La revanche de Tarzan

Physically, Glenn Morris is perfect for Tarzan: powerfully built, yet light on his feet. His feats of strength (wrestling with a hyena, bending cage bars, etc.) are almost credible in this context. But he's so taciturn (I think he utters 3 words in the entire movie: Tarzan, Eleanor, good) that he's a bit of a bore. Eleanor Holm is an excellent swimmer and a more than decent actress. This is a fairly polished production, but it suffers from tedious scripting - there isn't enough story for 70 minutes. ** out of 4.

When Johnny Weissmuller already paved a solid career in three successful MGM's Tarzan with a huge box-office, then came up 20th Century Fox's Tarzan introducing another Olympic winner athlete to performer Tarzan aiming for share this profitable niche market, however due the poor production and onward lowest box office, Fox's Tarzan and Glenn Morris's career was buried for good in face he didn't enough skill to play another roles.

Now scrutinizing the low profile offering it turns out dealing with routine Tarzan's picture, over an expedition of wealthy American family on rain forest at black continent, something alike a touring, taking photographs, exploring news spots and just capturing some small animals, among them just a male hunter that is fiancé of the skinny eye-candy Eleanor Reed (Eleanor Holm) who approaches Tarzan when was in jeopardy as quicksand and on river swimming track down by a menacing crocodile, soon as intended arouse a mutual affect among them.

Meanwhile a local a womanizer Sultan bribes the dubious safari guide Olaf Punch (Joe Sawer) often with a nervous tic at your face, pushing the expedition entering at his territory where he intends to catch the pretty Eleanor to fill up his crowed harem, actually a fortress inside the dense jungle, forcing Tarzan to make a heroic act to save her, the "Jane" in question was miles away to match Maureen O'Sullivan whatever benchmarking, actually Eleanor delivered a pale Jane's performance, It never come out at Brazil in any format, I have found at Youtube a restored colorized print, for historical Tarzan background worthwhile a look as die-hard Tarzan's enthusiast like me.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2014 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD-R - Youtube / Rating: 5.5.

Despite its reputation as being among the worst of the Tarzan films, this largely forgotten attempt to challenge the established MGM series of Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O'Sullivan is really no worse than any of the later Tarzan movies of the 1940s and 1950s (not surprising since Sol Lesser, who later took over the series after MGM abandoned the series produced this) in terms of silly plot, laughable stereotypes etc. The real reason why the film gets it's bad reputation is because of Glen Morris, the 1936 Decathlon champion, who makes for a very unconvincing Tarzan with a goofy expression and his awkward way of saying his only two words in the whole script ("Tarzan!" and "Good!"). The later movies at least have more convincing Tarzans. Morris learned his lesson and never tried acting again (I shudder to think of what might have happened had Yankees legend Lou Gehrig embarrassed himself by being in this film, as he had been Lesser's first choice).

By contrast, Olympic swimming legend Eleanor Holm fares much better. Like Morris, she had no experience for the part other than her athletic fame but she seems to at least be having a good time like the first prize winner on amateur night, showing off some spunk as Tarzan's eventual mate (keeping her own name Eleanor, rather than being called Jane), and also looking quite lovely in a bathing suit. If anything, she comes off as better than any of the women who followed Maureen O'Sullivan in the part of Jane and it would have been interesting to see her in other Tarzan films.

Here Tarzan dispatches hunters who are illegally trapping wildlife for menageries. Along the way , Tarzan manages to free all the captured animals as tigers, leopards , Lioness and their cubs . Meanwhile, he saves the damsel in distress , Eleanor Holm, when is kidnapped by an avaricious Arab, Ben Bey, to add his Harem who has already a lot of women, approx 100 . The latest and greatest of Edgar Rice Burrough famous adventures!. Tarzan calls again and new thrills sweep the jungle wilds!. Spectacularly produced! The Tarzan-thrill of all time!

Tarzan's Revenge is an adventure movie with action, thrills , animal attacks , angry natives , and mean trappers , but dubiously faithfful to Edgar Rice Borroughs . Being mostly shot on Twentieth Century Fox backlots, adding a lot of stock footage of jungle and wild animal. Glenn Morris is a better Olimpic runner than actor in this routine Tarzan movie. Glenn Morris was the fourth Olympic athlete to play Tarzan. He was the 1936 decathlon champion and won the Sullivan Award, outstanding amateur athlete of the year over the more famous Olympian Jesse Owens. Winning the Gold Medal at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, Germania, the so-called "Nazi Olympics" and the same Olympics where Jesse Owens upstaged Adolph Hitler. Subsequently, he played this movie hired by the independient producer Sol Lesser but the reviews were so throughly bad that Glenn never made another film. And co-star Eleanor Holm is frankly horrible . As secondary actress appears Hedda Hopper, known as Queen of the Quickies, starring hundreds of support roles and later on, she started a gossipy radio show, shortly after commenced a 30-year stint as a newspaper gossip columnist, rival of Louella Parsons. And, of course, the sympathetic chimpanzee Cheeta, who here steals the show while doing antics, mayhem and frolics. This is only for serious Tarzan fans. The picture was regularly directed by David Ross Letterman.

The film was produced by Sol Lesser in medium budget . Lesser to continue producing a lot of Tarzan movies . As he financed the last movies starred by Johnny Weissmuller, such as : Triumph of Tarzan, Tarzan's desert mystery, Tarzan and the Amazons, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, Tarzan and the huntress, Tarzan and the mermaids . As well as those performed by Lex Barker, such as : Tarzan's magic fountain, Tarzan and the slave girl, Tarzan's peril, Tarzan and the She-devil , Tarzan's savage fury . And the subsequent Tarzan : Gordon Scott , who starred : Tarzan fights for life by Bruce Humberstone , Tarzan's greatest adventure by John Guillermin, Tarzan and the Last Safari, Tarzan the Magnificent by John Guillermin and Tarzan and the trappers by Charles Haas and Sidney Howard .

This low-key Tarzan feature relies more on the settings and the general situation than it does on the story, which is rather sketchy. It was Glenn Morris's only appearance as Tarzan, and while he certainly looks athletic enough, his lack of acting experience really shows. Some of the other aspects of the movie help out just enough to make it watchable.

The story has an expedition heading to Africa to capture some zoo specimens, with Tarzan indicating a strong preference for allowing his animal friends to stay in the wild. Meanwhile, a lecherous sultan has spotted a young woman in the expedition, and would like to add her to his harem, so he has made plans accordingly. Most of the screen time, though, does not advance the story, instead focusing on a variety of vignettes, and adding a lot of footage of lions, elephants, and many other animals, including a couple of cute lion cubs. The real action consumes just a small fraction of the running time.

Hedda Hopper, in a smaller role, is the liveliest of the cast members, and she has a few good moments with George Barbier, as the aunt and uncle of the heroine. As the heroine, Eleanor Holm is also pretty inexperienced, but she does have a solid screen presence. Morris's flat portrayal of Tarzan means that Holm has to try to carry a number of their scenes.

This is watchable as very light viewing, as long as you're prepared not to be too critical and don't mind a rather slow pace, but it doesn't have enough strengths to be any more than that.