Tarzan's Jungle Rebellion

This was a film that my local theatre owner showed year after year for the free "community gift" during the holidays. He'd pick an old movie he could rent for next to nothing and open up the doors of the theatre to all the kids of town and in we'd go to watch his chinzy movies and spend cash at the concession stand. The only other two films I recall taking it's place was Elvis' "Kid Galahad" and "Godzilla Vs. the Smog Monster".

Anyway, overall I remember this as being a neat Tarzan adventure... something about a stolen idol in Africa, wild natives with spears and exotic locales. Since I was a big Phantom comic book fan and I loved these types of exciting jungle adventures, I always enjoyed this flick.

Odd, though, I thought, that Mr. Dixon from Room 222 was cast as an African native, despite his being a history teacher at Walt Whitman High every week on ABC. It kinda threw me a little as a kid.

I understand that this was really a clipped-together film from episodes of the Tarzan TV series, which I really don't remember too much of. I do remember thinking Ron Ely was a cool Tarzan and I thought he was also a great Doc Savage back in 1975 when they tried to give the old pulp hero some life on the big screen. Ely was, in my book, a cool guy, and I liked this film, although I'm sure if I saw it today, it'd be a disappointment.

As a kid though, Tarzan ruled!

This "Tarzan" episode was originally released theatrically in 1965,but it was in fact the pilot episode for the series which stars Ron Ely as the ape man. Not a bad premise,but its a good start for what it would become later on as a two part episode that was shown on the Tarzan series which ran on NBC(from 1966-1968). If you check out the theatrical version,you can catch a youthful Nichelle Nichols(during her pre Star Trek days,but basically a year before Star Trek went on the air)as queen of a warrior tribe.