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My year with Tarzan

MusicEd921 said:
Just came across this:

www.hollywoodreporter.com

‘Tarzan’ to Swing Again as Sony Picks Up Movie Rights (Exclusive)

The studio plans to reinvent the character for the 21st century.
www.hollywoodreporter.com www.hollywoodreporter.com
Click to expand...
"Reinvent".... corporate buzz word for we have no idea what this property is actually about or what to do with it 🤪

If the Studio did an actual faithful adaptation of one of the novels (Jewels of Opar would be perfect) that would be a monumental reinvention at this point in the Apeman's career!

Since Studios love launching Franchise Universes, the World of ERB is a fantastic unmined IP, being one of the very first Shared Literary Universes. Maybe the way to go, instead of launching with an individual Tarzan movie, maybe open with crossover team-up cosmic pulp adventure featuring Tarzan and John Carter together?
 
Some nice insights into the Sony acquirement of the Tarzan IP...

 
Week 40: 'Tarzan the Ape Man' [1981]

Jane Porter (Bo Derek) travels to Africa in search of her crazed father (Richard Harris) and finds a mute jungle man with whom she has zero chemistry and decides to stay with him forever.

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.

John Derek appears to have no idea how to frame a shot nor edit a film. His direction is ham-fisted, lingering when it should be quick, panned out when it should be tight. His action sequences are abysmal. Take for example the jumbled mess we see when Tarzan (Miles O'Keefe) battles a snake in a river: it is slow-motion, with superimposed scenes of Jane attempting to free herself. It makes no sense. And this slow-motion action is not a one-off, alas - up it pops again for the 'climax' battle with the tribal chief, and any scenes of vine-swinging. Derek directs any sequence that otherwise involve suspense - such as the fraying rope our heroes are using to traverse the escarpment - with all the thrills of watching a man making a cheese sandwich.

Derek obviously thought that shots of the natural beauty of Sri Lanka (subbing for Africa) and his wife would be enough to satisfy filmgoers (and maybe he was right - it did well at the box office) and decided against creating an interesting script. There are long stretches where nothing happens to advance neither character nor plot. Bo Derek is as incompetent an actress as she is beautiful, and makes lame dialogue sound even worse. John Phillip Law as Harry Holt might as well not even be there, so little he's given to do. And Miles O'Keefe was apparently the original Tarzan actor's stunt double, which may explain why he's given zero dialogue and is mostly MIA in his own film (he doesn't show up until the 50 minute mark). Instead, we see a lot of Bo Derek. A lot. You can't say that the nudity here is gratuitous, as it is the sole reason the film exists.

Thank god then for Richard Harris. He veers between seeming to take this rubbish seriously to hamming it up so wildly that you can almost see his tongue in his cheek. Regardless, Harris is the life of this film, bringing much needed energy to an otherwise interminable adaptation. If you absolutely have to see Bo Derek in the buff, go see '10' instead.
 
1981's Tarzan the Ape Man.... a bad movie. It commits the cardinal movie sin of being BORING. Not even the goddess Bo Derek can hold your attention.

Movie Critics Supremes, Siskel & Ebert pretty much had the same opinion:

speaking of bananas....

😂
 
BONUS: 'Jana of the Jungle' [TV] [1978]

This animated series wasn't on my original viewing schedule, but I had to include it after BionicBob brought it up here. Like the animated Tarzan series, this is another cartoon I would have said I never saw, and again I would have been wrong. Produced by Hanna-Barbera, whose cartoons were a staple of my youth, I must have sat through a few of these - at least, the introduction is very familiar.

Jana is a Sheena clone, brought up at an early age by a tribe in South America after her father dies in a boating accident. Never lost that American accent, though. The first episode is stuffed with jungle tropes - double-crossing explorers, crocodile wrestling and the like - and is breathless in its non-stop 20 minutes of action. The second one had an ape-man tribe and I dozed through that, at which point I decided to call it a day. Sorry Jana.
 
BONUS: 'Sheena' [1984]

Sheena (Tanya Roberts) is brought up by an African tribe from an early age after the death of her parents. Paired with a sports reporter (Ted Wass), she stops the potential extinction of her tribe by a money-grabbing new king.

It's probably lucky for Sheena that I watched this after Bo Derek's 'Tarzan the Ape Man' [1981], as I'm probably going to be much more generous than I would have been otherwise. Sheena is not a good film, but compared to Derek's fiasco it's a masterpiece. There are some similarities between the two films, such as the nudity (which feels much more out of place here, especially for the PG rating) and the total lack of acting skills displayed by the lead actress. Roberts plays Sheena with the forced earnestness of an amateur production of 'Death of a Salesman'. Ted Wass as the reporter is passable, and again we have the annoying comic relief sidekick in the form of cameraman Fletch (Donovan Scott).

The story starts well, setting up a scene that will be important later, and showing the early life of young Sheena. The machinations of the would-be king are also well done, but the film begins to unravel as the rushed romance kicks in. Director John Guillermin was no stranger to jungle pics (including the wonderful 'Tarzan's Greatest Adventure') and lovingly shows off Kenya, and handles the action well. Ultimately, though, it drags. Roberts is painful to watch, despite her looks, and I didn't care what happened to her, her tribe nor her blossoming romance. The White Saviour Chosen One trope seems dated now too.

If you put a gun to my head, I'd choose to watch 'Sheena' again over 'Tarzan the Ape Man'. But I'd consider the gun for a while first.
 
Hollywood is a wacky weird place where The Powers That Be seem to randomly pick unproven new actors to be The Next Big Thing.

1984's SHEENA is a classic example of this...

Nothing in Robert's resume before Sheena remotely suggested she had the chops to be a lead in a Hollywood movie. Neither did Ted Wass. And yet, Roberts was chosen not only for this movie, but to be Roger's Moore's Bond Girl in a View to a Kill ( though for sheer transparency -- I totally had a crush on Roberts in the 80s!!! :love: and maybe I still do... ), while Wass was chosen to replace the late comedic genius Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies. It all defies credibility! lol

But yeah, SHEENA the 1984 movie sucks...

...and so did Wass's Curse of the Pink Panther

Roberts' career would have a successful revival with a recurring role on That 70s Show.
Ted Wass would go on to be regular face on television (Blossom) and a busy tv director.
 
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Week 41: 'Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes' [1984]

Tarzan (Christopher Lambert) is brought back to his Scottish home, mostly against his will, and doesn't adapt well to the Northern climes.

'Greystoke' is one of the few Tarzan films I remember watching before, probably not long after it came out. Placing it now within the context of other Tarzan adaptations that came before it, it stands out as somewhat of an outlier. The film itself is a lavish affair, with excellent location shots, costumes (both human and ape), actors and the like. However, it is a very different take on the jungle hero, and may be an acquired taste.

The film starts off relatively true to the source material. His parents die and/or are killed in the jungle, and baby Clayton is raised by apes. This section of the film is wonderful. Much like '2001: A Space Odyssey', this backstory is told via the apes without dialogue, mostly successfully. The costumes and make-up (by Rick Baker) are stunning, and the mannerisms are as accurate as a non-ape-skeletoned actor could portray. We have several iterations of Tarzan (who is never named as such in this film, surprisingly) from baby to youth, teenager and finally the lean form of Lambert.

Lambert, in one of his earliest roles, is very good with just the right amount of playfulness and aggression as necessary. He is ably supported by other great actors. And also by Andie McDowell (her debut, with a dubbed voice). Ian Holm plays the Belgian d'Arnot in the manner of that other famous Belgian, Hercule Poirot, complete with a clipped moustache and clipped accent. Ralph Richardson, in his last screen appearance, is the highlight however. His Lord of the manor, trying to keep his emotions in check while succumbing to dementia, is a masterclass.

Liberties are taken with the ERB's novel, and Tarzan's education, in English, French and the ways of civilized man, is shown mostly offscreen. Halfway through the film, the former jungle man is now suddenly a landed gent, at least in appearance. Instead of a predictable fish-out-of-water tale, the film becomes something more akin to Lynch's 'The Elephant Man', with Tarzan being a sad curiosity to the upper classes. This Tarzan is battling his inner demons rather than crocodiles. It is an interesting take, and one I enjoyed. Even so, the second half feels a little flat. Tarzan's grief is labored, the film having three similar scenes which results in the final death (which should be the most impactful) being the least effective unfortunately.

Overall, though, it is a film I would recommend, provided you are prewarned. It is a long film and, at times, a slow one. It is not perhaps Burroughs' Tarzan, but maybe an art film with a character somewhat like him.
 
Greystoke is, for me, the definitive Tarzan movie, the only one I need to be on my shelf (not counting George From The Jungle ;)).
 
BONUS: 'Sheena' [TV] [2000-2002]

I don't remember what I was watching between 2000 and 2002, but it wasn't this (so far) final iteration of the Queen of the Jungle. That probably wasn't a bad thing.

Gena Lee Nolin takes the lead role here, paired with John Allen Nelson (three names being a prerequisite for this show, apparently) as Cutter, a local guide. I watched two episodes to get a very surface-level feel for the show - the pilot and an episode titled 'Buried Secrets' that expanded on Sheena's backstory. Two things struck me - that the show revolves around the loveliness of Ms. Nolin, and it has a slight 'Moonlighting' vibe going on.

Nolin has ample charms, but there wasn't much in what I saw that suggested great acting chops. No doubt this didn't dissuade the teenage boy demographic from tuning in, but it didn't entice me to watch a third episode. Nelson as Cutter was quick with the witty banter and appeared to have a will-they-won't-they relationship with Sheena, who was mostly cool and humourless, hence the 'Moonlighting' comparison. To add a little extra excitement to the proceedings, Sheena has the ability to transform herself into different animals, which was used sparingly in the pilot episode and not at all in the other I saw. I assume this feature is better used later.

For a post-Millennium show, it looked a little cheap (plenty of stock footage) and, from the admittedly small sample I watched, devoid of good stories and action. But, not to labour the point, Gena Lee Nolin is very lovely to look at and was obviously enough to secure two seasons, but no more.
 
GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES.....

As a FILM about nature, nurture and civilization, it is an interesting piece of artistic storytelling.

As a TARZAN MOVIE, it is 50% PERFECT, while the other 50% is boring crap.

Screenwriter Robert Towne, who was a big Tarzan fan, wrote only the first half of the script as an enticement to Studios, in hopes it would land him the director's chair for the movie. Instead, the Studios gave the unfinished script and director's spot to Hugh Hudson, fresh off of Oscar glory with Chariots of Fire, who took the story in a very different direction than Towne intended.

As a Tarzan fan (ie one who LOVES the books), the first half of the GREYSTOKE, up to where d'Arnot finds Tarzan, is utterly glorious... a dream come true as the pages of ERB's works were brought to cinematic life. Everything after that point, is unrecognizable and utterly out of character. So needless to say, when I do a rewatch, I pretty much always stop at the halfway point.

Interesting side note, this movie re-interpreted JANE as an English Aristocrat. All later adaptations have continued this interpretation, even though the character is American in novels.

 
As a non-fan of Tarzan, I dont have such issues with this movie. That being said, I still consider first half to be a better one.
 
Garp said:
BONUS: 'Sheena' [TV] [2000-2002]

For a post-Millennium show, it looked a little cheap (plenty of stock footage) and, from the admittedly small sample I watched, devoid of good stories and action. But, not to labour the point, Gena Lee Nolin is very lovely to look at and was obviously enough to secure two seasons, but no more.
Click to expand...

LOL.... Sheena was a terrible, low budget, low brow syndicated show from the makers of Baywatch. Occasionally amusing if one parked one's brain outside the tv room before watching.... 😂

Another syndicated sorta-Jungle Hero style show of the 2000s was Tribune Entertainment's adaptation of BEASTMASTER... Tarzan meets Conan...
 
bionicbob said:
As a TARZAN MOVIE, it is 50% PERFECT, while the other 50% is boring crap.
Click to expand...
I agree with you, it is 50% perfect. Christopher Lambert is good in the movie on his first English-speaking role in a theatrical movie.

The movie was directed by Hugh Hudson after the success of Chariots of Fire. I do not think that he was the right choice for this movie.

As a curiosity, this movie was the debut of Andie McDowell in a theatrical movie, but her voice was dubbed by Glenn Close.


 
Though dubbed by Close, McDowell gives an excellent performance.

And I want to be clear, as a film, it an exceptional production with an incredible cast.

But as a Tarzan adaptation.....? So close and so frustratingly disappointing....
 
Hmmm... I wonder, would a fanedit improve that second half?
 
I dont think so. The problem is, this second half is something completely different than expected and that cant be changed.
 
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