Tarzan et la Diablesse

Lyra (Monique van Vooren) is the She-Devil. With Vargo (Raymond Burr) and Fidel (Tom Conway), the ivory poachers kidnap native men to be their slave transporters. Tarzan (Lex Barker) and Jane (Joyce Mackenzie) have to fight the cruel invaders.

Monique van Vooren may not be the best actress. She is beautiful and her non-specific European accent adds to her villainy. Burr and Conway are good heavies. Lex Barker has the look but not much in terms of charisma. In this one, Jane has a larger role. The story is too messy. Most of the animal action is from stock footage although the elephant stampede still impresses. Even stock footage can be fun. I'm in a good mood and I'll give this a passing grade.

The hunter Vargo (Raymond Burr) comes to Dagar, joining forces with the trader Lyra (Monique Van Dooren) and announcing he wants to obtain a big haul of ivory. To round up the elephants needed, Vargo captures the men of Lacopo tribe to force them work for him. The Lacopo women flee to Tarzan and appeal for help. Tarzan goes and breaks into Vargo's compound and frees the Lacopo men.

Vargo then decides he wants to enlist Tarzan to herd the elephants. When Tarzan refuses, Vargo and his men set out to capture Jane. In doing so, they set the treehut on fire. With Jane presumed killed in the fire, Tarzan is made a prisoner until he agrees to cooperate.

Worst Tarzan? No way! That title goes to the Bo Derek one or Christopher Lambert one- Tarzan and the She-Devil is a standard Tarzan with an old trope of evil ivory poachers, but such a nasty business is quite relevant today. And talking about nasty - Raymond Burr adds some edge as the main heavy, bringing an earthy sense of danger to the proceedings. Monique Van Dooren plays the She-Devil, but she just a supporting character and isn't as evil as Vargo, and brings Jane to Tarzan when he learns from Fidel that Vargo intends to double cross them. Nice to see Tom Conway as Fidel, who is a little nervous about this operation and Vargo.

It's a slightly sluggishly-paced, but it's decent enough with a good finale where Vargo gets a crushing reception. There's a nice shot of a big cat and a python wrestling. Cheetah is amusing as ever with his antics, though he shows a caring side to Tarzan while he's heartbroken over Jane- he think she's dead but she isn't.

Disappointed was the exact meaning for Tarzan behavior so far, I saw Tarzan on fights, hard assignments, arrested sometimes, but never saw he so haggard by Jane allegedly dead, he was overdue, it' sounds weakness as never seen before, a low point, the ivory hunters achieved what anyone gets previously, the movie starts with an outdated and tiresome formula, when Tarzan meets Jane on Tree' house in those warm up scene introducing a new Jane (Joyce Mackenzie), with Cheetah on funny sequence, then came up the Ivory hunters leading by a cruel and heartless Lyra as She-Devil (Monique Van Vooren) and the great Raymond Burr playing a mad dog with a threatening whip ready to be used, at least Jane has a plenty acting on the movie, wasn't a simple eye-candy who stay safe at home, the screenplay is far-fetched appealing in so many stock footage on mostly Indians Elephants instead the large ones Africans with big ears, the final is simply-mindedly pitiful, sorry for Lex Barker on so sad farewell!!

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First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 5.5

Tarzan looks like a real hero of the '90's here, not only stopping illegal ivory poaching but upholding human rights by foiling some latter-day slave trading. This time it's one of those curiously light-skinned tribes that inhabit Central Africa in some of his movies.

The film's title is something of a misnomer. The nominal she-devil here is Monique van Vooren, who sponsors the poachers, but she's a pussycat compared to Raymond Burr, full into his "heavy" role. This was the last time around as Tarzan for Lex Barker, no reason to shed any tears, though admittedly the character isn't one you can do a whole lot with. Joyce Mackenzie was the fourth actress in a row to give a single performance as Jane, and she does an OK job. There are some nice scenes of domestic bliss with the happy couple in this movie. All in all this is just another Tarzan flick, not so great, a little better than most. But you always knew what you were getting with these movies.

Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953)

** (out of 4)

Lex Barker's fifth and final time playing Tarzan is a rather strange one. In the film, ivory poachers (Monique Van Vooren, Raymond Burr) are wanting Tarzan to help him but when he refuses they try a different method. Poor Tarzan thinks that Jane (Joyce McKenzie) has been burned to death so in his depressed state he doesn't fight off the poachers when they capture him. They plan on forcing him to help but what Tarzan doesn't know is that Jane's still alive. TARZAN AND THE SHE-DEVIL has been called the very worse Tarzan from a major studio outside the Bo Derek version but I think that's a tad bit harsh. There's no question that it appears Barker was bored with the material and there's no question that we get one stupid scene after another but at the same time there are still a few decent elements here. I think the best thing going for the film is the performance by Raymond Burr. Everyone will always remember him for playing Perry Mason but he was a terrific villain and if you're unfamiliar with his bad guy roles you'd be doing yourself a favor by checking them out. He does a terrific job here playing the cool, laid back jerk who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Burr just has a certain snake-like quality about him and you can't help but see he's having a ball being as bad as he can. Van Vooren is also quite good as the leader of the poachers who isn't afraid to use a wink to get her way. McKenzie, the fifth person to play Jane in this five film series, isn't all that memorable but then again her screen time is very limited. Barker turns in his worse performance as the ape man as you can tell he's bored out of his mind and it's easy to see he's not too interested in anything that's going on. The story itself is a rather weak one and the ivory poachers thing had been done before and put to much better use. When it's all said and done, this is perhaps the worst of the Barker films but the supporting characters keep the film going. Without then I might have agreed that it's one of the worst films out there but the villains are good enough to where "B" movie fans might want to check this out (after they view the classic MGM Tarzan films of course).