Jumping on the bandwagon in Hollywood can produce almost guaranteed profits at the box office. When 1932's "Tarzan The Ape Man" with Johnny Weissmuller became such a huge hit, Paramount Pictures began looking for a similarly-themed vehicle to hitch its wagon. The studio found it in the form of Buster Crabbe in March 1933's "King of the Jungle." Paramount researchers found a book resembling Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan series in Charles Thurley Stoneham's 1931 'The Lion's Way,' about a boy whose parents get killed on a Kenyan trip and is raised by lions. Paramount copied Tarzan's recruitment process by scouting for a potential lead actor by looking at the athletes competing in the nearby Los Angles 1932 Olympic Games. Canvasing forty competitors at the games, Paramount executives chose one after a series of screen tests: Clarence Linden Crabbe..
Crabbe's role as Kaspa the Lion Man in "King of the Jungle" began an 180 film and television show career that lasted through the early 1980s. He was especially popular in a number of film series, earning the moniker "King of Serials," playing such famous characters as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Billy the Kid, and even Tarzan himself. Going by his nickname Buster, Crabbe was humbled about his acting talent. "Some say, that my acting rose to the point of incompetence and then leveled off," he said in retrospect.
He remembered auditioning for the Kaspa part. "Just before the Olympics we went down to be tested," Crabbe said. "They had us all throw a spear and pick up a paper-mache rock. About three days after the Olympics they called me back. I finally got the part." Crabbe, who grew up in Hawaii and attended the University of Southern California, excelled in swimming, earning the bronze medal in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, the same games where Johnny Weismuller, the first talking Tarzen on the screen, won two gold medals in swimming. In the 1932 games, Crabbe won the gold in the 400 meters freestyle by one-tenth of a second. "That one-tenth of a second changed my life," recalled Crabbe. "It was then the Hollywood scouts discovered latent histrionic abilities in me."
What differentiated "King of the Jungle" to "Tarzan the Ape Man" was Crabbe's character, the African-raised Kaspa, ends up spending most of his time in the United States after his capture by two white game hunters, who sell him to an American promoter. Kaspa isn't the animal fighter that Tarzan was. Just before arriving on the United States shores to be a showman messing around with lions, he escapes. Kaspa meets his 'Jane," Ann Rogers (Frances Dee), when he climbs through an apartment window to steal her and her roommates' food on the dinner table while clothed just in his loin cloth. Ann gets friendly with Kaspa and teaches him English. She has to start from Ground Zero to show him some lessons in civilized conduct before he's hired as a circus lion tamer. His job sets up the exciting conclusion where a spectacular fire runs throughout the circus tents, threatening his best friends, the lions.
Crabbe's competent acting and strong physic, one he maintained throughout his early 70s by swimming two miles a day partly to alleviate his arthritis, assured the actor a busy and rewarding acting career. Late in life, Crabbe, half-kidding, said he made only one A-movie and the "rest falling at least one letter lower in the alphabet."
