• Most new users don't bother reading our rules. Here's the one that is ignored almost immediately upon signup: DO NOT ASK FOR FANEDIT LINKS PUBLICLY. First, read the FAQ. Seriously. What you want is there. You can also send a message to the editor. If that doesn't work THEN post in the Trade & Request forum. Anywhere else and it will be deleted and an infraction will be issued.
  • If this is your first time here please read our FAQ and Rules pages. They have some useful information that will get us all off on the right foot, especially our Own the Source rule. If you do not understand any of these rules send a private message to one of our staff for further details.
  • Please read our Rules & Guidelines

    Read BEFORE posting Trades & Request

My year with Tarzan

Dwight Fry said:
Hmmm... I wonder, would a fanedit improve that second half?
Click to expand...
Doubtful. The second half it essentially turns into a Merchant Ivory production lol.

Though I have wondered if the footage from the first half could be used as "origin flashback footage" for other Tarzan movies?
 
MusicEd921 said:
That was something I was considering on doing for a Legend of Tarzan fan edit.
Click to expand...
I considered that too.
But wonder if the visual discrepancy between practical and cgi apes would be a negative?
 
Garp said:
Week 40: 'Tarzan the Ape Man' [1981]

Edgar Rice Burroughs died in 1950. Then in 1981, director John Derek dug up his corpse, kicked it around a bit and then dragged it through the mud. This is one of those films that is not just bad but also annoying. Normally the least said about a bad film the better, but I can't just let it go at that.
Click to expand...

I've been lurking around this thread for a while now and I've been anticipating this review for so long. Your review gave me so much more entertainment than the movie clearly gave you. Looking forward to your take on the Joe Lara Tarzan (Wolf Larson's too)!
 
Week 42: 'Tarzan in Manhattan' [1989]

Tarzan heads to the Big Apple to rescue Cheeta. Mild shenanigans ensue.

With a title like 'Tarzan in Manhattan', the filmmakers knew exactly what the punters were expecting - a jungle hero in a fish-out-of-water caper. Thus, barely 15 minutes in and Tarzan (Joe Lara) has already stripped to his loincloth and is riding atop a bus in Times Square. There is little time for backstory, and probably no need: everyone knows Tarzan, right? Nevertheless, we get the death of Kala, his ape mother, and capture of Cheeta as the Call to Adventure, and off he goes utilizing the most cliched device imaginable - a book of matches to a swanky NY restaurant with a phone number under the flap.

There he meets unlikely cabbie Jane Porter (Kim Crosby, mangling a stereotypical Nu Yawk accent out of the side of her mouth) and her over-the-top-but-enjoying-himself-immensely father Archimedes (Tony Curtis) who, like all New York fathers, is an ex-cop now private detective. Throw in a sleepwalking Jan Michael Vincent as the villain, who's only onscreen to match cheekbones with Lara's Tarzan, and you have a TV movie that looks suspiciously like a pilot.

In fact, it was, and thankfully the audience said, "Nah, we're good" and nothing more came of it. 'Tarzan in Manhattan' is not good, but also not terrible enough to warrant an excessive amount of vitriol. It has all the intellectual depth of an A-Team two-parter and, despite adding in some Burroughs' details (his British heritage, for example) it just doesn't feel 'Tarzan' enough. It doesn't help that Lara looks like he stepped off the cover of a cheap romance novel. Admittedly, his character is written largely as naïve and childlike, and I suppose there's some intended humour in believing that hot dogs contain dogs, or in lines like "Follow that horse!" or "Show him your family jewels". But it doesn't work, and as the plot develops (about illegal animal testing, hardly original) the shtick begins to drag. This Tarzan should have stayed at home.
 
1989's TARZAN IN MANHATTAN is silly, dumb stuff, though I have a bit of soft spot for it. Joe Lara is not given much to work with and makes little impression, but I think he later redeems himself nicely when he got a second chance at the role in 1996's Epic Adventures. But as tv pilots go, this one is fairly forgettable fluff.


Though Hollywood never likes to gives up on a bad idea, and would revisit the concept in 2003 in the short-live WB series just aptly titled "Tarzan".
 
BONUS: 'Fantasy Island' [TV] [1980]

If a TV show could be a comfort food, then 'Fantasy Island' is that for our family. It's not a show I grew up watching in the UK, but apparently it was a staple for my wife's family when she was younger. Thus, whenever our family couldn't agree on what to watch, we would find an episode of 'Fantasy island' to stream to satisfy us all. We haven't done that for a while now, alas (that other 'comfort food' - 'The Love Boat' - has usurped it somewhat) so it was fun to watch an episode co-titled 'Jungle Man' featuring Dennis Cole as a pseudo Tarzan.

The plot is fairly straightforward 'Fantasy Island' fare - Cole plays an actor who used to play Jungle Man on TV, but was typecast and unable to find work since his successful show ended. He wants to relive his glory days as the jungle hero once more. Of course, wily Mr. Roarke (an always excellent Ricardo Montalban) injects a twist, meaning that Jungle Man is playing it for real. If he dies in the 'show', he dies in real life! Jungle Man is pitted against enemies and obstacles that wouldn't seem out of place in, say, a Bomba film - double-crossers, a wicked tribal queen, fistfights and blow darts, etc. Cole isn't called upon to do much with a semi-Tarzan role except wear a loincloth and run around a jungle set, coming to terms with his place in life rather than taking down lions. It all ends as you would expect, with Jungle Man selfishly wanting to stay with his jungle co-star wife and his best friend in the make believe Fantasy Island set (meaning, I assume, that his co-stars who were brought in to help bring his fantasy to life have to stay too. Hopefully Mr. Roarke paid them well). Oh, and as always, this story is intercut with someone else's fantasy, a bizarre tale of a female ventriloquist (Annette Funicello) and her overbearing dummy, who Mr. Roarke brings to life and who then seduces Funicello's manager. Yeah, that was pretty weird.

BONUS: George of the Jungle [TV] [1967]

'George of the Jungle' is another show that may have been more popular in the US than the UK. It's a cartoon in the style of 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' (which I do know) and a pastiche of Tarzan with more than a splash of 60s wackiness. George is a good-natured but dumb jungle man, adept at striking trees when vine-swinging, paired with his more intelligent partner Jane (later named Ursula) and an ape with a very proper speaking voice. The plots are nonsensical of course, but move quickly and some of the gags land OK. I managed to watch three episodes before calling it a night.
 
Week 43: 'Tarzan' [TV] [1991-94]

Wolf Larson takes up the vine and swings into very tepid waters as TV's latest Tarzan. If Joe Lara ('Tarzan in Manhattan') looked like he'd stepped off a romance novel cover, Larson seems to be playing a Tarzan strippergram. He has a scowl, long blonde hair and, most bizarrely, some calf-high boots. His Jane Porter is played by the lovely Lydie Denier, a French-American model-actress, with an accent that manGLES some EngLISh sylLAbles, making her dialogue a little hard to follow sometimes. No matter, as the dialogue is rubbish anyway. In fact, all concerned sound like they learned their lines phonetically (the worst offender is Malick Bowens as Simon, who looks less like a native guide and more like a choreographer from an off-broadway musical).

Denier aside, this series has no redeeming features as far as I could see. I watched 5 episodes back-to-back, which must be a record for this show. Two featured Adrian Paul, TV's Highlander, and one had Ron Ely, another former TV Tarzan, as a big game hunter in an episode that became a reimagining of The Most Dangerous Game. (At least this one had a proper actor, even if the story was contrived.)

People, this show ran for three seasons! Were we really that starved for entertainment in the early 90s that this was considered good enough to keep renewing? Everything about this show is bad - the writing, the plots, the acting, the music... There's no attempt at backstory; you're just thrown into this setting with these characters without a clue how they relate to each other (one season 2 episode I watched was a flashback to how Tarzan met Jane, but even that didn't answer all the questions). I spent two hours last night genuinely confused by this show. Not good, not good at all.
 
Fran_Garcia said:
I remember my dad watching this show, it was aired on Sundays. And he really liked it 😅 😂
Click to expand...
LOL! I am sure the show had its Fans. It did last 3 seasons. :unsure:
And I guess, if one is only familiar with the Mono-Syllable Apeman, then this show could be enjoyable.
And to be fair, it was basically a kid show, usually with some sort of lesson or environmental message.
But for me, it just made my eyes bleed... 🤪

And I also remember that Gavan O'Herlihy (Brad - Superman III) was in that show for almost 3 or 4 episodes.
Click to expand...

So that is where Chuck disappeared to!
 
BONUS: 'At the Earth's Core' [1976]

Two engineer-explorers burrow into a Welsh mountain with their new invention, The Iron Mole, accidentally end up in a strange environment with disfigured people who communicate with grunts, and slowly discover that they are not still in Wales.

Although not strictly a Tarzan film, 'At the Earth's Core' is based predominantly in Burroughs' strange land of Pellucidar, which will feature in the next Tarzan TV series I'll review. So this seemed like a good point to check out the place. 'At the Earth's Core' seems very much like the type of film my parents would have taken us all to see at the cinema on a rainy Sunday - an exciting special effects adventure story, but not too scary. (I don't recall ever seeing it before, but that doesn't mean much.) The film doesn't hang around, getting us to Pellucidar double-quick, in the company of Doug McClure and Peter Cushing. McClure is fine in this role, but it is Cushing that is the real delight here. He plays the eccentric inventor perfectly, and it's so enjoyable to watch a great, usually serious, actor having fun with a great comic character.

The big attractions here are the sets and the monsters. Pellucidar looks great, albeit a tad samey with red-brown rock landscapes. The monsters are actors in suits, which appealed to my Godzilla fandom; you couldn't call them realistic, being a cross between Gamera foes and something you'd see in Star Trek TOS, but they do the job.

The story moves briskly, with our heroes trying to unite warring tribes to defeat the evil giant hypnotizing bird overlords (just go with it), with a splash of romance in the shape of Hammer favourite Caroline Munro. Munro looks gorgeous, of course, but is also good and less wooden than in other films I've seen her in. The film sags a little when Cushing is offscreen, but rallies towards the end. Overall I thought it veered too close to The Time Machine (which admittedly I haven't watched for a while) but otherwise was an entertaining 90 minutes.
 
Cushing is in his full Doctor Who mode during At the Earth's Core and the film is all the better for it. I always imagine it as a lost third Doctor Who film. As for the Larson show, dretch like that existed as cable channels were popping up and needed content. As a result, a lot of crummy syndicated shows came about simply because the new networks needed things to air to keep people watching.
 
I joyfully love AT THE EARTH'S CORE. Again, it is one of those special movies that can still transport me back to childhood. It is ludicrous and preposterous FUN!

A loose adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel (the PELUCIDAR books are great fun, highly recommend them), Doug McClure wonderfully captures the spirit of an ERB hero... no reluctance here ...Two-Fisted, men of action with a code of Honor. And of course, Peter Cushing is an absolute delight, stealing every scene he is in.

 
PELLUCIDAR!!!!

The popularity of this creation continues to this very day, with the recent TARZAN BATTLE FOR PELLUCIDAR and the recently announced KORAK AT THE EARTH'S CORE.
 
Actor DOUG McCLURE and director Kevin Connor collaborated on 4 fun adventure films back to back.
And three of the four were ERB adaptations. The fourth being the equally delightful WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978).

Along with AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976), Connor directed two adaptations of Burroughs CASPAK saga. Again, while Tarzan does not appear in these movies, Caspak does exist in the Tarzan Shared Universe.

McClure and Connor's first collaboration was THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1974). I actually like this movie slightly more than AT THE EARTH'S CORE because it is played the material straighter and less tongue in cheek.

Apparently, Amicus Productions wanted to follow up At The Earth's Core with an adaptation of ERB's JOHN CARTER OF MARS, but could not afford the rights, so they greenlit the Caspak sequel THE PEOPLE TIME FORGOT 1977). But it begs the imagination, might Doug McClure have become the first live action John Carter???
 
I remember well all these movies.

I watched them with my dad and my brother. My fav was At the Earth's Core with the great Peter Cushing and the James Bond girl Caroline Munro.

Hmmm, I am sure he would have been a good John Carter.

The Virginian Laugh GIF by GritTV
 
Week 44: 'Tarzan: The Epic Adventures' [TV] [1996]

Joe Lara returns as Tarzan in this fantasy-tinged TV series.

We last saw Lara in 'Tarzan in Manhattan' in 1989, sitting atop a New York bus, chumming it up with Tony Curtis. Now he's back and seems more at ease in his loincloth. Unlike the contemporary setting for the previous TV pilot that went nowhere, 'Tarzan: The Epic Adventures' takes us back to Burroughs' time and, more importantly, to the pulpy fantasy plots of the novels. Viewers who had never picked up a Tarzan book may have been bemused by the sci-fi elements of this show, as our jungle hero burrows into the earth and finds a new civilization beneath his feet. Or comes across a lost Roman Empire. Or shape-shifting monsters. This is a far cry from wrestling crocodiles and rescuing Boy from double-crossing poachers.

But it works, just. Lara still looks the part and is believable enough even when the plots get ever more fantastic. The acting across the board is so-so (we even have Lydie Denier from the Wolf Larson TV series show up again) but the production values are great. This is a good looking show, with lavish sets, costumes and location work (it was filmed in South Africa).

At 45 minutes a piece, some of the episodes drag and are plumped somewhat with filler, but there's always something wonderful to look at and/or another twist worthy of a Flash Gordon serial. 'Tarzan: The Epic Adventures' also likes its women beautiful and scantily-clad (the aforementioned Denier, plus Angela Harry as La, High Priestess of Opar). I watched 6 episodes over three nights, after being pulled into the series (I had planned to watch 4); there's something special about it, especially after reading a number of Burroughs' novels and seeing the elements the writers drew from. Sometimes I admit I wanted to see how crazy it would go, but mostly it was just damn entertaining. It wasn't what I was expecting, and I'm still trying to process it. But it's like Art: I don't know much about it, but I know what I like. And I like 'Tarzan: the Epic Adventures'.
 
BONUS: 'George of the Jungle' [1997]

'George of the Jungle' is based on the cartoon TV show of the same name, utilizing a lot of the same characters and tropes - George's propensity to swing into trees, a proper English-speaking gorilla, an elephant who thinks it's a dog, etc. It's very much a family film, but it's not as fun as it should be.

Brendan Fraser takes the lead and looks good enough as a pseudo Tarzan, but surprisingly comes across as a bit too self-conscious. The role requires full-on lunacy, the type personified by, say, Jim Carrey, but Fraser dials it back, trying perhaps to bring some realism to the character. This is not all his fault, as the film appears to be trying to be more than one thing simultaneously. Yes, it's a cute family film, but halfway through it becomes a routine rom-com, as George and Ursula (Leslie Mann) fall in love, much against her parents' wishes. I have a soft spot for Mann so I can be forgiving here, but she's not as funny as she could be, and there's not a great deal of chemistry between the leads on display.

Much better are Thomas Haden Church as the spurned fiancé and Richard Roundtree in little more than an expanded cameo. Also excellent are the gorilla costumes (from the Jim Henson workshop), which are appropriately cartoony while still looking realistic. The film tries to have fun by breaking the fourth wall frequently, but again it comes across as too forced, almost as an afterthought to zap some life into it. Younger kids will have fun with the non-stop slapstick - people falling face-first into elephant dung, or having coconuts shot at their genitals - but I was expecting to like this a lot more than I did. The Tarzan films are ripe for parody, and this missed the mark more often than not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom