O Filho de Tarzan

While watching Tarzan Finds A Son today it occurred to me that both this film and Tarzan's New York Adventure were about the same thing, custodial interference. The only difference is in the setting where the question is raised. In this film the issue is decided on Tarzan's home turf in the jungle. And as such he's got a definite home field advantage.

The film begins with Morton Lowry, Laraine Day and pilot Gavin Muir going down in a light plane crash in the jungle. The chimpanzees find their infant son who survived and bring him to Tarzan where Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan raise the boy and name him such.

Five years later guide Henry Wilcoxon lead the Lancings, Henry Stephenson, Ian Hunter, and Frieda Inescourt into the jungle looking for a trace of their relatives. That leads O'Sullivan into a conflict with Weissmuller.

Much as she loves life with the Lord of the Jungle, O'Sullivan does see certain advantages to civilization that their 'son' now played by young Johnny Sheffield might have. Of course all the relatives motives aren't pure which leads to the inevitable conflict.

In the jungle Tarzan who's on a first name basis with every animal can call on both apes and elephants for assistance. That he does in a nice slam bang climax where both simian and pachyderm power are brought to bear.

Louis B. Mayer must have always thanked God that the shooting of Trader Horn in Africa left him with so much background jungle footage to use and not too many times over. The footage is well integrated into this story.

Tarzan Finds A Son has aged well and remains watchable.

Well unlike the previous movie, this one actually lived up to its title, which was actually quite unexpected. I thought it would be about Tarzan having a son, but instead it's just about him literally finding one and raising him. The plot's pretty basic, with a family having a plane crash into Tarzan's jungle and him finding their infant whom he and Jane raise. Five years later, people come to take the child back. I will admit that this wasn't as good as the other movies. I think it's because the Tarzan films are starting to become formulaic. This is still by no means a bad movie. There are some really good scenes in this.

My favorite is probably when Tarzan and the kid are swimming. It's just a long scene that has no dialogue but is so wonderfully shot. It probably helps that I've lived near the ocean for more than a decade of my life. I just love this imagery and how quaint it is. I think the movie got a bit weak when it did the same thing where the natives were the villains. But honestly, it was still handled pretty well. I especially like the final fight with them. It's not very long, but what it does show is quite entertaining. I guess I was getting a "Swiss Family Robinson" vibe from it. ***

What is it about the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films that seem to be as entertaining today as they were when first released. In this installment a plane crashes in Africa and the only survivor is a baby which is rescued by a gang of Chimpanzees. Old Cheetah quickly gets control of the infant and swings back to Tarzan and Janes place and presents his find to the man of the treehouse. Tarzan and Jane adopt the child naming him simply "Boy" and quickly he is grown from baby to a five year old in the form of Johnny Sheffield complete with his own jungle yell. Outsiders from the civilized world who are boys blood relatives show up and that means trouble. Jane, Boy and his (evil) relatives wind up as captives of a hostile tribe and Tarzan with Cheetah and the help of most of Africas Elephant population arrive in time to save the day. This film is now sixty years old but doesn't seem dated or tired. Perhaps it's Weissmullers simple dialog and acting which did it. "Cheetah find" is his answer when Jane questions where the baby came from. "Food" is what he tells his guests who have lunch in the treehouse and asks him what the name of the fruit that they are enjoying is. When the baby won't stop crying Tarzan sticks an over sized (what looks to be) chicken leg in the infants face thinking maybe something to eat will do the trick. Perhaps it was Weissmullers swimming scenes which did it or the antics of Cheetah or maybe the classic Tarzan yell. Whatever it was the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films seem to be the best and this is one of them.

With Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) and Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) nicely settled into their treetop des-res (complete with all mod cons), it was only going to be a matter of time before we heard the pitter patter of little footsteps (other than Cheetah's, of course). However, with the Hays Code in full effect, and our arboreal lovebirds not actually wed, they sure weren't going to be permitted to have a child of their own via the normal method.

The writers of the Tarzan series get around this problem by having a child delivered from the sky by 'the great metal stork'—a plane that crashes in the jungle with a baby boy as the only survivor. Cheetah finds the wailing bundle of joy and whisks him off to Tarzan and Jane, who decide to adopt the lad, naming him Boy (Tarzan's second choice, after having Elephant rejected by Jane).

Five years of blissful family life later, and an expedition turns up at the escarpment searching for the plane and any possible survivors. But Tarzan and Jane have become rather attached to their little tyke, and aren't about to give him up, especially when they discover that two of the visitors only want Boy for his vast inheritance.

Aimed at the matinée crowd, this particular instalment features none of the graphic nastiness or raciness that can be found in the first two Tarzan films (the obligatory native killing at the end of the film—via a huge skull-cracking device—is brief and non-explicit); instead, we get mild peril as Boy is attacked by pipe-cleaner tarantulas and a back-projected rhino, comic relief courtesy of Cheetah the chimp, and a lot of fun interplay between Tarzan and his 'son', the best scene being an impressively shot moment of underwater horseplay.

6.5 out of 10, happily rounded up to 7 for the bit where Cheetah turns her lips inside-out to amuse the new arrival (which makes me laugh just thinking about it).

When a young couple (MORTON LOWRY and LARAINE DAY) are killed in a plane crash over the jungle, only their infant son survives. Cheetah rescues the baby from the plane and brings it to the jungle hideout of Tarzan and Jane (JOHNNY WEISSMULLER and MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN). Sullivan decides the boy's name will be simply "Boy" because that's what Tarzan wants.

So begins this formulaic fourth in the series from MGM, given a bigger budget than usual but still lacking Technicolor for all of the great location photography and underwater scenes. It's good looking in B&W thanks to the glossy MGM photography and Richard Thorpe manages to keep things moving busily enough despite his reputation for being a slow paced director.

A search party looking for the boy is headed by HENRY STEPHENSON, HENRY WILCOXON, IAN HUNTER and FRIEDA INESCORT, their mission being to find the boy and profit from his having inherited quite a bit of wealth. It's up to Tarzan and Jane to decide whether to hand over the boy or not. Things get a bit complicated from that point on, but the predictable happy ending is never too far out of sight--even though it was changed to have Maureen O'Sullivan survive her wounds when the original ending met with a platoon of negative protests. And incidentally, she looks lovelier than ever.

It's a well-produced jungle film with all the familiar ingredients tacked together neatly enough to please Tarzan's fans. The water sport playfulness between father and son is nicely filmed in a series of underwater segments.

Only drawback: Boy's laughter seems artificial and forced every time he thinks a situation is hilariously funny.