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.
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