criminal masterminds these two are not. That this was made for television is the only reason these two morons don’t end in a gruesome death, instead Tarzan calls for the standard elephant stampede that frees all the caged animals and allows Tarzan to rescue Tartu and Cheta.

 

Stock footage of elephants is Tarzan’s greatest weapon.

Commissioner Brandini (Bruce Lester) shows up to arrest Schroeder and Rene, and then thanks Tarzan for taking the place of the deputies he needs but can never get. The imprisonment of Schroeder leads to the films second villain arriving in the form of Sikes (Sol Gorss), a sadistic hunter who just happens to be Schroeder’s brother. Sikes wants revenge for what happened to his brother and teams up with local criminal kingpin Lapin (William Keene) who would like Tarzan out of the way for his own reasons.

 

A collaboration of idiots.

Lapin believes that the Lost City of Zarbo is located in the lands guarded by Tarzan, and if the Ape Man was out of the way all the gold and jewels would be easy pickings. Sikes, to prove he’s stupider than Lapin, has decided that his revenge will come in the form of hunting “The Most Dangerous Game.” This is one of the more used plotlines, having appeared in dozens of movies and television shows over the years, but even the world’s craziest villain wouldn’t pick Tarzan, on his own turf, as prey. Worse is the fact that Sikes confronts Tarzan, explains his plans to hunt him, and then gives Tarzan a two hour head start. You may as well grant this guy the Darwin Award now. Shockingly Sikes finds it difficult to track a man who can swing through the jungle, so it’s up to Lapin to devise a better plan. They kidnap Chief Tyana (Scatman Crothers) who is a known friend to Tarzan, and who could also possibly know the location of the lost city. This plan starts off working great as Tarzan walks right into a net trap, but then the Tyana’s warrior’s attack, freeing both the Chief and Tarzan. The warriors, who are well armed and outnumber the white hunters, for some reason just grab their chief and go, instead of slaughtering the white invaders who’d captured and tortured their leader.

 

Tarzan seen here in his standard captured pose.

The movie ends with Sikes, Lapin and his group of expendables finally finding the Lost City of Zarbo, but only after Tarzan blazed a trail for them to follow. These idiots thought Tarzan had finally gotten sloppy and walked right into his trap. So while the group tramps through the ruins of Zarbo Tarzan picks off the native bearers one by one. Eventually he decides to attack the remaining whites, beats them all soundly, Sikes and Lapin are arrested, and the day is saved.

 

Tarzan, kicking ass since 1912.

This is not one of the better Tarzan movies, but as it was meant to be individual episodes that were to air on television, it is not all that surprising it fails. Standards and Practices for television shows of the time would certainly have curbed Tarzan’s ability to kill his enemies, so in this film Tarzan is basically just a jungle cop. The use of the “Most Dangerous Game” plotline failed in this setting as the villains were just too dumb to be a credible threat, and the actor playing Sikes gave possibly the worst performance of any actor in a Tarzan film. There is some decent action to be found here, Tarzan is a serious brawler in this one, but the writing is so atrociously bad, with dialogue so haltingly awkward, and add to that the tired plot made this project doomed from the start.

 

“Tarzan, you can defeat multiple enemies but not the combined work of hack writers.”