Tarzan, l'homme-singe

I remember seeing this in the theater when it was first released and being appalled at its lousiness. So strong was that impression that I remembered now, 45 years later, that I could find it by searching IMDb for "Denny Miller". I talked for days, weeks, months and now years afterward about the miserable "borrowing" of scenes from the original Weissmuller films and color-tinting them in a vain attempt to blend in with the new footage. One example: a burning pygmy village features brown tinted film with flames overprinted. The pygmies calmly go about their quiet life while their huts supposedly burn around them. This is undoubtedly the WORST Tarzan movie ever made. Even Elmo Lincoln is better.

WE'VE NOTICED FOR some time how the Hollywood crowd loves revisionism. Take for example: in FRANKENSTEIN (1818), author Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley named the main character Victor Frankenstein; yet for some unknown reason, UNIVERSAL PICTURES made his given name "Henry". To further complicate matters, they gave him a friend named "Victor !" In the 1942 Serial SPY SMASHER, Republic Studios gave the alter ego Alan Armstrong a twin brother "Jack" , that he never had in the Fawcett publication's WHIZ COMICS. In 1937, the same studio did a real number of revision in the DICK TRACY Serial by making him a G Man, making a "Gwen" his girlfriend and disposing of Tracy's comic page partner, Pat Patton for a "Mike Mc Gurk comic relief.

AS FOR OUR indictment of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, we call your attention to Tarzan's mate, Jane. In the original stories, author Edgar Rice Burroughs gave us Jane Porter, an American from Baltimore. The MGM version made her "Jane Parker", an English woman of Noble blood. Co figure. (and thanks for letting me get this gripe off my chest!)

AS FOR THIS 1959 remake of the 1932 Johnny Weissmuller/Maureen O'Sullivan original, all we can say is thumbs down. The limited budget shows, regardless of Techincolor; which no Johnny Weissmuller vehicle had. In a way it may have been an indicator of how the mighty Metro Goldwyn Mayer had fallen from its high perch in tinsel town.

TO ITS CREDIT, this film stuck very close to the original story, albeit in a somewhat updated version. The characterization of African Natives was somewhat upgraded, giving so many much more personality than the thin, shallow portrayals in the past. The movie starred newcomer Denny Miller and Joanna Barnes; who had enough talent for the roles. But we needn't remind you that they were no Weissmuller/O'Sullivan combo.

ANY POSITIVES THAT one may find are all too quickly undermined by the extensive use of now tinted, old footage from thr '32 original. In some scenes (particularly when Tarzan fights and kills the giant Crocodile, it is obvious that it's really Weissmuller or a very close double.

Rather than go to the unnecessary trouble and expense of hiring actors nd shooting lots of new footage to make his film, producer Al Zimbalist cast Denny Miller , a UCLA basketball star with no acting experience, as Tarzan....then,larded the film with as much stock jungle footage from the 1950 film "king solomans mines" as he could. And when that ran out, he used footage from the original 1932 classic "tarzan the ape man" starring Johnny Weissmuller.

of course there was the small problem that Zimbalist's film was filmed in color and weissmullers was in black and white...but zimbaslist got around that by having the black and white footage tinted to make it appear as if it had been filmed in Technicolor, like the rest of the movie. but it didn't. it didn't even look like denny miller. in one scene you can actually see johnny weissmullers face clearly as he fights a crocodile.

What little footage zimbalist did bother to flm was awful.in one important action sequence, real footage of an animal trainer dressed as Tarzan wrestling with a live leapard was combined with shots of miller wrestling with a large stuffed animal complete with close ups of its face, plastic fangs, button eyes and all!

bad bad bad bad bad

Jane Parker travels to Africa to reunite with her father Col. James Parker. Business has been going badly due to tribal conflicts and he has not been sending money to his daughter. Without money, she got dumped and has no place in society. She helps a local which only exacerbates the tribal conflict. Father and daughter escape. Along the way, they are attacked by rampaging elephants and Tarzan rescues Jane.

Apparently, this was cobbled together from old footage and filming on the backlot. I like a lot of the animal footage which are most likely previously filmed. The footage with the actors is less compelling. The movie deteriorates after the rescue. Holt and her father turn into douches. After getting shot at, Tarzan is incredibly understanding. He should think that Jane had been kidnapped and they're trying to kill him. It becomes a knot of conflicting interest and no happy flow. Characters would fight one minute and work together the next. The writing is messy. Also, the ending has a distasteful aspect. It's downhill slide to the finish.

I had heard about this turkey for decades, but finally caught it on TCM in the interest of completeness (I've seen every other sound Tarzan movie, and most of the silents). This one is definitely at the bottom of the heap. What were they thinking?

About the only redeeming feature is Shorty Rogers' musical tracks, but even they sound like they were written for something else (and probably were). Many have commented on the borrowed footage and cheesy effects, with the fight with a toy stuffed tiger probably being the most laughable of all. Denny Miller looks like the original Muscle Beach boy, with his blond searchlight of a brylcreamed ducktail haircut (who does his hair in the jungle?). He says a few more words than Miles O'Keefe did in the 1981 version (zero, in that case), but not many. I think "kill?" and "money?" were his most memorable lines.

Oh, and I do think this is worse than the 1981 film - that one at least had Bo Derek naked. The Jane in this one is probably the least sexy Jane in the entire filmed Tarzan corpus - she remains prim and proper throughout and we never see her our of her ankle-length safari dress. Her impulsive decision to run off with Tarzan at the end is completely unconvincing. As for the villain, he somehow morphs into a nice guy at the end. Well, why wouldn't he be, since he is going to make off with the entire ivory stash from the elephants' graveyard?

For completists only. You have been warned.

(Trivia note: Interestingly, neither Denny Miller nor Joanna Barnes faded into deserved obscurity after this film, but both went on to reasonably long careers playing supporting roles on various television series of the 1960s to 1980s. They even appeared together again at least once, on an episode of "McCloud" - S4,E2.)