Tarzan e a Caçadora

Johnny Weissmuller's next-to-last Tarzan is a good adventure and the last outing for Johnny Sheffield as Boy.Young Johnny had grown too big for the part and would soon start playing BOMBA the JUNGLE BOY.Johnny Weissmuller still looks toned and strong but is not in the great condition he showed in the previous year's LEOPARD WOMAN.Brenda Joyce as Jane looks gorgeous as ever and sports a sexy two-piece outfit in some scenes.She was a beautiful girl and was quite underrated as Jane. HUNTRESS doesn't have the intensity and erotica that LEOPARD WOMAN has,but it's still a fun adventure with Johnny keeping busy saving his animal friends from greedy hunters.Patricia Morison as the HUNTRESS ia a lovely antagonist,but nowhere the evil,sexual villainess that Acquanetta was in LEOPARD WOMAN.(Tough act to follow).All in all a nice wrap-up to the Tarzan-Jane-Boy Trio.The next film ,TARZAN and the MERMAIDS was a rather dull and lackluster finale to Johnny's Tarzan career.

TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS suffers from a low budget and a ho-hum plot, although it is far less silly than the previous feature, TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN; entrepreneur Tanya Rawlins (Patricia Morison), and her milquetoast lover (John Warburton), mount an expedition to capture animals to restock war-depleted zoos, a not unworthy goal...except they are primarily interested in making big money, which means depleting an area of a large part of it's wild animal population! The local 'lost city' ruler, King Farrod (Charles Trowbridge), showing remarkable farsightedness for the 1940s, limits them to one male and female of each species, which, although showing wise animal management, would not serve the money-hungry Rawlins, at all. Fortunately, she has a ruthless expedition 'boss' (Barton MacLane, making his second 'villainous' appearance in a Tarzan feature), and Farrod has a greedy nephew (Ted Hecht), so a scheme is hatched, to kill Farrod and his heir (Maurice Tauzin), and pay the new King a healthy kickback, in exchange for 'unlimited' hunting (an oft-used scheme of 'bad guys', which would continue to be popular, as recently as George Clooney's SYRIANA).

Of course, this being a Tarzan movie, our aging hero is friends with Farrod, and when the ruler is murdered, and the young prince disappears, Tarzan gets involved, which is BAD NEWS for Rawlins and her crew! The film utilizes more 'stock' animal footage than any of the other RKO/Weissmuller features, and unfortunately, it doesn't 'match up' well with the other footage, making the studio scenes look even cheesier; adding to this is a general listlessness in most of the performances, which hurts the overall movie. Even Cheeta seems bored!

The most interesting aspect of the film is Johnny Sheffield, who looks startlingly 'adult' in this, his last appearance as 'Boy'. That fact is not lost on screenwriters Jerry Gruskin and Rowland Leigh, who have Tarzan remark, on several occasions, how Boy is becoming "a man". After this feature, Boy would be off to "school in England" (and Sheffield would move on to his own series, as "Bomba, the Jungle Boy").

Weissmuller appears tired and a bit out-of-shape, although Brenda Joyce, as Jane, is as fetching as ever! The Tarzan series was obviously "winding down"; the next feature, the surreal TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS, would mark the end of Weissmuller's reign as "King of the Jungle"...

In 1942, America's biggest film studio MGM scrapped its legendary Tarzan series, with the option being snapped up by the smaller RKO. There, Johnny Weissmuller was to strap on the surprisingly-revealing Hays Code-approved loincloth a further six times. The first couple saw him scrapping with Nazis, with the second - Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943) - being as good a piece of nonsensical fluff as you're ever likely to find. I was a bit down on films three and four, as they're tired and largely gloomy affairs, but the penultimate entry - Huntress - is a partial return to form. Its major strength is an understanding of the series' in-built mythology and a welcome sense of fun. Like Superman Returns, then, only not as good. As with the first two MGM entries - the patchy Tarzan, The Ape Man and the superb Tarzan and His Mate - Tarzan's jungle paradise is invaded by hunters, a more sensible plot line than we've come to expect from these Sol Lesser yarns. The villainous gang includes former Warner heavy Barton MacLane and the eponymous huntress - Patricia Morison. Though the film is a touch confused about the morality of stealing animals from the jungle (presumably that was how the bulk of its supporting players came to Hollywood), Tarz does ultimately get pretty narked about the whole thing, leading to a series of lively showdowns. He's accompanied once more by Brenda Joyce and Johnny Sheffield, whose Boy is now a man, with a deep, booming voice. Where the film really scores is in its embracing of the Tarzan legend as our hero lets rip not once, but twice, with his famous yell. The first - so unexpected after four films without it - is a euphoric moment that seems to strip away 15 years of typecasting and weight gain from its wonderful star - if only for a few seconds. For all the film's deficiencies, like a messy, jumbled narrative and comedy scenes shoehorned in at apparently indiscriminate junctures, those two scenes are jolts of pure joy.

Penultimate Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film and the last to feature Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy in eight Tarzan films before getting his own series as Bomba, the Jungle Boy. Patricia Morison heads an expedition to Tarzan's neck of the woods to nab some animals for zoos back in the States. Helping her is vicious big game hunter Barton MacLane. By now, if you've seen even a few Tarzan movies, you should know where this is going. The bad guys take the animals but Tarzan steals them back and, with help from Boy and his animal friends, runs the villains out of Africa. There's also a subplot about political intrigue with local royalty.

Johnny Weissmuller is good but he's basically going through the motions at this point. There's nothing in this he hasn't done before. Johnny Sheffield, who's almost as big as Weissmuller at this point, does well in his final outing as Boy. There's a thread running throughout the movie about Boy learning responsibility ("Boy man now. Do man's work."). Brenda Joyce has little to do as Jane but her few scenes are nice. Lovely Patricia Morison is interesting as the title character (who is not really a huntress). She's written sympathetically most of the way through but it ultimately amounts to nothing as she never switches sides like you are expecting. A major misstep is that the film doesn't give us a catfight between Morison and Brenda Joyce. There aren't a lot of action scenes in this one. Tarzan has a brief fight scene with another man but no tussles with crocs or anything. The climactic animal stampede is exciting, though. The drama is solid and the cute family stuff between Tarzan, Jane, Boy, and Cheeta is always fun to watch. A highlight of the movie for me is the scene where Cheeta flies a bamboo airplane Boy made.

Not among the best of the Tarzan films but still worthwhile. Fans will like it, I think. A couple of final notes: in one scene, Tarzan is freeing the various animals that were captured by the hunters and he is shown releasing two bear cubs from their cages. Why are there bears in an African jungle? In another scene, Morison's character tells the King that "In our civilization, we believe in keeping an open mind." To which the King replies "In your civilization, open mind means that one must agree with what you yourself say." Brother, tell me that isn't as true now as it was 70 years ago!

A group of trappers seek to invade Tarzan's jungle and capture all the animals they want for their zoo, but Tarzan and the King object. When the King allows for only two of each type of animal to be taken, he is murdered and his nephew becomes the new leader, so the trappers are free to do as they please. It's then up to Tarzan to stand his ground. In this installment, the rapidly growing Johnny Sheffield plays Boy for the last time. We continue to see other recognizable Universal actors in each film, and this time it's Patricia Morison (CALLING DR. DEATH, DRESSED TO KILL) as the head zoologist.

**1/2 out of ****