Tarzan et la vallée de l' or

The picture concerns a tidy Tarzan (a bouncing Mike Henry) well suited with necktie and elegant and carrying a briefcase . But a nasty assassin named Vinaro (the distinguished secondary David Opatoshu) schemes heinous plans . He abducts a little boy (Manuel Padilla) . Thus Tarzan , now in his loincloth , heads to jungle in order to save the spunky ten-years-old-boy and gets into trouble with bad guy , an evil with six feet high named Mr Train (the habitual villain Don Megowan) . Meanwhile , avaricious mercenaries with tanks , a little army and helicopters are going to the lost city of gold . The criminal Vinaro is accompanied by a beautiful girl named Sophia (attractive Nancy Kovack , nowadays married to Zubin Metha) who is leaved with an explosive necklace . The treasure seekers wish they hadn't messed with the ape-man .

The movie is dubiously faithful to Edgar Rice Borroughs story . However , it contains noisy action , sensational adventures , wonderful outdoors and with some elements from James Bond films . The sets and production design are visually appealing . Film was shot in city of Mexico with background of the famous Aztecas pyramids and temples . As usual , there are the obvious uses of stock footage in many of the wild animal sequences though with the intervention of a well trained lion and a chimpanzee ex-professed for the film . The film was produced by Sy Weintraub (substituting former producer Sol Lesser) , he produced three for Mike Henry directed by Robert Day : ¨Tarzan and the jungle boy ¨ and ¨The great river¨ and this one. Besides , he produced two for Jock Mahoney : ¨Three challenges¨ and ¨Tarzan goes to India (directed by John Guillermin)¨ and two for Gordon Scott (recently deceased) :¨Tarzan the Magnificent¨ and ¨The greatest adventure (by John Guillermin)¨. Also he produced the classic TV series with Ron Ely and the little boy , Manuel Padilla Jr ,in this one as co-starring.

Ex-L.A. Rams linebacker Mike Henry makes his debut as Tarzan in this 1960s adventure. His arrival in Mexico wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase is quite jarring, as is his subsequent "James Bond style" gunfight. But, not to fear, this is just to show us that this Tarzan is handy with modern weapons and is at ease in any environment. He does go into the jungle(in his loincloth)accompanied by a couple of wild animals and this is where the film gets interesting. He has to find the legendary Valley of Gold and protect its citizens from greedy villain Vinaro(David Opatashu) and his well organized(not to mention armed-to-the-teeth) army. The story is a little hokey at times, and seeing Tarzan use guns, grenades and a tank is a little hard to take, but overall the characterizations are good and the Mexican scenery is nothing short of spectacular(especially the Aztec pyramid city).Opetashu is perfect as the smooth, slick villain who sends his enemies exploding wristwatches. Henry is a little serious as Tarzan but he does excel in the action sequences. On the whole a groovy movie experience( jazzy musical score and all).

The Tarzan franchise continues with TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD (American-International, 1966), directed by Robert Day, with a new Tarzan (Mike Henry), new locale and new type of story. With previous 1960s Tarzan carnations ranging to the muscular Gordon Scott, to the very thin Jock Mahoney, this latest Tarzan resumes back to physically build and more muscular build. Aside from Tarzan's younger physical appearance and down-to-earth performance, this edition also benefits with location filming, fast-pace direction and Eastman color photography.

Following the slanting opening credits to more 1960s style of hip music underscoring, the fade-in opens with an aerial view of Mexico City's tourist district of highways, yacht and water skiing before a helicopter landing follows. Tarzan (Mike Henry) is introduced as a businessman type sporting suit and carrying briefcase while entering a jeep to the airport on an airplane bound for Central America. Next scene finds Antonio, a chauffeur, being killed and substituted by an impersonator to pick up Tarzan upon his arrival. As Tarzan meets with Antonio to take him to his destination, Tarzan suspects something wrong when he smells the odor of blood and being driven to a secluded Plaza De Toros stadium. As gunshots are fired, Tarzan outwits his assassins. Next scene has Tarzan with the actual officials whom inform him as to why Ruiz (Frank Bandstetter), his personal friend, had sent for him. Tarzan then assumes his assignment to help locate Ramel (Manuel Padilla Jr.), a little boy abducted by Vinaro's (David Opatoshu) henchmen for being the sole link to the lost Aztec Treasure of Tukamay. Stripping from his clothing for a more natural appearance of pocket knife and loincloth, Tarzan sets out to the jungle, assisted by his animal friends, Dinky (the chimpanzee), Major (the lion) and Bianco (Ramel's pet leopard). After rescuing Ramel from his captures, Tarzan not only ventures with Ramel through the jungle back to his lost city of Vinar, but has to keep himself aware of his surroundings regarding Vinaro's evil associates out to kill Tarzan whenever possible.

Nancy Kovack co-stars as Sophia Renault, Vinaro's mistress who fears him, and wants to help Ramel escape from danger. After Vinaro is through with her, he leaves her in the jungle in fear of her life when an explosive necklace is placed around her neck. Francisco Riquerio also appears as a philosopher and peaceful leader of the Aztec City where the treasure is located. Also in support are Eduardo Noriega (Professor Talmadge); and John Kelly (Captain Voss).

With every Tarzan adventure, there has to be a villain. David Opatoshu's Vinaro, characterized as the "deadliest international criminal," assumes that title with a vengeance. There's also Vinaro's huge-sized, bald-headed bodyguard, Mr. Train (Don Megowan), who highlights the proceedings with a fight to the death battle with Tarzan.

Aside from Tarzan sporting clothing attire during its initial 20 minutes, he is also seen riding automobiles, avenging his enemies with a rifle or bombs rather than an elephant stampede. Interestingly, there is no traditional Tarzan ape call this time around. Portions of the story is a grand mix of its current trend of Sean Connery's secret agent man character, James Bond, to those latter day Harrison Ford "Indiana Jones" action flicks of the 1990s. With Tarzan being outside of his jurisdiction of Africa, there's enough action, adventure and animals to go around for its tight 90 minutes. His one-on-one bonding with Ramel is both well played and believable. Manuel Padilla Jr. would further become associated in Mike Henry's next adventure, TARZAN AND THE GREAT RIVER (1967), assuming a different character role, as well as being a series regular in the hourly "Tarzan" TV series (NBC, 1966-1969) starring Ron Ely.

Commonly shown on network television since the 1970s, TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD had is cable television broadcasts on American Movie Classics prior to 2001, and Turner Classic Movies since 2011. Never distributed on video cassette, this Mike Henry revamped adventure of Tarzan has become available on DVD. (**1/2)

David Opatoshu one of the most distinguished actors of the Yiddish Theater back in the day came to Hollywood rather late in his career. In doing so however he created a series of varied and distinguished roles. But none I liked better than his playing of international criminal David Vinaro in Tarzan and the Valley of Gold.

Tarzan's been sent for by the Guatamalen government because a mysterious young boy played by Manuel Padilla, Jr. emerges from the jungle saying he's from a lost city that has vast uncounted gold. Of course that interests Opatoshu and he kidnaps the kid and forces him to lead a well armed expedition back to the lost city.

Of course they're no match for Tarzan as played in this film by Mike Henry. In addition to his jungle skills, Henry has a good command of both the Queen's English and of modern weaponry which he demonstrates during the film. He also in the end gets Nancy Kovack who is Opatoshu's mistress out of harm's way. Naturally she likes the idea after one look at Henry in a loin cloth.

Still Tarzan and the Valley of Gold belongs to David Opatoshu. He clearly loves the part he has and the end he meets in the Lost City is a poetical one to beat all.

"Tarzan and the Valley of Gold" is one of the most bizarre and entertaining movies I have seen in quite a while. A number of questions come to mind, not the least of which was When exactly did Tarzan learn how to operate a tank in battle?

The answer is rooted in the objective of the film, which was to update Tarzan to compete with James Bond. Since 007 is naturally familiar with all methods of transport and can successfully employ any firearm ever made, it should go without saying that Tarzan would be just as handy with whatever means are at his disposal. He could probably disarm a nuke and target missiles to blast each other in midair too if the plot depended on it.

Some have questioned why Tarzan would travel to Mexico dressed in a suit, and I challenge that with basic knowledge of Edgar Rice Borroughs' novels where Tarzan at one point travels to America to find Jane and then settles down with her at the Greystoke Estate in England -- do people think he went all that distance in a loincloth?

Mike Henry is great as Tarzan. In the first six minutes of the movie he shoots a guy in the face during a botched assassination attempt, then crushes another guy under a giant Coca-Cola bottle in what has to be the most clever product placement I've seen in a movie since James Bond back-flipped an opponent into a stack of empty Red Stripe Lager boxes.

The film is exceedingly violent. I would put a rough estimate of the body count at about fifty, including the innocent peasants gunned down by the evil crime syndicate's henchmen. Tarzan himself wipes out about forty guys including three goons in a helicopter he takes out in a wonderful ripoff of "From Russia With Love"'s famous helicopter duel. Instead of just shooting the pilot Tarzan rigs a bolo using a couple of grenades and hooks it around the engine block. Those jungle skills pay off in the most unusual ways.

Tarzan is of course dispatched to Mexico to get into a game of wits with an evil crime syndicate boss whose forces have kidnapped a young boy to give young boys in the audience someone to identify with -- this is a family adventure film, we remind ourselves, as Tarzan uses a Browning Automatic Rifle to machine gun down a bunch of thugs in a cave, blows up a truck full of men, and then asphyxiates the big evil goon character in the film's showdown by half-Nelsoning the guy to death.

He is the perfect Vietnam War era action hero, so de-sensitized to carnage & suffering that all he can manage to come up with to console the young boy with is "Hey, what's all this now? " when the kid starts crying out of concern that his people will be massacred by the guys in the tanks. Some of them are but nobody really seems to care about it that much, and in the concluding wrapping it all up speech the tribal leader admits that sometimes you need to resort to violence after all.

The Mike Henry Tarzan films are apparently a body of work that were so dangerous for the performers to make that Henry very understandably declined to work on the Ron Ely Tarzan television show of the same era after Dinky the Chimp bit Henry in the jaw on the set of the next adventure, requiring twenty stitches to sew up and giving Henry a case of "Chimp Fever" that took him out of the production for three weeks while he recovered. Just what Chimp Fever is I have no idea and even less interest to learn.

The issue of unsafe work conditions is even further underscored by Ron Ely's string of injuries incurred while he worked on the TV show, and looking at the hands on approach to the stunt work evident in this movie it's a miracle that nobody was killed making these films. This is one of those movies that make you wonder just what the HELL people were thinking when they cooked it up: Out of control helicopters, live ammunition, explosions going off right next to the star performers, you name it.

I will agree that Mike Henry does make a fabulous Tarzan, and to remind us of just who the hero was they even let him swing on a couple of vines, though I was disappointed that he never gave that famous Tarzan yell ... though then again since there are no elephants native to Mexico to stampede the effect would have been gratuitous.

And yet there is something hypnotically watchable about the film, including a marvelous sequence where a jaguar sets off in search of the boy & Tarzan trots along behind with a wonderful little jazz music score twittering in the background. The makers of this movie were definitely onto something and it's too bad the franchise sort of petered out, leaving it up to the Italians to continue with their own unofficial series with names like Tarzak, Zambo, and Zan, which are no more silly, improbable, or entertaining than this movie.

And had more women. There is only one in this whole film and while she is a comely little lass Tarzan seems about as fascinated by her as he is by that Coke bottle he pushes over on the assassin in the beginning of the movie. Is he so smitten by Jane that the thought of intimately interacting with another woman never enters his mind? As the credits roll they walk off into the sunset, and something tells me he never busted a move on her. In any event it's immensely entertaining and Tarzan saves the day with just a good rope, a hunting knife, and a soft piece of leather. Sounds kinky.

7/10