Les Nouvelles Aventures de Tarzan

I am here watching this movie for the first time with my good friend Roly. The date is 14 July 2008. I have to say that for 1935, when the likes of Joe Louis were boxing their way to stardom, the photography is excellent. Unfortunately the photography is mostly taken up with vistas of the great African Planes (In Puerto Rico). I was particularly made nervous by the scene in which Bruce Bennett appeared to kiss Cheetah on the lips. Of course I can forgive this because I am looking at it in a 2008 frame of mind and I am naturally homophobic.

Look, its like this, the movie is mostly just camera shots of wild "Africa" with no acting whatsoever. The director should be dug up and shot. It's a disaster. Gordon Scott will be turning in his grave, not to mention Johnnny Weismuller and Cheetah! If you don't allow this onto IMDb, then you are stifling free speech and you believe in a Brigadoon-like civilisation where nobody says anything bad. 1935 it is. Good cinematography it has. Storyline it definitely hasn't.

YES you should buy it. Just so you can go through what I went through.

Bbye Bye.

I have to review what I see and sad to say other than interesting location cinematography in Central America, there's not much to recommend The New Adventures Of Tarzan.

Edgar Rice Burroughs who was personally involved in the making of this film would have been better to have left it in the hands of the professionals at MGM who while they changed his legendary character knew how to make a film. They would also have advised him to not shoot on location as they did in Trader Horn. The production costs nearly bankrupted MGM and the costs here rendered impossible any kind of profit.

In addition what I saw on TCM was a cut down feature film taken from a movie serial. The serial ran over 4 hours and the film 75 minutes. You can't make anything coherent from that.

Bruce Bennett is quite the well built Tarzan. He's starring in this under his real name of Herman Brix, the same name for which he won a Silver Medal in the Shotput in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Later when he became Bruce Bennett he learned his craft as actor and is best remembered for The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre and Mildred Pierce as an actor.

I'm sure Bennett did a bit of cringing when he saw this film or was reminded of it in the 100 years of life he had on planet earth.

I bought this Tarzan serial 16 years ago, it was time for me to discover Herman Brix, quite handsome, expressive in the efforts with sharp glances when observing danger. He's the real Greystoke, speaking English, it's not surprising as it was produced by Burroughs Tarzan Enterprises Inc., the original author. The print I saw was absolutely not restored, it didn't matter, I was hypnotised by charismatic Herman Brix, fighting wildly against dozens of natives and lions and panthers. Shot in Guatemala, in jungle and seaside, there are strong violent scenes like this awsome shooting with machine gun against natives (did you see it, Sam?). Maybe a better director than cinematographer Edward Kull would have improved direction. The only bad surprise is Tarzan's scream, it seems in the middle he's been hit with a hammer, finally finishing singing a yodel, but it's the yell used in a previous Tarzan radio serial from 1932. Last bad surprise on the DVD extras, I didn't find the Vincent Sherman interview.

Or mad, and a bit interesting, take your pick. Herman Brix/Bruce Bennett is a good, athletic Tarzan, rather oddly at home in Africa, Latin America and England, equally comfortable in a loincloth or jungle fatigues, and even (in the final episode) fancy dress. His Tarzan cry is especially memorable, sounding as if he has just trapped his testicles in his desk drawer.

Unlike many serials, the plot develops in nearly linear fashion rather than repeatedly cycling round, and the Guatemalan locations are fascinating and well-used. The animals that Tarzan fights look less like pyjama cases than usual. There is a lot of evidence of cutting and rewriting, so it would be a stretch to say that it all made sense.

Some of the major characters disappear after Chapter Four for no obvious reason, only to reappear in the final summing up (the serial certainly improves when the cast is slimmed down; they are not missed). George, the comedy relief, degenerates from someone capable of machine-gunning dozens of natives to death early on, into a babbling cretin in the later episodes. He is literally unable to pick up a valuable clue without dropping it into the nearest river, or to walk in a straight line without falling into a cunning trap. And to cap it all, the final scene takes place at a party where everyone is dressed as a Tyrolean gypsy - why?

Of all the classic Tarzans that I have seen in cinema until 1984 (of which I only think I am missing a few, such as the blonde Denny Miller) Bruce Bennett (or Herman Brix, his real name) was my favorite. He did not have a great participation as "the king of the jungle", apart from the serial "The New Adventures of Tarzan", but, in addition to the fact that this version was closer to the creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who served as co-producer, Bennett was a handsome Tarzan, with a more serious face, a lonely and unglamorous hero, mistreated by the jungle, who I think I only perceived in Jock Mahoney and Christophe Lambert in 1984, when I stopped watching films with Burroughs' character.

I saw an edited version of the serial running 75 minutes and it seemed like a more than adequate adventure, with a less show business and more dramatic approach, and that leaves you wanting to see more, perhaps the entire serial. Other sources indicate 70 minutes. This version has not been restored. There is also a 59-minute British dubbed version that was aired on American television since the early 1950s, with 10 minutes of additional stock footage of the African flora and fauna. That material was later removed and the original was issued on VHS.

If you find a copy, see it, it's a well-represented Tarzan film.