Tarzan and the Amazons

In the last two Tarzan films, the last one for MGM and the first one for RKO, the character of Jane was written out by having her go to the United Kingdom as a patriotic gesture for the war. Tarzan himself dealt with the Nazis in his usual manner in these last two films himself, Tarzan Triumphs and Tarzan's Desert Mystery.

Jane is now played by Brenda Joyce as Tarzan and his family are fully reunited now. She's bought some friends along headed by Henry Stephenson who is fascinated by a bracelet that Cheetah found for Jane. It speaks of an ancient legend of an Amazon tribe and a lost city.

Of course Tarzan knows all about it and he's been keeping the Amazons a secret. There ain't nothing in the jungle that he doesn't know about. And in Tarzan And The Amazons the usual common theme of all Tarzan films comes true. Outsiders only mean trouble, especially if they come from civilization.

Stephenson is a cultured scientist, but the rest of his crew have their own ideas. Folks like Barton MacLane, Lionel Royce, Don Douglas, J.M. Kerrigan, and Steven Geray see visions of untold riches. I think you can figure the rest of this story out.

Tarzan And The Amazons features Maria Ouspenskaya as the ancient Queen of the Amazons who exacts hard punishment for those who violate the sanctity of the Amazons, She's always good even in some really terrible films.

This like so many other Hollywood films with an African setting give us a pulp fiction view of that continent. It was only in the Fifties with King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen that we started getting a realistic view of Africa. Still Tarzan And The Amazons is entertaining enough in a pulp fiction sort of way.

TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS is closest in 'style' to the earlier MGM/Johnny Weissmuller 'Tarzan' films (offering a crocodile fight, a 'classic' safari with many more black extras than in any other RKO 'Tarzan' feature of the era, far above-average production values), and is most famous for introducing American Brenda Joyce as the new 'Jane', back from the war. Joyce, 33, blond and wholesomely beautiful, lacked Maureen O'Sullivan's intellectual 'spin' to the role, but worked well with the 41-year-old Weissmuller, while providing a mother figure for 'Boy' Johnny Sheffield that the predominately 'kid' audience could relate to.

With a cast of terrific character actors (including Henry Stephenson, Maria Ouspenskaya, and Barton MacLane), and a plot involving a 'lost' city of women (guaranteed to arouse male hormones), the end result is one of the best-remembered RKO entries, and great fun to watch!

Once again, the African jungle proves to be THE place to find hot, English speaking women: not only is it home to Jane, who has finally returned from Europe after extensive plastic surgery and a dye job, and Princess Zandra of the hidden city of Palandria (from Tarzan Triumphs), but it's also where a tribe of gorgeous, brunette, man-hating Amazonian warriors live in secret, in yet another hidden city situated behind a huge range of mountains (quite how they got there from South America is never really explained).

When Tarzan refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the city to members of a scientific expedition, Boy stupidly decides to help them, and before you can say 'Ungawa', the Amazon women have themselves some new workers to toil in their fields. Unwilling to spend the rest of their natural lives in slavery, the men attempt a daring escape, but as they are leaving, several members of the expedition unwisely decide to help themselves to some of the tribe's gold and its not long before the angry women are in pursuit with arrows a-flying.

A definite improvement on Weissmuller's previous adventure, Tarzan's Desert Mystery, this film wisely goes back to basics with a standard jungle setting, untrustworthy outsiders, animal hi-jinx from Cheetah, and even a good old crocodile wrestling scene! It might not be all that original, but it's never boring. If the ending hadn't been so weak, with Tarzan turning up at the city long after the party has finished and happily collecting Boy from the Amazon women without a fuss, this film would have been a straight 7/10. Instead, I give it 6.5 (which gets rounded up to 7 for IMDb anyway!).

After a brief hiatus from the series, the character of Jane returns now in the form of the statuesque Brenda Joyce. Johnny Weissmuller's starting to get visibly older and the same may be said for Johnny Sheffield as Boy, who's voice is now changing and growing deeper. Still, this is a solid entry where a hidden civilization consisting of beautiful women (their queen is old Maria Ouspenskaya - the gypsy woman from THE WOLF MAN) begins to take action when greedy men stumble upon their secret domain, previously only known to exist by Tarzan. Good action, thrills.

*** out of ****

One of the very few Amazon films where the women warriors were both attractive and able to some butt. Right on (icon of raised clenched fist. Every other amazon film I have seen had the women warriors just parade around in ancient Greek military costumes and behave cutsey-wootsey when the men show up - they need a man after all. These Amazons were beautiful and well build but also willing and able to shoot those arrows and cast those spears when the enemy men showed up - though they still needed Tarzan to get them out of the scrap at the end, but hey, it is a Tarzan movie.