Complete credited cast: | |||
Buster Crabbe | ... | Tarzan | |
Julie Bishop | ... | Mary Brooks (as Jaqueline Wells) | |
Edward Woods | ... | Bob Hall (as Eddie Woods) | |
Philo McCullough | ... | Jeff Herbert | |
E. Alyn Warren | ... | Dr. Brooks | |
Mischa Auer | ... | High Priest | |
Matthew Betz | ... | Nick | |
Frank Lackteen | ... | Abdul |
In the African Jungle, a group of Europeans come across the fabled white man who was raised by apes. Tarzan takes an immediate liking to the blond Mary Brooks and rescues her during a nasty storm. Not everyone in the party sees Tarzan as a friend and one of the safari guides, Jeff Herbert, has a written offer of £10,000 for anyone who can confirm that the ape man is dead. Mary's father disappears however, taken prisoner by those who guard the treasure of Zar. It's left to Tarzan to rescue him and the others who have been taken prisoner. Written by garykmcd
Made to ride on the coat-tails of Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan The Ape Man (1932), this adventure for the legendary jungle wild-man stars Buster Crabbe, who would later find fame as the hero of sci-fi serials Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Crabbe's Tarzan also started life as a serial, the movie version that I saw being cobbled together out of several episodes, which gives the whole thing a rather irritating choppy, episodic feel with obvious scenes originally serving as cliff-hangers.
Crabbe makes for a convincing Tarzan, his athletic swimmer's build making him perfect for the character (although his pre-Hayes code loincloth is a little too skimpy for my liking: there's way too much ass-cheek on display!). Unfortunately, the action primarily consists of Tarzan swinging on vines, and wrassling lions and crocs, which gets fairly tedious after a while (to be fair, in it's original serial format, it was probably only one animal fight per episode). The plot is forgettable stuff: a young woman, Mary (the gorgeous Julie Bishop) goes in search of her father, but her guides have other plans, aiming to collect £10k for the vine-swinger's body and to relieve a local tribe of their ceremonial emeralds.
Of course, Tarzan puts paid to their plans and gets the girl, and all the jungle animals dance to some music played on Mary's gramophone.
5/10. Worth seeing if only for Crabbe's silly grin that makes him look like a simpleton.