Tarzan and His Mate starts off roughly the same way as the first film, with Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) readying another safari to trek to the Mutia Escarpment and the elephant’s graveyard. Though this time instead of being partnered with Jane’s father, who died at the end of the last film, he has old school chum Martin Arlington (Paul Cavanagh), a man who though a good shot with the gun is a bit of womanizer and all around jerk. Harry has more than one motive in returning to the Mutia Escarpment and that would of course be Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan) who he still carries a torch from their last encounter. He has loaded his safari with numerous items of woman’s clothing and perfume in the hopes of luring Jane out of the jungle, back into society, and hopefully into his arms. I think Holt would be better off he just stuck to hanging out with Arlington.
Arlington actually drops the soap in this scene.
Tarzan and the dangers of the jungle are not the only threat to this expedition as two other white men Henry Van Ness (Desmond Roberts) and Tom Pierce (William Stack), have stolen Holt’s map to the Mutia Escarpment, and their own safari now has a six hour head start. It becomes a race through hazardous terrain, for without the ivory Arlington will be penniless as he had invested the last of his money in this expedition. Once again we are shown how callous our white leads are here as they get a tad miffed when eight of the native bearers die of exhaustion because they had expected to only lose about ten for the entire trip. Seriously, these guys factored in how many people their expedition was going to lose and everyone seems cool with that. Worse is when Arlington shoots one of the bearers for cowardice and Holt chides him that, “A whip would have done just as well” he responds, “Perhaps you're right. He could have carried 150 pounds of ivory.”
“Which one of us is this film’s villain? We both seem like colossal asshats.”
They catch a lucky break when they come across the Pierce and Van Ness safari horribly murdered by the local cannibals. So with their competition out of the way it should be all smooth sailing…oh wait, those pesky cannibals than proceed to kill about a hundred of Holt and Arlington’s bearers as the group flee to “safety” of the Mutia Escarpment.
It’s tough being a white man in Africa.
Eventually they make it to the safety of the Escarpment; the cannibals can’t chase them there because the ground is sacred. How sacred do they consider this land? Well when one over enthusiastic cannibal chases them a little ways onto the Escarpment, he quickly realizes where he is standing, runs back to his people, kneels before his chieftain, and is stabbed to death. That is one harsh religion. Unfortunately our group then they find themselves in an “out of the frying pan into the fire situation” as they traverse the dangerous climb and encounter a group of angry apes who bombard the safari with rocks.
My guess is they're protecting the Monolith.
After losing a number of native bearers Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) finally shows up to call off the attack, and greets Harry and his new friend. It’s been a year since he last saw Tarzan and he still barely knows any English other than, “Tarzan, friend” or “Tarzan, love Jane” which begs the question, what the hell has Jane been doing with her time that she could have spent teaching Tarzan English? Pssst the answer is sex, lots and lots of sex.
Jane looking incredibly sexy in her two-piece jungle outfit.
Harry makes introductions and explains that he’s here for the promised return trip to the elephant’s graveyard, but he also spends much of his time wooing Jane with new clothes, perfume, and music from the gramophone they brought along. Arlington, the womanizer that he is, also makes a play for Jane and even kisses her. So not only is he making moves on a girl his best friend is interested in but also on the woman whose “husband” is the key to the success of this entire venture. I’m getting the impression he isn’t the brightest of lads.
Is this the kind of guy you want pissed off at you?
Jane likes the dresses, and admits there are some things in society she misses, but she loves Tarzan and has no interest in ever going back home. The love that exists between Tarzan and Jane is one element this movie series gets pretty much bang on. Though Jane in the books later becomes a badass jungle fighter in her own right, sadly the movie Jane is rarely given any job other than that of damsel in distress. In this movie he has to save her from a leopard, a crocodile, a rhino, and a pride of hungry lions, but they do have some time for play. It’s this movie that contains the infamous nude swimming sequence where Tarzan playfully rips off Jane’s dress as she dives into the river, and then the two partake in a beautiful underwater ballet.
Note: Not actually Maureen O’Sullivan but Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim.
This is the last we will see that much skin on Jane (double or not) as after this film Jane adopts a more modest one piece jungle attire and forgoes anymore nude swimming. Most audiences didn’t even get to see this underwater nude sequence as Joseph Breen, then director of public relations of the MPPDA, reported to his president Will Hays that these scenes, which included full frontal nudity, were unacceptable. It wasn’t until the late 90s, when Ted Turner purchased the MGM library, did this scene finally get restored. Yes, in 1934 you can have a film where countless people are savagely murdered, and even show topless black women, but a nude white woman was completely scandalous.
White woman living in sin with a jungle man was as far as they could push it.
So Holt and Arlington get their safari all geared up for the march to the elephant`s graveyard, with a borrowed elephant breaking trail for them, and all seems to be going well until the final penny drops. Tarzan had no idea the reason for this trip was to take the ivory. For him the elephant’s graveyard is the place where his friends “sleep” and he will not let Harry and company desecrate it. This is totally on Jane who never once thought to mention this to Tarzan. With the last of his money riding on the success of the expedition Arlington shoots an elephant so that they can follow the dying beast to the graveyard. It’s only Jane’s quick intervention that prevents Tarzan from breaking Arlington in half.
How did this idiot expect Tarzan to react?
Tarzan and Jane then leave as Holt, Arlington and the safari go off and follow the mortally wounded elephant. Neither of these two great hunters wonder why Tarzan seemed to let them off with just a warning, but once they find the elephant’s graveyard, and have their men pack up all the ivory, Tarzan arrives at the head of an angry herd of elephants to bring some jungle justice. Jane rushes over to Holt and Arlington telling them, “You’re my people. I don’t want to see you buried here with my father.” Arlington quickly tells Jane, “Perhaps after all we were wrong. The elephants are Tarzan’s friends. I realize we are violating something he holds sacred.” Holt’s incredulos “What?” at this change of heart is hilarious, more so in the fact that Jane actually buys into this baloney Arlington is selling.
“Tarzan, they have agreed to not take the ivory, and totally not shoot you the first chance they get.”
So Arlington shoots Tarzan the first chance he gets, while the ape man is out getting breakfast for Jane. Arlington sees Tarzan fall and sink into the river so he assumes the ape man is dead. What a moron. Jane is told by Arlington that he saw Tarzan being surprised by a crocodile and dragged into the river, something even Holt finds hard to believe, but without Tarzan the jungle holds no allure for Jane and so she agrees to go back with them to civilization. Oh, and she lets them take the ivory, cause screw Tarzan’s wishes now that he’s dead, but because karma is a bitch the safari soon encounter a local tribe known as the Men Who Eat Lions. Jane takes charge and tells the men to get their guns ready and make a run for the rocks.
It takes Tarzan being “dead” for Jane to be allowed to do anything cool.”
Jane, Holt, Arlington and couple of the surviving bearers make it to the rocks, but the box of ammunition is dropped and without it they have no chance of holding off the angry natives. While Holt and Arlington argue who should make a run for the ammunition box Saidi (Nathan Curry) the Head Bearer, makes a break for the box but is captured. The Men Who Eat Lions start blowing horns that imitate the call of a lion, and they tie poor Saidi to a tree as bait. In a surprising turn of heroism Holt races out into the open, firing at the natives, in an attempt to rescue Saidi, but sadly he catches a spear for his troubles, and then is mauled to death by the arriving lions.
The noble last stand of Harry Holt.
What is shocking is that Arlington himself is shortly taken out by a lion. We never get Tarzan’s revenge for the whole attempted murder. And on an even cooler note Tarzan never even tells Jane about Arlington’s action, he lets her go on thinking her people were all decent and good, and not backstabbing bastards. That speaks tons to his character more than a dozen jungle fights would. Of course the movie itself ends with an amazing jungle fight as Tarzan, who was nursed to health by Cheeta, and his ape friends arrive to battle the Men Who Eat Lions.
And what kind of Tarzan movie would we have without an elephant rescue?
The elephants show up and stomp and toss the feline menace around, and the day is saved. While Jane is saved; everyone from that safari, all two hundred bearers and the two white idiots, are dead. The elephants pick up all the dropped ivory and the movie ends as the group head off to return them to the elephant graveyard.
“Ungawa!”
This was a fantastic movie with characters consisting of complex and multiple motivations. Neither Harry Holt nor Martin Arlington are your typical “Big White Hunters” that you get in most jungle adventures; they are shown to be callous yet at times thoughtful, duplicitous and cruel but also noble and self-sacrificing. These are not traits one is accustomed to seeing in these film and is what makes this possible the best of the Weissmuller/O’Sullivan Tarzan films. The story is well plotted, the action is fantastic, and Jane actually gets some cool stuff to do.
She takes on angry natives and fends off lions.
The film began under the direction of Cedric Gibbons, but the studio was not happy with how the schedule and budget was going so he was replaced by Jack Conway, but Maureen O’Sullivan recalls the actual direction was carried out by James C. McKay, who was hired only as the animal director. With that kind of mess behind the scenes it truly is surprising on how well it turned out.
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