Movie review – Tarzan #11 – “Tarzan and the Huntress” (1947) **

Brenda Joyce’s third film as Jane and she still hadn’t managed to get any chemistry going with Johnny Weismuller. By this stage also Johnny Sheffield’s balls had dropped, meaning that Boy should really be renamed “Young Man”. The three of them frolic in a pool and watch cheetah fly a sort of glider thing but it’s not the same as when O’Sullivan was there.

Tarzan’s neighbours around this time were normally colonial outposts or hidden kingdoms. This one has him dealing with a full fledged independent kingdom, run by a kindly native king – perhaps a sign of the post-war times.

This one has a very strong conservation theme, even more so than usual: some hunters arrive looking for animals to take back to zoos; the nice king allows them to take a restricted amount but they want more and so support a nasty usurper. “Animals belong in jungle not in cages” says Tarzan. As usual the expedition contains some a mixture of good people (pretty girl, comic servant) and nasty (Barton MacLane – who was a villain in Tarzan and the Amazons). Cheetah winds up in a cage, a lioness is shot trying to protect her cubs… it’s pretty traumatic.

But despite the interesting conservation angle, this is one of the duller Weismuller Tarzans. It lacks excitement – mainly because our lead trio are rarely in danger. Jane does hardly anything the whole film, and you expect Boy or Tarzan to get involved in the hunters but they don’t really. The main one in danger is Cheetah, but this promising aspect isn’t really developed (it doesn’t make sense that Cheetah should be imprisoned by the hunters, then later on help them… just so he can use a compact.)

 As usual, the death toll is quite high: Tarzan spears one henchman and stabs another, various wildlife are killed, the king is shot in front of his own son, the son is thrown off a cliff, elephants trample over everyone, etc, etc.

NB the pretty girl and comic servant are allowed to live at the end – for no real reason other than they’re pretty and comic. But they still are all for taking in excess of their quota and don’t really protest when really bad stuff happens and are part of blazing guns at the wildlife.