My year with Tarzan

[Garp]

BONUS: 'The one, the only, the real Tarzan' [2004]

This 50 minute documentary takes a cursory look at the life of Johnny Weissmuller, and is currently free to view on YouTube. The film has some excellent behind the scenes footage of some of Weissmuller's films, mostly the Jungle Jim ones, and interviews co-stars (including Johnny Sheffield) and family members. It is edited in an annoying and unnecessary non-linear fashion, mixing his later screen success in with his earlier swimming achievements. It's an honest appraisal of the man, with an especially sympathetic yet realistic rebuttal from one of his ex-wives. The most interesting aspect for me was the realisation that Weissmuller was actually born in Austria, in a region now part of Romania; he borrowed his brother's birth certificate (who was born in Pennsylvania) to 'prove' his US citizenship to compete in the Olympics. (His son is shown in Johnny's hometown in Romania, visiting what was believed to be his house, only to be informed that the actual house was down the street and had already been demolished.)

At only 50 minutes, nothing is covered in great detail, which is shame as there's probably a great full-length documentary to be made here. As such, it portrays Weissmuller as a young boy stuck inside a very large man's body, defeated physically, financially and emotionally by an addiction to marriage and alcohol.

 

[Garp]

As an aside, I realised this week that Raymond Burr is probably the only actor who has appeared in a film from all of the year-long franchises I've reviewed so far: Hitchcock ('Rear Window', [1954]), Godzilla ('Godzilla, King of the Monsters' [1956], 'Godzilla 1985' [1985]) and Tarzan ('Tarzan and the She-devil' [1953]). If I do another similar project again, I'll have to keep him in mind...

 

[Garp]

BONUS: 'Ramar of the Jungle' [TV] [1952-4]

Life is full of little synchronicities. Last year, after deciding to pursue a year of watching Tarzan and other related jungle films, I stopped in at a local Goodwill store. Perusing the movie & TV section as always, I spotted two volumes of 'Ramar of the Jungle' on DVD. I'd never heard of the series, but a quick Google search suggested it would fit in with this project. After watching four episodes last night, I can understand now why I'd never heard of it.

Ramar (which means 'White Medicine Man', apparently) is Dr. Tom Reynolds, played by Jon Hall, who also created the show. He lives in the jungle with his associate Professor Howard Ogden (Ray Montgomery) and manservant Willy (Nick Stewart). (There's also a small monkey called Babbette, just to cover the cute animal angle.) From what I could gather, Ramar is there to mediate issues between local tribes, do medical stuff and solve mysteries involving white folk who happen to wander into his neighborhood. Unlike Jungle Jim, which this show is obviously borrowing from, Ramar doesn't get into battles with wild animals, nor dives into lakes. He has a few scuffles with villains and carries a gun, which he invariably shoots in the air to scare people, but otherwise is a man of medicine and peace. This no doubt makes for a fine moral mentor for young children, but does not make for a particularly exciting TV show.

The show also suffers from that cheap stock footage trick of having the actors point out something offscreen, which then cuts to a poor quality scene of some wild animal, then back to the actors who continue to walk on without encountering said beast. I don't know whether this was supposed to be an in-joke or not, but the funniest example was when someone pointed out a toucan. "Aren't toucans from South America?" he asks. "What's it doing in Africa?" - and they walk on.

Of the four episodes I half-watched, 'Lady of the Leopards' was probably the best, featuring a hypnotized woman who believes she's a leopard. But even that wasn't very good. I have another four episodes to watch, but I can't imagine I'll get around to them too soon.

 

[Garp]

Week 27: 'Tarzan and the Lost Safari' [1957]

Tarzan helps a group of stranded tourists find their way through the treacherous regions of the Opar tribe...

Gordon Scott returns in the first of Tarzan's colour films. With this new lick of paint, the jungle genre seems fresh and lush, even if the story isn't particularly original. The colours look a tad drab by today's standards, but they do enough to disguise the film's flaws; the fact that the old stock footage is now useless and new scenes of roaming beasts have been filmed is reason enough to seek this one out.

Scott has a more prominent role here, taking charge from the get-go. The plane crash that strands our group in Africa is shown mostly offscreen, but the subsequent rescue as the plane inches towards a cliff is well filmed and suspenseful. Scott's co-stars equip themselves admirably, although I thought Wilfred Hyde White was underused. Still no sign of a Jane here, nor a permanent home for our apeman, and I miss both, to be honest.

There's some nice touches that hark back to the original novels - the Opar tribe, for example, and a scene in which Tarzan relates his own backstory (not exactly as Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote it, but close enough). The film has pacing and plot issues, with the double-crossing villain being overused by now, but Scott appears more relaxed in his role and is an improvement over Lex Barker. He looks more natural in the action scenes (apparently he did a lot of his own stunts), wrestling a crocodile (yes, we've seen that before many times, of course, but now in colour!) and clambering up a broken rope bridge. Most notably, Tarzan outwits the tribe using his brains more than his brawn, which was a pleasant surprise.

'Tarzan and the Lost Safari' looks fresh, has an appealing lead, some good side characters and action. Worth a look.

 

[Garp]

BONUS: 'Bomba and the Jungle Girl' [1952]

Bomba has an identity crisis.

This Bomba film takes a different path from his usual shenanigans, beginning with a unique internal monologue from our jungle boy (in perfectly syntaxed English, as opposed to his stilted speech), decrying the fact that he never knew his parents. Off he goes, therefore, in search of his origins.

'Bomba and the Jungle Girl' plays out as a mystery-adventure. Bomba knows only what his surrogate parent (a now deceased Cody) told him, but has a journal he can't read. The Commissioner from the previous film makes a reappearance to read the journal and point him in the direction of a local tribe, where the mystery deepens. The plot is convincing and flows fairly well, with some action to keep the little ones from shifting in their seats too much. (We get a repeat of a crocodile wrestling scene from an earlier film.)

'Bomba...' takes a leaf out of Jungle Jim's book, by adding a female into the title, but not making her the crux of the story. In fact, I'm not entirely sure which jungle girl this refers to. Is it Karen Sharpe, the Inspector's daughter, who keeps with the trend and doesn't immediately fawn over Bomba? Or the tribal chief's daughter? Or the blind woman..? I suppose it doesn't matter once you've paid your nickel.

Bomba also has had a chimp sidekick for the past two films, who goes by the Jungle Jim-inspired name (perhaps) of N'Kimba - or at least that's what it sounds like. N'Kimba has less to do so far than other chimps in other series, but watch this space.

Overall, this is not the most exciting of the Bomba films, but I enjoyed the change of pace and genre. Apparently this was the last Bomba film by Monogram, with the remainder being released by Allied Artists. It'll be interesting to see if there's a change in quality hereon, for good or for bad.

 

[bionicbob]

The Lost Safari.... visually very refreshing! "Opar" has been named dropped many times in the past and future Tarzan movies, which is cool as an ERB reader, but also disappointing since they never get it right. Only the tv series Tarzan The Epic Adventures did a near pitch perfect adaptation.

Funny, I have watched and re-watched Gordon's last two apeman adventures (Greatest Adventure/Magnificent) so many times over the years, that it feels very odd watching him do the mono-speak in the early flicks. He did grow into an exceptional Jungle Lord with those final epics.

But Lost Safari has many fun moments.

 

[Garp]

BONUS: 'Africa Screams' [1949]

This wasn't on my original list of films to watch, but an advert for it popped up on my 'Ramar' DVDs, so I thought I'd check it out in case it featured some Tarzan-like figure or was entertaining. I was wrong on both counts.

Bud & Lou (here Buzz and Stanley) find themselves in Africa, entangled in a series of misadventures and largely unrelated set pieces. Being the Philistine that I am, I watched a colourized version on YouTube (the film is in the public domain), which suffused the film in a golden glow. I've seen a number of Abbott and Costello's Universal Monster films in the past and enjoyed them, but this one left me cold, I'm afraid. Even with the suspension of disbelief required of a slapstick comedy, the premise by which the boys end up in Africa is preposterous, but serves as a backdrop for a number of well-telegraphed gags. In part, this is the appeal of these films, letting the audience in on the joke early on, knowing that Lou is going to get into some - but not too much - trouble. It's cosy and familiar, especially if you happen to like Lou's schtick.

Some of the humour was lost on me - I don't know who Frank Buck or Clyde Beatty are, so their scenes were meaningless to me. There is some spoofing of jungle pictures - crocodiles, gorillas, cannibals - and I was genuinely surprised there wasn't a song and dance number thrown in, perhaps by a native girl. There also isn't any quickfire banter such as "Who's on First" (a high bar, admittedly) and overall it comes across as cheap and lazy. There are far better Bud and Lou films out there, and it felt a bit like a wasted evening.

 

[bionicbob]

Possible Tarzan tie-in for your viewing pleasure....

 

[bionicbob]

I don't know who Frank Buck or Clyde Beatty are, so their scenes were meaningless to me.

Did someone say FRANK BUCK?!!!!?

A fantastic short lived series cashing in on the Indiana Jones craze, and very, very, VERY loosely based on real life big game trapper Frank Buck.

 

[Garp]

Possible Tarzan tie-in for your viewing pleasure....

Oh my god, I have to put this on the list!

 

[Billy Batson]

The New Adventures of Tarzan/The Green Goddess is probably the last accurate onscreen portrayal of the Lord of the Apes for the next 30 years. Instead of the complex, multi-lingual, adventuring Lord Greystoke as seen here, audiences will instead settle for the mono-slavic wildman version made popular by Weissmuller and continued on by Lex Barker and Gordon Scott.

Our own fan editor @Billy Batson did a good fan edit of the this serial....

Thanks for the shout out, bionicbob. If Garp has seen my edit I'd very much appreciate hearing any comments he might have. Great idea for a thread, by the way.

BB

 

[bionicbob]

...of course, you absolutely need to watch this hilarious classic!!!

 

[lapis molari]

Did someone say FRANK BUCK?!!!!?

That series, starring a young Captain Sheridan as the titular character, has never been released on DVD. But you can find most episodes on e.g. youtube where fans uploaded their VHS recordings.

To find out about the real Frank Buck, I recommend this book:

 

[Garp]

Week 28: 'Tarzan and the Trappers' [1958]

Tarzan comes up against some unscrupulous trappers - again.

This 1958 film is actually a composite of pilots for a proposed TV series that never got off the ground. As such, the resulting film is an episodic affair. Filmed in grainy black and white, it's an obvious comedown from the technicolor splendor of 'Tarzan and the Lost Safari'. Still, we have an honest-to-goodness Jane here, as well as Boy (Eve Brent and Rickie Sorensen), and Tarzan's jungle home makes a welcome reappearance. Alas, the writers of these pilots still had the issue of what to do with Jane, as she is nothing more than an occasional ornament here, and Boy (and Cheeta) are kidnapped to keep the first plot moving.

Being episodes spliced together, the scene that would usually be the climax of a Tarzan film actually appears around a third of the way in, then a new unrelated story starts - sort of like 'The Most Dangerous Game' with another lost city thrown in for good measure. There's plenty of action, albeit with some old footage in the mix, with Scott's Tarzan wrestling a crocodile and even riding a baby giraffe at one point.

Ultimately, though, it fails as a fully-fledged movie, but would have made an OK (short-lived) TV series, I imagine.

 

[Garp]

BONUS: 'Safari Drums' [1953]

Bomba turns sleuth when he encounters a group intent on capturing footage of battling beasts - but is there a murderer amongst them..?

This is the first of the Bomba films after Monogram Pictures became Allied Artists, and there's no noticeable difference in quality so far. One obvious change is that the star is called 'John Sheffield' in the opening titles, perhaps finally acknowledging that the Jungle Boy (now 22) has lost some of his boyishness.

Some familiar faces return, with Leonard Mudie once again portraying the Commissioner, with his trusty sidekick Eli (Smoki Whitfield) who does the bulk of the work, of course. The plot is simple enough to follow - a rich businessman hires an assistant, a guide and a cameraman to film shots of animals fighting in the jungle for his own amusement. The Commissioner gets word that one of them has offed an explorer offscreen and stolen his diamonds and map to where he found them - but which of the four? This could have been set up as an adequate whodunnit, but there are no red herrings to be found here. The culprit is pretty easy to guess with no twists to keep you on your toes. Bomba's role, therefore, is to keep them busy until the police arrive.

He has plenty to do in the meantime - dodging another erupting volcano, battling a panther and later a lion, and keeping an arm's length between himself and Barbara Bestar as the businessman's assistant (who, to be fair, is stringing Bomba along at her boss's behest). There is a lot of reused footage from previous films, but 'Safari Drums' manages to hold together nonetheless - just. The climax is a bestial battle between two unnatural rivals before Bomba is off again on his merry way with nary a backward glance. Another formulaic Bomba film, but there's something to be said for its cosy familiarity.

 

[Garp]

Week 29: 'Tarzan's Fight for Life' [1958]

Tarzan fights off an evil witch doctor while Jane undergoes an appendectomy. Yes, it is that strange.

I accidentally watched 'Tarzan and the Trappers' before this one, but no matter. 'Tarzan's Fight for Life' features Eve Brent as Jane and Rickie Sorensen as Tantu (Boy), but the trio never amounted to very much, neither in this film nor as the hoped-for TV series. Eve is overly glamorous and doesn't look at home in the jungle (not that she's given much to do here either). Rickie has the look of a young Ron Howard and is equally dispensable.

The plot revolves around a witch doctor trying to take over his tribe, and pooh-poohing the white man's medicine. Tarzan is caught in between, but that's about it. There isn't much in the way of action here, and what there is is laughable. (See Tarzan squirming with a snake. It looks ridiculous.) The African scenes look good, but the mattes are poor. The natives (James Edwards and Woody Strode) come close to hamming it up, but are generally effective in their villainous roles.

This is the first Tarzan film for a long time that I was acutely bored by. Its 86 minutes dragged and I'm struggling to recall anything significant about it, even though I only watched it last night. Thankfully the next film ('Tarzan's Greatest Adventure') is supposed to be one of the best, if not the best, Tarzan films ever made. It'll help get this flat taste out of my mouth.

 

[bionicbob]

This feels like a tired, last gasp by producer Sol Lesser. Going back to the Weissmuller formula but with none of the magic or charm.

As a missed opportunity, why didn't they name Tarzan's son Korak?

Woody Strode would return in later, significantly better Apeman adventures.

The Lesser era comes to lackluster close.

Next up, producer Sy Weintraub takes over the Tarzan reins and shepherd some of my absolute favourite Jungle Lord exploits!

 

[Garp]

BONUS: 'The Golden Idol' [1954]

Bomba (back to being called Johnny Sheffield in this one) pre-empts Spielberg by playing a young Indiana Jones. A golden idol is stolen, and Bomba steals it back because "it belongs in a museum". (OK, so he doesn't say that exactly, but it's implied.) I'm not entirely sure what happens after that, for various reasons, but it takes 71 minutes to do it.

All pretense that Sheffield can still pass as a boy is dropped, and here Bomba is referred to as The Jungle Man. We have the recurring cast of Leonard Mudie and Smoki Whitfield, with Anne Kimball playing the non-love-interest this time. The film starts well, setting up the villains (Paul Guilfoyle and Lane Bradford), but then succumbs to recycled scenes from previous films and poor quality stock footage. So much of this film is set at night, with various people running around in darkness that I had no idea what was going on. I dozed off repeatedly. Apparently someone is drowned by a giant water snake. That might have been the highlight, but I missed it.

There are only two more of these Bomba films left for me to see; I'm hoping they can get out of this death spiral.

 

[bionicbob]

Along with new book titles, ERB Inc announced at Comic Con that a new movie deal has been signed with Columbia Pictures.

 

[Garp]

Week 30: 'Tarzan's Greatest Adventure' [1959]

Tarzan embarks on a cat-and-mouse chase with a team of ruthless diamond smugglers.

Whoa. Everything you thought you knew about Tarzan - the stilted dialogue, the cute antics of his pet chimp, the moustache-twirling villains and the hapless damsels - is wrong. Or at least, given a hefty shake-up in 'Tarzan's Greatest Adventure'. This film is such a departure from previous Tarzan entries that it's difficult to take in. Yes, we still have Gordon Scott as the jungle hero, but everything else seems so fresh and new. The location work (in Kenya), the camera angles, the fully-rounded characters - this isn't just a great Tarzan film, it's a great film full stop.

The plot is deceptively simple: Slade (Anthony Quayle) has rounded up a bunch of ne'er-do-wells (including a pre-007 Sean Connery) to smuggle diamonds out of Africa. But his real passion is manufacturing the death of his nemesis, Tarzan. Thus we spend 90 minutes watching these adversaries plot, trap, break free and match wits in a deadly battle.

This is not your kid's Tarzan. These are three-dimensional adult characters with adult motivations and back stories. Connery (with his usual wandering accent, here playing an Irishman) is a playful delight, but his co-stars edge him out with more nuanced performances. Al Murlock plays the surly boatman Dino as a clenched fist of potential fury; Niall MacGinnis is suitably conniving as Kriger the diamond expert. Anthony Quayle as Slade, the main antagonist, is quiet, watchful, the only one who knows how great a foe a vengeful Tarzan can be. In the mix are thrown Scilla Gabel as Slade's girlfriend (her debut) and Sara Shane as Tarzan's reluctant travel companion, Angie. Her character could have been a one-note - she's a sassy and cynical pilot to begin with, but her edges are knocked off as she realises the gravity of their situation. Damn, everyone is so good here.

Scott, given proper lines for once, brings a maturity to Tarzan we haven't seen before. It's so different that when he's in a stereotypical scene, such as wrestling yet another crocodile, it seems out of place here (although we see some vivid red blood for once). At one point, Tarzan must remain still to avoid detection. Suddenly a tarantula starts to crawl up his leg. It's moments like these that raise the bar and you can't help but revel in how the writers have elevated the simple apeman.

'Tarzan's Greatest Adventure' was tempting fate with such a title, but it lives up to it, and more. If you think you don't like Tarzan films, check this out and be prepared to change your mind.