Tarzan, O Destemido

Run-of-the-mill Tarzan movie dubiously faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs , shot in short budget and financed by regular producer , Sol Lesser . The world-wide popularity of the Tarzan stories has prompted the author to tell, now for the first time , a new story of the Ape Man's strangest and most romantic adventures . Here Tarzan , Lord of the Jungle : barrel-chested Buster Crabbe , saves the damsel in distress , the blond Mary Brooks : Jacqueline Welles or Julie Bishop and helps the young girl to find her missing father . The latter falls into the hands of " the people of Zar , God of the Emerald Fingers" . Swing into hot action from the opening shot and thunders on its blazing way .. from daring action to nerve-tingling thrill... from gripping suspense to starting climax ¡.-

Adventurous and routine Tarzan movie with usual ingredients , such as : serial acrobatics , the vine swinging , angry natives taking prisoners and a lot of footage about wildlife . Of course , Tarzan fights enemies and animals , gives the famous cry of the bull ape and vine-swing . Backlot non-sense with good-looking , handsome Buster Crabbe as Lord of the Jungle and Jacqueline Welles as his beautiful partenaire and hammy supporting actors with plenty of opportunity to chew on scenario such as : Edward Woods , Philo McCullough and the usual comical player Mischa Auer . Stars Buster Crabbe , he is much better fared in the now campy Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials than in this average Tarzan film . Co-stars Jacqueline Welles who as Julie Bishop had a decent cinematic career , she plays the kidnapped damsel who seduces the dumb beast , and it is all great fun but really mediocre . Hollywood at its peak but no relation to Edgar Rice Burroughs's hero.

The picture was financed by producer Sol Lesser in short budget and to go on producing several Tarzan movies . As he financed the last films played by the best Tarzan , Johnny Weissmuller , such as : Tarzan's Triumph , Tarzan's desert Mystery , Tarzan and the Amazons, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, Tarzan and the Huntress, , Tarzan and the Mermaids . Subsequently , Sol Lesser hired Lex Barker as Tarzan producing him the following ones : Tarzan's magic Fountain, Tarzan and the salvage girl, Tarzan's peril, Tarzan and the She- Devil , Tarzan's savage fury . After that, Lesser hired the muscle man Gordon Scott who acted in : Tarzan fights for his life by Bruce H. Humberstone , Tarzan's greatest adventure by John Guillermin, Tarzan and the Last Safari, Tarzan the Magnificent , and Tarzan and the Trappers directed by Sandy Howard and Charles Haas . This Tarzan the Fearless produced by Sol Lesser was regularly directed by Robert Hill. Rating 4.5/10 . Only for Tarzan movies completists and hardcore lovers of the classic personage written by Edgar Rice Burroughs .

Unintentionally funny in places and downright hilarious in others, he's no Johnny Weissmuller but you can't say you've lived until you've seen Buster Crabbe spank a monkey. I bought this on DVD because one: it was cheap, and two: out of curiosity, as I've only seen Buster Crabbe play Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers which I enjoyed watching as a kid on TV during school holidays. I also loved the Tarzan films with Johnny Weissmuller. So I thought buying this DVD was going tick all the boxes. - I was wrong, so so wrong.

Firstly there was nothing wrong with Crabbe,s Tarzan he has the physique and good looks to easily carry the part. It's just that the filming and script is just all over the place and this lets him down, he also wears the shortest loin cloth and skimpiest briefs I've seen in Tarzan films of this era. But what stands out for me is the scene at the beginning of where we see Tarzan spank his monkey - THIS IS NOT A EUPHEMISM!

Tarzan The Fearless has swimming icon Buster Crabbe in the role of Edgar Rice Burroughs noble savage of the African jungle. What I'm reviewing is a condensed version of a Tarzan serial which this film was.

Condensed when referring to serials is never good. I'm not a big fan of serials in general, but editing them down to feature film you lose a whole lot of continuity. I have to confess I gave up trying to follow the plot.

Crabbe though was one magnificent specimen. We have a blond 'Jane' played by Julie Bishop who with her fiancé Edward Woods is on an expedition to find her scientist father E. Alyn Warren. Bishop and Woods have a pair of treacherous guides in Philo McCullough and Matthew Betz who've got an agenda of their own which is to locate a fortune in emeralds from the lost people of Zar whom Warren is trying to locate and study.

Crabbe even in the condensed version is wrestling with lions and crocodiles and the people of Zar bailing these intruders out of trouble. All in all viewed today it's pretty silly.

Tarzan the Fearless (1933)

** (out of 4)

Mary Brooks (Julie Bishop) travels into the jungle with some men to search for her missing father. Thankfully she runs into Tarzan (Buster Crabbe) who helps on her search as well as helps fight some of the bad people in her group. TARZAN THE FEARLESS is a pretty bad movie that features all sorts of campy moments but I think it remains watchable because it does have a certain charm thanks to its badness. Originally this was meant to be a 12-part serial but sadly that version is now missing. The producer basically took the first four chapters and turned them into this movie so that will explain why things sometimes don't make sense or that the story is jumping all around the place. Without the serial to see exactly what they did, it's hard to say if they improved anything but most of the time these serial chapters to features don't work. There are quite a few campy moments with this film and most of them are Tarzan himself. He has a really silly and annoying howl here that will certainly make you laugh. As with the first MGM film, Tarzan can't speak here so instead of talking to Mary he always breaks into this weird laugh that makes him seem rather slow. It's clear Crabbe was going for a different type of performance because he makes the Tarzan character more of a mentally challenged person than anything else. Bishop is certainly easy on the eyes as the love interest. Philo McCullough was actually good as the main villain and we get Edward Woods playing the good guy. The film is full of stock footage, fights with lions and of course the eye-rolling moment of yet another beauty getting into their bathing suit and going swimming when of course a croc shows up. TARZAN THE FEARLESS is a real mess of a movie but fans of bad cinema should get a few kicks out of it.

I will also say that Turner Classic Movies showed a 87-minute version, which I actually found much better than an earlier version running 71-minutes and included on one of those public domain packs. If you think the fuller version doesn't make much sense try watching that shorter one!

TARZAN THE FEARLESS (Sol Lesser Principal Productions, 1933), directed by Robert F. Hill, stars Larry Crabbe, better known as Buster Crabbe, Olympic swimming champion, to the role of Edgar Rice Burrough's creative jungle hero, Tarzan. A year after the highly successful TATZAN THE APE MAN (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932), which introduced Johnny Weissmuller, another Olympic champion swimmer, as Tarzan, this latest installment was an attempt to reinvent the Tarzan character on an independently scale with new supporting characters. As the opening introduction states, "The worldwide popularity of the "Tarzan" stories has promoted to another tale, for the first time, a new story of the ape man's strangest and most romantic adventures." Initially released in both 12 weekly serial installments and tightly edited feature length film, it's the 85 minute edition that is seemingly available for viewing and reviewing by today's standards.

In the surviving copy often shown on Turner Classic Movies since 2011 (as opposed to shorter 72 minute editions presented either on commercial, public television and video tape since the 1980s), TARZAN THE FEARLESS, set in Africa, opens with Tarzan (Buster Crabbe) vine swinging to the delight of his chimpanzee companion. Tarzan is lord of the jungle, friend of the animals, and hero to those he rescues from danger. Next scene introduces a safari consisting of Mary Brooks (Jacqueline Wells), Bob Hall (Edward Woods), her fiance; and jungle guides, Jeff Herbert (Philo McCullough) and Nick Moran (Matthew Betz), on a trail searching for the missing archaeologist, Doctor Brooks (E. Alyn Warren), Mary's father. Studying ancient tribes and seeking for a lost Aryan civilization and rare emerald, Brooks has been abducted by worshippers of the ancient god Zar. As Tarzan follows the safari from a distance due to his interest in Mary's blonde beauty, it is also learned that Nick Moran also wants Mary for his wife. After locating her father's cabin, Mary is abducted and held captive by the evil High Priest Eltar (Mischa Auer). Frank Lackteen, Carlotta Monti, Ivory Williams and Everett Brown also support the cast.

While Buster Crabbe first leading role in the movies being KING OF THE JUNGLE (Paramount, 1933), by which he was cast as Kaspa, the Lion Man, which proved popular, rather than starring Crabbe in a new jungle series based on the Kaspa character, he entered the world of Tarzan in a whole new different adventure. Comparing this to the Weissmuller adventure would be typical for audiences and reviewers, with many favoring Weissmuller over Crabbe. Though Weissmuller had a good physical build to become Tarzan, so did Crabbe with his bigger chest. In the existing prints, there is no origin to the Tarzan character as to how a white man, with no method of speech except in grunts and calling himself Tarzan, ended up in Africa. Maybe there was more plot development to him and other actors to the story in the serial that appears not to be available for present viewing.

Unlike Weissmuller, Crabbe's Tarzan, who sports a leopard spot skin loincloth, bears a different sounding war cry many than Weissmuller. This is the same jungle yell used in latter independent Tarzans of the 1930s featuring Herman Brix and Glenn Morris. Heavily underscored using similar stock music used for some independent productions, TARZAN THE FEARLESS relies more on some exciting Tarzan/animal fights, last minute rescue or near death experience for attention purposes. As much as Buster Crabbe wasn't bad as Tarzan, Weissmuller really made this jungle hero his own, becoming the longest reigning and best known Tarzan of the screen (1932-1948) for years to come.

A public domain title made available from various video and DVD distributors, TARZAN THE FEARLESS has its moments, but with uneven plotline with numerous jump cuts make this a little hard to comprehend and appreciate. (**)