Tarzan wird gejagt

Edgar Rice Burrough's TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS (RKO Radio, 1947), directed by Kurt Neumann, being Johnny Weissmuller's 11th portrayal as the king of the jungle, and fifth under Sol Lesser's unit distributed by RKO, can be summed up by this time in saying, "If you've seen one Tarzan movie, you've seen them all," however the series continues.

The plot revolves around a zoological expedition headed by Tanya Rollins (Patricia Morison) and her guide, John Weire (Barton MacLane) who make arrangements with Prince Ozira (Ted Hecht), nephew of King Farrod (Charles Trowbridge) to capture wild animals for the zoos. After arranging for the death of the king, leaving Prince Suli (Maurice Tauzen) in charge command of the throne, Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller), having learned of the capture of his animal friends, including Cheta, starts to oppose the expedition and intervene.

Brenda Joyce in her third go round as the blonde Jane, and Johnny Sheffield in his eighth time playing Boy, each continue their recurring roles in the usual manner. This was to be the teen-aged Sheffield's farewell performance as Boy, now being more physically muscular and nearly as tall as Weissmuller's Tarzan, giving full indication that while the writers kept him on as long as possible, he has outgrown his part. Hence, in one scene where Boy wanting to make amends for the wrong he has done, is complimented by his jungle warlord father by telling him, "Boy man now." Indeed he's now a man. Being omitted in the next and all future installments, other jungle boys would be introduced as a replacement to Sheffield's Boy, but never seen on a regular basis. Sheffield was the only young actor whose character was consistent. He would return to the jungle in the character of "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" a new film series as produced by Monogram Pictures (1949-1955). Bomba could very well be Boy returning to Africa after a few years attending school in England, thus, starting life anew and following the tradition of jungle living amongst the animals and facing every day danger like Tarzan. As with the Tarzan/Weissmuller adventures, the writers of the "Bomba" series failed to introduce the jungle boy's origin as to where he came from, who were his people and how did he end up in the jungle. He was already roaming the jungle holding his sphere awaiting for something to happen. Anyway, that's entirely irrelevant to the story department and movie making at that time. Now back to TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS.

Others appearing in the cast include John Warburton as Carl Morley; Wallace Scott as Smithers; and Mickey Simpson as Monak. And of course there's Cheta, the chimp, hogging many of the scenes, and trying to help out her animal friends from captivity. It's not Tarzan, Jane nor Boy who get to appear in the final fadeout, but Cheta being parachuted from the airplane with the "The End" inter-title superimposed over her puss having the time of her life.

TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS returns Barton MacLane to the series, once more playing the villain, having already appeared two years earlier in TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS (1945), by whose presence in these two movies could stir up confusion. It would be impossible for MacLane to reprise his original role since his character has met his demise by falling victim to sinking in quicksand. An interesting switch from previous episodes is having a safari leader portrayed by a woman, the role awarded to Patricia Morison, who makes a fine villainous in the most sultry manner. Unlike the previous efforts made for RKO, "Huntress" gets plenty of use of animal extras along with an climatic elephant stampede.

TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS, clocked at 77 minutes, is acceptable fun but a far cry from being the best in the series. It was one of the many movies from the "Tarzan" package to be presented on the America Movie Classics cable channel (1997-2000) before shifting over to Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: June 18, 2011). As much as to where this annual series was heading, the Tarzan adventures continued to hold their own as one of the most popular film series ever produced, enjoyed by many, especially youngsters in the Saturday afternoon matinée crowd cheering on the jungle hero as he battles against the bad guys entering his domain once again. Next installment, TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS (1948) (*1/2).

In 1942, America's biggest film studio MGM scrapped its legendary Tarzan series, with the option being snapped up by the smaller RKO. There, Johnny Weissmuller was to strap on the surprisingly-revealing Hays Code-approved loincloth a further six times. The first couple saw him scrapping with Nazis, with the second - Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943) - being as good a piece of nonsensical fluff as you're ever likely to find. I was a bit down on films three and four, as they're tired and largely gloomy affairs, but the penultimate entry - Huntress - is a partial return to form. Its major strength is an understanding of the series' in-built mythology and a welcome sense of fun. Like Superman Returns, then, only not as good. As with the first two MGM entries - the patchy Tarzan, The Ape Man and the superb Tarzan and His Mate - Tarzan's jungle paradise is invaded by hunters, a more sensible plot line than we've come to expect from these Sol Lesser yarns. The villainous gang includes former Warner heavy Barton MacLane and the eponymous huntress - Patricia Morison. Though the film is a touch confused about the morality of stealing animals from the jungle (presumably that was how the bulk of its supporting players came to Hollywood), Tarz does ultimately get pretty narked about the whole thing, leading to a series of lively showdowns. He's accompanied once more by Brenda Joyce and Johnny Sheffield, whose Boy is now a man, with a deep, booming voice. Where the film really scores is in its embracing of the Tarzan legend as our hero lets rip not once, but twice, with his famous yell. The first - so unexpected after four films without it - is a euphoric moment that seems to strip away 15 years of typecasting and weight gain from its wonderful star - if only for a few seconds. For all the film's deficiencies, like a messy, jumbled narrative and comedy scenes shoehorned in at apparently indiscriminate junctures, those two scenes are jolts of pure joy.

TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS suffers from a low budget and a ho-hum plot, although it is far less silly than the previous feature, TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN; entrepreneur Tanya Rawlins (Patricia Morison), and her milquetoast lover (John Warburton), mount an expedition to capture animals to restock war-depleted zoos, a not unworthy goal...except they are primarily interested in making big money, which means depleting an area of a large part of it's wild animal population! The local 'lost city' ruler, King Farrod (Charles Trowbridge), showing remarkable farsightedness for the 1940s, limits them to one male and female of each species, which, although showing wise animal management, would not serve the money-hungry Rawlins, at all. Fortunately, she has a ruthless expedition 'boss' (Barton MacLane, making his second 'villainous' appearance in a Tarzan feature), and Farrod has a greedy nephew (Ted Hecht), so a scheme is hatched, to kill Farrod and his heir (Maurice Tauzin), and pay the new King a healthy kickback, in exchange for 'unlimited' hunting (an oft-used scheme of 'bad guys', which would continue to be popular, as recently as George Clooney's SYRIANA).

Of course, this being a Tarzan movie, our aging hero is friends with Farrod, and when the ruler is murdered, and the young prince disappears, Tarzan gets involved, which is BAD NEWS for Rawlins and her crew! The film utilizes more 'stock' animal footage than any of the other RKO/Weissmuller features, and unfortunately, it doesn't 'match up' well with the other footage, making the studio scenes look even cheesier; adding to this is a general listlessness in most of the performances, which hurts the overall movie. Even Cheeta seems bored!

The most interesting aspect of the film is Johnny Sheffield, who looks startlingly 'adult' in this, his last appearance as 'Boy'. That fact is not lost on screenwriters Jerry Gruskin and Rowland Leigh, who have Tarzan remark, on several occasions, how Boy is becoming "a man". After this feature, Boy would be off to "school in England" (and Sheffield would move on to his own series, as "Bomba, the Jungle Boy").

Weissmuller appears tired and a bit out-of-shape, although Brenda Joyce, as Jane, is as fetching as ever! The Tarzan series was obviously "winding down"; the next feature, the surreal TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS, would mark the end of Weissmuller's reign as "King of the Jungle"...

Those unfamiliar with 1940s American slang will miss the clever undertone of the title. Back then, a "huntress" was what women called other women who tried to steal their men. Perhaps to feed a certain misimpression of what the movie was about, a poster of the time shows Patricia Morison's character looking on enviously as Tarzan and Jane enjoy a tender moment. A famous publicity still showed the beautiful Morison clutching her coiled whip. Of course, the promise of hanky-panky and jungle homewrecking was totally false. Morison plays a real huntress, who's after animals. And to tell the truth, except for the visuals, this is one of the duller Tarzan films, short on suspense and exciting action. Morison may look naughty, but she's not a very menacing villain.

By the time "Tarzan and the Huntress" was produced by Sol Lesser with Kurt Neumann, one of my favorite Hollywood talents, the jungle man series was fifteen years old. By saddling the jungle man from the outset with Jane, the MGM executives committed the same error Edgar Rice Burroughs had made in his original creation. There being few excuses to take Tarzan far enough from home to find movie-length adventures, it became necessary to bring those making his actions necessary to him. These included Nazis, strange tribes, but most often unscrupulous hunters of one variety or another. In this unusually-well-directed and attractive entry to the series, the chief of invaders is a far-from-evil but uncaring female, played by gorgeous Patricia Morison. It is this aspect of the film that was copied so often later on; until then, virtually every illicit jungle hunter hand been male, and the only females in the jungle had been lost white goddesses. Fashionable Tanya Rollins is therefore a very important figure in film history. Her hired guide, Barton MacLane, is the real villain of this piece. As a champion of the wild heritage against a flawed pseudo-Christian civilization, Tarzan refuses to let anyone trap animals on his side of the river (never identified). On the other side of the river, the expedition's leaders have struck a bargain with a prince, son of the king (Charles Trowbridge). The bargain is broken, when MacLane has the prince killed, in order to deal with his more amenable brother. Instead of taking two of every animal, the expedition can then take unlimited animals to captivity for remunerative sale. When Tarzan learns that Cheetah has been captured and smells out what is going on, he decides to intervene, at great risk because the bad guys have rifles. This is champion swimmer Johnny Weissmuller's eleventh turn as the King of the Jungle; he is still stolid and sometimes impressive, especially when he has Brenda Joyce as a blonde Jane or raven-haired Morison to play off. And Johnny Sheffield as Tarzan's adopted son, Boy, has become by then an attractive and grown-up young man, on the verge of his own series as the sourceless but likable "Bomba" the Jungle Boy. Others appearing in the cast include John Warburton as Carl Morley, Wallace Scott as Smithers, and Mickey Simpson as Monak. And Cheetah the chimpanzee is given a very large role in the film, almost as an agent of Nature allegorically playing the nemesis to Ms. Rollins' nefarious hopes. The fact that Morison never wanted her men to kill Tarzan, or anyone else, excuses her complicity in what they do to gain unearned wealth; there are exciting scenes as Tarzan bedevils, is nearly killed by and then finally overcomes the true villains. But the highlight of the film, as anyone not suffering myopic of the value-system, should be able to know is the loveliness and performance by Patricia Morison. She has several scenes in a ten;t and when she undresses as a silhouetted figure lighted by a lamp within, or when she argues with Tarzan, or when she visits his home and is bedeviled by Cheetah who steals her lipstick and other implements, she steals the film completely. Like brilliant and vivacious Greer Garson before her, she seems to be beloved by U.S. moviegoers only if they are educated to ignore her British accent; compared for instance to brassy and passable actress Susan Hayward who came along at the same time, she is a gem, classically trained and brilliant either at acting or underplaying, as here. This is a often-imitated film, a milestone of adventure-level fun and adroit characterization; it is very popular with fans, thanks to brilliant director Kurt Neumann, who also co-produced. The authors get lots of fun out of an only-passable story line in every scene; Bbt to this film we owe "Tarzan the Magnificent", "Tarzan and the Lost Safari", "Jivaro" and a number of other films that finally saw a female in a jungle as something other than a danger or a distraction. The music by talented Paul Sawtell and the luminous cinematography by Archie Stout are rich assets here, by my lights. Art direction by McClure Capps and the costumes, especially Ms. Morison's by Harold Clandenning, add to the film's values. The script by Jerry Gruskin and Rowland Leigh is serviceable and some of the dialogue I find to be above-average. Wallace Scott and Ted Hecht were also featured; look for a well-done elephant stampede and Ms. Morison; they are for me the highlights of a seminal and enjoyable exotic-locale adventure.