Movie review - "Wild Thing" (1987) **

 This has an interesting Roger Corman style premise (Tarzan in an urban setting) and was written by John Sayles but instead of being directed by Lewis Teague and produced by Julie Corman, who would've kept the pace fast, it's done by someone else and is part Canadian, so has the joy sucked out of it like a lot of Canadian attempts at exploitation.

There are interesting things - 'White Rabbit' over the opening credit, gangsters who dress in bright colours like they're in Death Wish Three, Robert Davi as a stock drug dealer. Betty Buckley is the woman who raises the kid.

Kathleen Quinland feels all wrong - too old, too school marmish.  Robert Knepper is okay. They have nil chemistry. The core of the film should be a love story. They never seen into each other.

When you dig into the premise a little more it kind of wobbles - I mean, Tarzan grew up around apes not humans, whereas Wild Thing is in the city with plenty of people around. He'd know how to talk and interact with people and stuff. 

The movie perks up at the end when Wild Thing goes on a rampage. He kicks arse

The film just needed to be pulpier. More sex, more violence, more emotion. Have wild thing be wilder.

It's a frustrating movie.

Movie review - "Tarzan the Ape Man" (1981) **

 Made in the red heat of Bo Derek mania following 10 this was a smart idea - take some pre existing IP, add Bo Derek, and stir.

Interesting opening with Wilfred Hyde White and others telling the story in voice over. Jane/Derek is in Africa looking for her father Richard Harris - and the first fifty minutes or so is devoted to them, and John Philip Law, before Tarzan appears.

It's beautifully shot - Derek's skill as a photographer is evident - with tremendous locations. John Derek isn't a great action director - he loves slow motion. Though Bo being attacked by a python was quite effective at first but then Tarzan fighting it slow motion wasn't, nor is the final duel between Tarzan and a baddy.

There's campy scenes like Bo frolicking nude in the sea and going the grope on a sleeping Tarzan watching by an orangutang and Bo pained in white stuff by third act baddies talking to Harris who tells her to leave your body and we'll go on a ferris wheel soon.

Richard Harris chews the scenery and looks awful but does give this a bit of life. There's a lot of objectification of O'Keefe's body so in a way this film is kind of progressive.

It's not terrible. Some reviews were hysterically bad but I think they were silly. I mean the film is silly but it's fine.

Movie review - "Tarzan Goes to India" (1962) *** (re-watching)

 This has two interesting concepts neither really developed - Tarzan a stranger in a strange land, in this case India, and Tazan is played by someone over 40, in this case Jock Mahoney.

He's helping delay a dam which is a slightly lumpy story. In Africa Tarzan always had a personal stake. That's not the case here.

It looks beautiful, was shot on location, John Guillermin directs well. There's a cute Sabu-esque Indian kid, and some sympathetic Indian grown ups but the main villains are white as well as Tarzan and most of the Indians are extras. There's no love interest which is a shame.

The action is well done and Mahoney looks like a Tarzan.

Movie review - "Tarzan's Greatest Adventure" (1959) **** (re-viewing) (warning: spoilers)

 I'm really enjoying re-watching John Guillermin's movies. This was great. When I watched it again I wasn't impressed as I was when I first saw it - because that was off the back of seeing the Tarzan movies in chronological order, and I noted how the quality kept falling and this was such a leap back to form. So I didn't have that context. But as the film went along it just kept being great.

The photography helps - that wonderful Ted Scaife grainy colour. Location filming in Kenya is a plug (though there's a fair bit of studio work). Simple story but full of novelty - Tarzan speaks English, helps out the local district officer, he is injured with blood. 

The villains are outstanding - Anthony Quayle, Sean Connery, Nial MacGuinness, Al Mulcock, sexy Scilla Gabel. I liked Sara Shane as Tarzan's busty, feisty love interest  - they have sex. Scott isn't an awesome Tarzan - he seems like a bodybuilder rather than someone living in the jungle - but he's fine.

Tough action. Love the ending where Tarzan kills Quayle and does his yell.

Script review - "Greystoke the Legend of Tarzan" by Robert Towne and Michael Austin

No writers are credited to the draft I read but from memory and a squizz at the internet it seems to be pretty close to what was filmed so I'm assuming this is the Towne/Austin version.

Towne famously complained about the end result and used a pseudonym. This is actually a pretty tight piece of work - it feels very real, and has a great sense of adventure. The best stuff is the first half which is Tarzan's adventures in the jungle - it jumps around in time a bit but is basically Tarzan's parents wash up on shore, they set up a house, fever kills mother and an ape kills father, Tarzan is adopted by Kala whose child has been killed by Silverback. Tarzan grows up among the apes, using some fast thinking and a knife to take out a panther, and conquer the gorilla who has knocked off Silverback from the head of the group.

There's some really moving moments -the death of Kala's child, the death of Kala, the death of John and Alice Greystoke in the jungle, Tarzan seeing Silverback in prison.

Charactertisations aren't fantastic -the Belgian dude d'Arnot is plucky, Tarzan is interesting physically but that's it, the Greystokes are stiff upper lip chaps, Jane is just... the girl. Mind you Tarzan has never been famous for characterisation.

I was expecting a bigger role to be played by Billings, the captain of the ship who abandons the Greystokes and turns up at a nearby town. Maybe the script lacked a villain - there's just a few snobs. They should have had the fake Greystone in the book - the person who took the estate. Or built up someoneon.

The biggest problem for me - and it was so easily fixable - is that the explorer who makes contact with Tarzan is a random Belgian, d'Arnot, when it so should have been Jane. Jane explored in the books - it makes her a stronger character. Now she's just a girl who hangs out at home. Jane going on the trip would have given her agency, a point. It would have strengthened the emotional impact of those scenes. Love stories beat out "respect" stories.

The story peaks in the first half. It struggles in England especially without a villain. There's no threat. The Earl of Greystoke likes his grandson. Jane is lovely. People are a bit snobby but that's it.

But some great stuff in here. A smart movie. Just not entirely dramatically satisfying.

Book review - "The Many Lives of Cy Endfield Film Noir, the Blacklist, and Zulu" by Brian Neve (2015)

How good a filmmaker was Cy Endfield? He made one movie that has passionate devotees - Zulu - but the others are far, far less well known. After the triumph of Zulu his career bewilderingly failed to gain momentum. I was familiar with glimpses - the mysterious Sands of the Kalahari, being booted off De Sade, the beyond-weird Universal Soldier - but this superb biography answers all those questions and more.

Endfield was from Scranton Pennsylvania; like so many directors of his era, he was the son of immigrants, and was whip smart, getting into Yale. He earned contacts in the progressive theatre scene of the 1930s, knowing Orson Welles and Paul Gallico, and joining the Communist Party. He eventually found his way to Hollywood and whinged/nagged/networked his way into filmmaking jobs, doing a stint for Mercury at RKO, then making a short for MGM, Inflation. This was extremely highly regarded - but also so powerful it was considered anti-capitalist and found it hard to get distribution. It was to be the first in a series of career blows that would frustrate Endfield.

He was a hard worker and wrote as well as directed so managed to find work - radio dramas (including "The Argyle Secrets" for Suspense which I review elsewhere on this blog), then making comedies at Monogram, and working his way up to some highly regarded film noirs, notably The Sound and Fury. It seemed Endfield's career was back on track then he was hit with another blow - being blacklisted.

Endfield fled to England. He eventually found work again in TV and then movies, writing and directing, forming a notable collaboration with actor-producer Stanley Baker: A Child in the House, Hell Drivers, Jet Storm, then of course Zulu. This was a big hit and really should have put Endfield back in the A league again. But his follow up, Sands of the Kalahari, flopped and Endfield could never get his groove back - by this stage he was too cranky, too old, probably too tired after so many knock backs. He was booted off De Sade, Universal Soldier was a mess, was unable to get financing for other projects; he worked increasingly in other areas - computers, tried writing a play (the man was ferociously intelligent); he had a life long interest in magic and was very serious about it. Critics rediscovered him but it was probably too little too late for his sense of self-respect.

For all his many admirable qualities Endfield wasn't always an easy person to like - he was prickly, temperamental, sulky; he bailed on a first marriage and child (the blacklist was a big part of this, in his defense); seemed reluctant to help out with the war effort. But he had talent, intelligence and made some entertaining films. Its a shame his early 50s film noirs aren't better known, for instance. He was a fascinating character who deserved a good biography, and he got one.

Movie review – “Tarzan’s Three Challenges” (1963) **1/2

Tarzan was still in jet-setting mode – this time he heads off to Asia (a fictitious country – it was actually shot in Thailand) where he helps the legitimate ruler of a country fight of a usurper. Why would Tarzan care? Well, apparently the former ruler was an old mate. It’s not much of a motivation, to be honest – Tarzan doesn’t really have any business messing about in Asia (perhaps he was inspired by Kennedy’s Peace Corps), and who’s to say Strode wouldn’t make a decent leader? He’s certainly brave and willing to do hands-on villainy.

Having said that, the Thailand locations and extras are terrific, full of colour and variety. Robert Day directs with a sure hand again, and there is some impressive action, notably the final battle between Tarzan and Strode on a rope bridge just above steaming cauldrons. Strode is a strong villain, and its great that he got the chance to act in a better Tarzan film.

This isn’t quite the top rank though. The story is weak – it’s a travelogue really with Tarzan dolphining along, and the whole “you must do X challenges” thing feels really contrived. Also Jock Mahoney looks tired and dispirited; I’m trying not to be ageist (apparently he fell sick during filming) but it counts against the result. Maybe they should have used his age more – had Tarzan having a mid life crsis or something (you know that would make a terrific Tarzan film).

Movie review – “Tarzan Goes to India” (1962) ***

A new Tarzan – Jock Mahoney – and a new location – India. Tarzan is visiting to help out an old mate, an Indian ruler on whose land they are building a dam; this means a bunch of elephants are at risk of being killed and it’s up to Tarzan to save the day. The baddie is an engineer who also built a dam in Africa that killed elephants.

Mahoney was a former stuntman with extensive acting experience; he’s in good shape and is an excellent fighter, but he was over 40 when he took the role. In it’s way this is interesting, to have an elder Tarzan (though little is made of this).

It takes a while to get used to Tarzan running around India in his loincloth, but the Indian locations are one of the most attractive features of this film. There’s a lot of elephant action – the early Weismuller films were very elephant-heavy, but then the animal became less prevalent in Tarzan movies, usually reduced to just a rampaging cameo at the end. So it’s nice to see a bit of time devoted to elephants.

The story is a little wonky. First of all, it doesn’t feel quite right that Tarzan is mucking about in someone else’s patch, even when invited. Secondly, the whole saving-elephants-from-a-flooding-plain angle seems a bit too contrived; it’s a potentially interesting topic – the benefits of the dam vs the destruction caused by it – but they have to twist things in order to make the plot more exciting, eg by bringing in nasty engineers, and having crappy reasons why the elephants can’t be rescued. Also Tarzan is more effective when working on the outskirts of civilisation. Finally, it’s a mistake to knock off the best villain with thirty minutes still to do.

But sheer spectacle of it all, the terrific elephants, plus Mahoney’s impressive debut puts this over the line.

Movie review – Tarzan #22 - “Tarzan the Magnificent” (1960) ***1/2

Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure was such a terrific film producer Sy Weintraub promptly rehashed many of the same elements in this follow up: the opening sequence has a bunch of villains rob a township, Tarzan uses his bow and arrow and can still talk, the basic plot is a “chase” (only this time its Tarzan being pursued), a finale fight on top of a waterfall.

It starts with a robbery. A British colonial officer figures out whodunit, tracks them down and captures one (Jock Mahoney) – his family kill the colonial officer (who is depicted as a tough but smart type who could be a hero of his own movie… the first time that happened in a Tarzan) but then Tarzan captures Mahoney.

The story then turns into High Noon with Tarzan trying to get white colonials to watch Mahoney until the cops come and pick him up but they won’t do it out of fear of offending Mahoney’s nasty family.

For good reason too: the family (led by John Carradine) hold up a stage coach, oops I mean river boat, and kidnap the passengers – who include our own Charles Tingwell (just before he got chubby so still looking spunky). But then let them go and… anyway it gets complicated for a bit but then gets simple: Tarzan has to escort Mahoney to civilisation for arrest and trial across country with a bunch of civilians, followed by Mahoney’s family.

I never realised Tarzan had such devotion to law and order – old school Tarzan surely would have just killed Mahoney then knocked off his family one by one (like he did in Tarzan's Greatest Adventure). Actually, just thinking about it, a lot more could have been made of this – Tarzan having a dilemma whether to knock off Mahoney or see him trailed. It would have been a great Tarzan vs. Jane conflict – only there’s no Jane in this film (he doesn’t even get a love interest).

Marvellous location work and authentic Africans. Mahoney makes a superb villain, right up there with Anthony Quayle. I also enjoyed John Carradine as the paterfamilias – though I started thinking “how great would it have been if he’d three sons been played by David, Keith and Robert?” and once I started I couldn’t stop. Lionel Jeffries is also strong as a surprisingly sympathetic coward. Tingwell is fine; his role isn’t that much, he just is sort of sympathetic.

Occasionally the location stuff doesn’t quite cut together with studio, it has a nasty edge (the baddies shoot a doctor for no reason) and sometimes the squabbling amongst the travellers gets a bit tiresome, but it’s very entertaining and has some excellent, full-on action sequences: someone gets eaten by a lion, another person has their face blown off with a gun, the final fight between Scott and Mahoney is enthralling.

Movie review – Tarzan #21 – “Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure” (1959) ****

Talk about a transformation – under the stewardship of producer Sol Lesser the Tarzan films had become increasingly poor, boring and badly made. He sold the rights to a new producer, who actually put some effort into the thing, and the result is one of the best Tarzans ever. Great colour photography, top notch location work, strong story, excellent support cast, and a really good director – John Guillermin.

It’s still got Gordon Scott, star of four unremarkable Tarzan movies, but he’s allowed to speak in full sentences has a more sensible haircut, and uses his brains more instead of just going the biff and calling in an elephant stampede when things get too hard. We see him tracking the baddies, using a bow and arrow – it’s a tougher, more ruthless Tarzan. He’s motivated by anger but he’s steady and precise in his response (the whole film is really Tarzan on a hunt).

He’s given a proper female co-star too – not a Jane, but a feisty, flirty female pilot. She’s a bit of a dill (she crashes her plane and is a bit shallow and complains), but at least she’s sexually aggressive and allowed to get involved; she even saves Tarzan’s life towards the end. And they have sex (well, they kiss and fade out and in Tarzan land that’s always meant sex). Indeed, it’s actually a touching relationship – they come to admire each other but he’s a guy from the jungle and she’s a socialite and that’s the way it is.

She’s not the only tail on display – Anthony Quayle’s got this sexy European moll who at one point literally lures Quayle into the bushes, making this the most female-oriented Tarzan movies in ages.

There is a great “rogue’s gallery” of villains – admittedly, sometimes their squabbling amongst themselves seems contrived at times, but they are played by excellent actors. Sean Connery is very appealing and charismatic (as an Irishman with a Scots accent) – you know, he would have made a great Tarzan. (He and the others are blacked up for the opening sequence.)

But it’s Quayle who steals the show. He is superb as the scarred baddie with a history with Tarzan; he is intelligent, resourceful, ferocious and virile – the best Tarzan villain to date (and their fight on top of a cliff at the end is breathtaking).

The film was partly shot in Kenya, perhaps explaining why there’s a scene at the beginning where a British colonial officer brings Tarzan up to speed about what’s going on. Plenty of hard violent action – falling in a pit of sticks, crashing on rocks. Extremely well-made and enjoyable movie.

Movie review – Tarzan #20 - “Tarzan’s Fight for Life” (1958) **

“These savages don’t appreciate your effort” says the whiny big breasted daughter of a scientist; said scientist is determined to break the power of the witch doctors in the area. The racism in this one is really irritating – I know, I know, race is a problematic issue in Tarzan films full stop but this one is all about how ignorant black savages reject white doctors. And the whites aren’t even nice – the daughter of the doctor is a whiny bigot, her boyfriend is a beefy bigot. And since when has Tarzan been on the side of progress? He’s always been a “keep out whitey” kind of conservationist.

This is a shame since the support cast includes two of the best black movie actors of the period – Woody Strode and James Edwards – but they are reduced to mere villain roles. Nonetheless both are effective and make strong antagonists, especially Edwards who has a charismatic, intelligent, dangerous presence; he would have made a great blaxploitation hero fifteen years later but those aren’t qualities Hollywood particularly wanted out of its black actors in 1950s Hollywood.

Gordon Scott gets his first Jane (Eva Brent) – they have a pash and Jane asks if he recognises that she has a new skirt. Brent’s not a bad Jane, quite pretty and game – she also has warmth, a quality that many of the post-Maureen O’Sullivan Janes lacked. (In defence of these Janes, like Brent they’re often not given much to do – here Jane spends most of her time sick.) There’s also a Boy like character (Richie Sorensen) – both he and Brent were reunited in Tarzan and the Trappers.

There’s a scene where whiny big boobs goes to Jane that she hates the jungle, and Jan explains she just fears the jungle – which is a fair enough point, but then Jane tells whiny big boobs that her job is to stand by her fellah’s side while he tries to bring light into darkness, etc, etc. What would Jane know about that? Didn’t Jane go to the jungle for the sex and freedom?

The quality of colour photography and use of stock footage is superior to Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle (though it still jars eg when Tazan squats down and talks to a tribe of pygmies). There’s a decent finale with Tarzan chained in a dungeon with Strode about to cut out his heart and a man-eating lion running loose, then a poison-drinking witch doctor ceremony involving Edwards – Scott was a good on-screen fighter, who moved quickly, even if he did have the biggest breasts of anyone in a Tarzan film.

This was cinema feature made by producer Sol Lesser. He soon sold out his interest in the film to new producers and not before time.

Movie review – Tarzan #21 – “Tarzan and the Trappers” (1958) *

Apparently this was meant to be a television series but the sponsors didn’t go for it – so Sol Lesser cobbled together the three episodes that had been made and released them as a feature. Jane (Eve Brent) and Boy equivalent have hardly anything to do. The plot is traditional: fighting trappers and someone looks for a lost city. Zzzzzz.

The only remotely interesting this about this film are when Tarzan rides a giraffe and the fact that Tarzan is helping out a black friend of his. Dull, badly acted and with low production values – and in black and white, too.

Movie review – Tarzan #19 - “Tarzan and the Lost Safari” (1957) **

Colour finally hits the Tarzan film in this otherwise unmemorable entry. A plane load of squabbling white people crash in the jungle and Tarzan has to help them out. He’s hindered by a great white hunter who, while he pretends to help, is actually doing deals with the natives to offer the people up as sacrifices.

Most of the film is still shot in the studio, with some stock footage thrown in (love it when they’re in the plane and you see this massive close up of an elephant). There’s a lot of trudging along – through the jungle, then a swamp for variety – pursued by black warriors.

There’s a scene where two of the women ogle Tarzan as he goes for a swim – “I bet he does everything well” says one – but still no romance for Tarzan. There is some ok action, Tarzan chats about his origin in the jungle, and a climax which surely must have influenced Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – the hero and lead baddie are on a bridge which collapses and they to climb to safety next to one another.

Scott is alright – he moves fast, and looks strong, but hasn’t made the role his own. Wilfrid Hyde White adds a spot of humour to the support cast.

Movie review – Tarzan #18 – “Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle” (1955) **

After Lex Barker the male model, producer Sol Lesser decided to try a body builder, Gordon Scott, as Tarzan. Scott looks a bit more of a jungle wild man than Barker - though he’s not as genuinely strange as Johnny Weismuller. 

The plot is a bit tired – unscrupulous hunters looking for ivory, lost kingdom, nice doctor, etc. For one exciting moment we are led to believe that Tarzan is going to have a romance - Vera Miles plays a nurse who goes for a nude swim, and later on Tarzan playfully throws her in the water. After sixteen films of Tarzan being married it’s good to see him in flirt mode again... but nothing more is made of this. She goes off with the doctor (Peter Van Eyck). Disappointing! 

At one stage of the film the baddie ivory hunters pretend to be documentary filmmakers. Filmmakers and Tarzan would have been a fun plot - but that's not taken up here either. 

It's a dull Tarzan entry, for completists only. Jack Elam plays a baddie, without a beard, and there's a decent sequence where some people get thrown into a pit of lions. This was the last Tarzan made at RKO.

Movie review – Tarzan #17 - “Tarzan and the She-Devil” (1953) ***

After lost civilisations and commie agents, Tarzan turns his attention to something a bit more traditional: ivory hunters, who include Raymond Burr and Tom Conway. Part of their plan involves a slave raid on a local a native tribe played by predominantly white actors – a shame, as they were using black ones for a while. (Not only were decent roles for black actors in 1950s Hollywood few and far between, they often missed out on crappy roles in Tarzan films.) On the other hand, this film depicts the horridness of the slave trade for the first time in a Tarzan film (mainly because a white man, Tarzan, becomes a slave – but at least it’s something, and they are powerful sequences.)

The she-devil of the title is a femme fetale ivory dealer, another female lead in a Tarzan film competing against Jane… but for a change Jane isn’t outshone. This is partly due to the fact that a new actor is playing the part (Barker had a different one for each one of his outings as Tarzan), and she’s not bad. She’s helped by the fact that she gets to go the biff with a couple of baddies and she’s actually given a love scene with Tarzan, something that rarely happened in Barker movies. This is crucial to the story, which has the baddies kidnap Jane in order to force Tarzan to do their dirty work. (When Tarzan thinks Jane is dead he goes totally limp, which is interesting.) It also gives Barker a chance to do some acting and he handles it well.

Structurally the film has a slight problem in that Tarzan is passive for most of the second half. But to compensate for that we have a “Jane trying to find Tarzan” plot and a strong collection of villains to keep us interested. An above-average entry.

Movie review – Tarzan #16 – “Tarzan’s Savage Fury” (1952) ***

In his excellent book on the cinema of the British Empire, Visions of Yesterday, Jeffrey Richards remarked in passing that Tarzan took on communists in Tarzan’s Peril and this film. You could argue the baddie in Tarzan’s Peril was a commie; the anti-commie slant is a little bit more obvious here, though you still have to look for it. Charles Korvin kills Tarzan’s cousin and gets Patrick Knowles to impersonate said cousin; Knowles admits to being a traitor to England, Korvin refers to Knowles being from the “bourgeois” and works for a fictitious European country that is an enemy of England.

Knowles and Korvin ask for Tarzan’s help in locating a source of diamonds; they claim they need them for England (where “the chips are down”) – which surely is going to raise Tarzan’s suspicions considering the number of greedy explorers who’ve trooped through his jungle over the years. But at least it’s a different sort of lie and Jane encourages him to go along with it.

The film benefits from the addition of a “Boy” character – Joey, an American, played by Tommy Carleton, an engaging child performer. He helps compensate for another bland Jane (Barker’s fourth in only his fourth movie). They could never get a right match for Barker - this one seems a lot older; to be fair, she’s not helped by the fact she’s shown to be pining for Tarzan while he’s away, implying that she spends a lot of time stuck at home – no wonder she gets so excited by the mention of diamonds, it’s like she can’t wait to get out of her tree house to do diamond shopping.

Some good action sequences: Tarzan rescuing Joey, crossing the desert, the expedition’s arrival at the native village to find that cannibals have attacked, Tarzan rescuing Jane from being sacrificed at the end. Barker acts with more authority and confidence than before. The villains are strong and its refreshing to have a plot that harks back to the history of Tarzan’s family.

On the downside there are some racially insensitive moments such as when Korvin distracts some natives with a few magic tricks. And the ending where Cheetah engineers a plane crash by the commie pilots (they misinterpret his chimp talk as their native language) is a bit full on – a reprise of the Tarzan Triumphs end gag, only with more violence.

NB the ending with the Africans giving Tarzan given half the diamonds – what exactly does he plan to do with them?

Movie review – Tarzan #15 – “Tarzan’s Peril” (1951) **1/2

Finally, a Tarzan movie actually shot on location in Africa – MGM’s King Solomon’s Mines had raised the bar… though I understand that technical problems meant a great deal of it had to be reshot in the studio. Perhaps not coincidentally, this film offers the most sympathetic depiction of colonialism in a Tarzan film to date; a bit late in the day you’d think, but there you go.

The opening sequence has the tribes are farewelling a devoted colonial official who is leaving Africa (Alan Napier) – “you are our father and our uncle” says the Queen (Dorothy Dandridge!), without irony – and the colonial regime is, on the whole, portrayed as hard working and efficient.

The plot concerns a former slaver trader who escapes from prison; he’s called Radijeck, so maybe he’s meant to be a communist (he spends the rest of the film trying to sell guns to the natives and whip up trouble, so you could definitely read it that way).

Tarzan is a lot more American in this one and speaks longer sentences; he has a new Jane, an older one with short hair who seems like an Eisenhower era housewife. There’s a scene where she serves him dinner at the dinner table while he asks her something like “I hope you don’t get bored while I’m out all day” – Maureen O’Sullivan never would have stayed at home all day, she was out with Tarzan, having sex and trying to avoid being eaten by crocodiles.

The scenes among the villains are well done, helped by George Macready playing Radijeck; it’s also a good idea that Radijeck has a history with Tarzan and Jane but this is disappointingly undeveloped (apparently Radijeck was “nursed back to health” by Jane… is that code for he raped her or something?)

Byron Haskin directed, and you can feel him making an effort to raise this above the usual Barker Tarzan opus. And for a lot of the running time he succeeds: the action scenes are well done, the villains very strong; the only thing that really drags it down are the Tarzan-Jane scenes (actually all the Jane scenes) and some poorly-integrated cheetah action.

Movie review – Tarzan #14 - “Tarzan and the Slave Girl” (1950) **

The Zoolander Tarzan, Lex Barker, is given a new Jane in Vanessa Brown – no real improvement on Brenda Joyce, she’s like Tarzan’s slightly underage girlfriend. (How come Tarzan got to strut around in a loincloth while Jane only showed a bit of midriff?). The plot of this one involves girls who are abducted by members of (yet another predominantly white) lost civilisation looking for a cure.

This is like the eighth film in a row which features a more interesting female character than Jane (even though the last six had Jane in them) – in this case a French nurse, Lola (Denise Darcel) who pants over Tarzan and winds up abducted with Jane. She’s a great character – wild, sexually uninhibited, spunky; Robert Alda is her love interest and you know he’ll have her hands full with her down the track.

Barker still looks like he’s on his way to a tanning session at a Paddington gym, but he’s a bit more comfortable in the role now – and he does give Tarzan a bit more intelligence than Weismuller did (Barker’s Tarzan is more of a grown up). Tarzan is treated as a sex object here for the first time in a while, with Lola panting over Tarzan at an infirmary – she and Jane even have a cat fight (Jane flips her – alright!).

The soldiers from the lost civilisation are dressed like Robin Hood’s merry men, complete with bows and arrows. Cheetah gets drunk, there is quite a suspenseful sequence where Tarzan is leading an expedition and it all goes silent (this lasts around five minutes. There’s also a decent finale where they’re going to throw a nice priest to the lions.

Movie review – Tarzan#13 – “Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” (1949) **

Johnny Weismuller finally grew too old to play the Lord of the Jungle (though it would be fun to see an elderly Tarzan in at least one film), so producer Sol Lesser went looking for a replacement. He came up with Lex Barker, a handsome model type who has the physique for the part but doesn’t quite work; Weismuller bought a real dimension to Tarzan, a sense of child-like wonder and savagery – Barker just looks like this male model with well-groomed hair. So in a way it’s kind of appropriate he co-stars with the unmemorable Brenda Joyce as Jane, who also looks like a model stuck in the studio jungle.

I understand they wanted to give the series some continuity but it’s a shame they didn’t grab the opportunity to introduce a new Jane. Joyce was always going to be up against it following Maureen O’Sullivan, and she faced competition in her films from more interesting female characters – Amazons, Huntress, Mermaids, and in this one a female aviatrix who has discovered the secret of youth. But the fact is she’s not very good; she’s bland and nagging, too contemporary, and wears lots of clothes all the time so she can’t distract with her body. (Is this why all those films had strong female characters? Because of Joyce?)

The plot is at least a bit different (Curt Siodmark was a co-writer); Tarzan discovers the diary of a lost Amelia Earhart-like flier – apparently a man was blamed for said flyer’s murder, but she’s alive and living in eternal youth land… looking like Evelyn Ankers. Tarzan knew where she was all this time, without telling Jane – which leads one to surmise that he ducked over for a bit of nooky (like he presumably did with the Amazons). Ankers comes back to society, meaning that she will age… which is quite an emotionally powerful story, when you think about it – it sets up a good conflict between Jane (who wants to escort her back to eternal youth land) and Tarzan (who has promised to keep the land secret). Of course baddies go about tracking down the fountain of eternal youth and Tarzan has to stop them – so it’s not super different but at least there’s that eternal youth twist.

There’s a decent action finale, with Tarzan and Jane ducking fire arrows set off by more militant members of the lost civilisation (who, you know something, are perfectly justified – Tarzan has told a whole heap of people about their wold). And there are some actual black people in this too, as opposed to Arabs or Puerto Ricans. (Not playing members of the lost youthful civilisation though – they’re all as whitebread as they come.)

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.