Tarzan and the Slave Girl

Watching this Tarzan movie can be a multi-cultural experience. Tarzan and Jane are of English extraction living in Africa, which as usual looks more like a South American rain forest. One of the native tribes here is black, but others look more like South Pacific islanders, or just bronzed Caucasians. There's an Irish doctor who is assisted by a feisty Latin nurse. The tribe that's capturing slaves has a culture that looks vaguely Egyptian, but they're building a temple that is more Mayan with the help of Indian elephants, which respond to Tarzan's famous yell just like the African ones. Finally, the captured slave girls resemble Veronica Lake or Linda Darnell and dress like Dorothy Lamour.

Of course, everyone knows what they're getting with a Tarzan movie, which are not examples of cultural, geographical or political correctness. Lex Barker in the title role is almost interchangeable with Johnny Weissmuller. Vanessa Brown, in her only appearance as Jane, is lovely but might seem a bit too young and dainty for some tastes, though she does handle herself pretty well in a fight with Lola the nurse. If you're ever overcome with a wave of nostalgia you may want to watch this.

This Tarzan installment seemed particularly goofy, with Tarzan, Lex Barker in his second outing as the Lord of the Jungle, finding himself at odds with a pointy hat wearing cult who capture Tarzan's slave girl friends. The silly looking costumes, the strange temples, the scantily clad women made this installment feel more like a Flash Gordon serial than it did a Tarzan jungle adventure film. It's not bad and I'm sure it would still appeal to kids and adults who enjoy the other Tarzan films, but the story and action here seemed incongruous and far afield from prior films or the Edgar Rice Burroughs source material. At least this one did not prominently feature racist stereotypes of African native people.

In this second Tarzan picture starred by Lex Barker had more action and adventure, after a tribe's woman has been kidnapped by strange people Tarzan captures one of them, his man has an unknown illness, some warriors and Tarzan try find those tracks and try reach where they living, meanwhile Jane and Lola were kidnapped too, there a fabulous Egyptian civilization hidden on the rain forest, two things call my attention, a new Jane was introduces, sadly wasn't in the same level as Brenda Joyce, another is about the Prince of the Lionians, the great actor Hurd Hatfield, a lavish sets were the main attraction, a marvelous harem of a dozen beauties were stunning and finally the wild Lola who stolen the show, engaging with his sex appeal, fine picture!!

Resume:

First watch: 1978 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6.5

I've seen the begining of this film and I've seen the ending of this film but not both at the same time, due to its presentation at unusual time schedules on tv. Nonetheless, I've seen enough to know that it's a pretty fair "Tarzan" low-budget action film.

Lex Barker plays Tarzan with Johnny Weismuller's pidgin English, but with a California accent. Vanessa Brown plays Jane with a lot of spirit, just the way Jane should be played. Let's face it, if a woman is going to be running around the jungle with an ape man and chasing slave hunters, she better have her wits about her, and Brown's Jane certainly does.

The story opens with Barker and Brown riding their elephants through a Hollywood jungle when they hear screams. Ever-alert to danger, Tarzan swings down off of the elephant and runs to a local village, thinking that the screams came from there, with Jane and the monkey sidekick Cheetah close behind. When they get to the village (inhabited by people who look more Middle Eastern than Central African), they find the witch doctor performing a ceremony, but the chief says that they did not scream, so Tarzan darts back to the river to check on the local village girls who were there gathering water. When they get there, they find a bowl one of the girls was using and Tarzan gets hot on the trail. Tarzan catches up to a group of three slavers, who look vaguely Egyptian. He subdues one, but the other two escape after conking Tarzan on the head.

The villagers take the captured slaver back to the village to make him talk, but he's infected with a disease and can't stand up, grabbing his knees and falling to the ground. Soon, other villagers are grabbing their knees and falling to the ground, so Jane tells Tarzan to go to a mission to get a doctor. Tarzan goes and brings back the doctor and his voluptuous assistant, who looks very European and speaks with a French accent but wears a sarong.

At some point in the story, Jane and the voluptuous assistant Lola are captured by the slavers and taken to a lost city, along with the other village girls. Presented to the ruler of the city, the girls are informed that they are to be either sold as slave girls or will join the harem. Naturally, Jane and Lola resist and must be punished, eventually being sealed inside a pyramid to die. Tarzan learns where they are and he tries to save them. I won't go into too much detail here because I don't want to ruin the drama, but essentially Jane comes through at Tarzan's darkest hour and together they free the slave girls and escape from the city.

Now, even though the title has "slave girl" in it, don't think for a second that there's going to be nudity or anything prurient like that. However, we do get to see Vanessa Brown in a two-piece leather outfit (rare for a Jane character, it seems) that reminds me of a cheerleader costume - full cut shoulder straps, V-shaped neckline, longer top gathered in the middle with a mid-thigh cut skirt. This has the effect of making Brown look very athletic (which she is) and really shows off her perky figure well. And, as I mentioned earlier, Lola comes in a sarong and has the full figure to pull it off (nowadays, she'd never make it as a B-movie actress but back in the 50s I'm sure she was a ticket). The other actresses look quite lovely in their sarongs and, later, in their harem costumes, too. Some of them look like they could've modeled for Vargas paintings or nose art on WW2 bombers.

This film certainly isn't a high point of modern art, but fans of "Tarzan" and cheap weekend movies will appreciate it for what it is: a piece of 1950s nostalgia and good, clean fun.

Many people regard Lex Barker as Tarzan lite. I always thought he did a fine job. "Tarzan and the slave girl" presents two things that I really like in a Tarzan movie. 1. A lost civilization with a mysterious (although card-bord) temple. 2. Women with a lot of OOMPH! The actress that plays Lola is a real find. She has the shoulders of a line-backer, a hair-trigger temper and a French accent so thick you could spread it like jam. I like her. All in all, a fun little picture that delivers genuine All-American cheesy thrills.