Tarzan, l'homme-singe

This 1959 Tarzan film is a real curio on several levels. For one thing, it is far and away the lowest-budget Tarzan film ever made, and therefore contains some irresistibly silly footage and special effects. Secondly, it marks the one and only occasion that the ape man was played by ex-basketballer Denny Miller. In spite of the massive critical mauling the film received, Miller is not really as awful in the role as people have always maintained. Given a better film in which to appear, it's conceivable that he may have made more appearances as Tarzan and enjoyed a measure of success in the part. Thirdly, the film has one of the most bizarrely ill-fitting scores ever... provided by jazz supremo Shorty Rogers. These mismatched ingredients actually lend the film a sort of innocent charm. It's definitely bad cinema, but there have been much worse films over the years (heck, there have been worse Tarzan films – anyone seen the 1981 Bo Derek debacle?)

English explorer James Parker (James Parker) heads into the heart of Africa in search of a legendary elephant's graveyard. Among his travelling companions are his daughter Jane (Joanna Barnes) and her fiancée Harry Holt (Cesare Danova). Their journey is fraught with danger, what with hostile landscapes, jungle tribes and savage animal attacks. Eventually, however, the party successfully negotiate their way deeper into uncharted territory. Jane is separated from her friends and winds up in the company of a primitive man-of-the-jungle, the ape man of the title, Tarzan (Denny Miller). Her father is determined to find his daughter and save her from this half-animal jungle man, but it is not long before Jane has begun to fall in love with her captor….

There are some pretty embarrassing moments during the course of this movie, of that there can be no argument. The fire sequence in the pygmy village is so fake and cheap that it is nothing short of terrible. The scene in which Tarzan fights against a leopard contains some absolutely hilarious close-ups of Miller tussling with what appears to be a stuffed toy. And worst of all is the frequent tinted footage stolen from the 1932 Johnny Weismuller film of the same title – even the smallest of children will be able to tell that these scenes are not shot in Technicolor like the rest of the film (hell, occasionally Weismuller's face can be seen as plain as day!) Having said all that, I can't bring myself to be as derogatory about this film as some of the previous reviewers have been. For me, Barnes, Douglas and Danova do a passable enough job with their roles, and the film's brief 82 minute duration is crammed with incident. One needs to remember that when director Joseph M. Newman and producer Al Zimbalist actually set out to make this film, they weren't trying to re-do Shakespeare. A simple jungle adventure is what they had in mind, and to some extent a simple jungle adventure is precisely what they've given us. Tarzan The Ape Man (1959) is an enjoyably bad time filler – if nothing else, it has enough innocent charm and unintentional laughs to bring a smile to our faces in these weary and cynical times.

After watching this I had to write a comment about it. So many actors played Tarzan, so many directors directed Tarzan, so many actresses played Jane but this one is one of the worst acted and directed Tarzan Movie. Tarzan swings on the Liane to one place to another and then back to the former place. The Movie begins with a hilarious scene about a Watusi on a board of a steamer. We'll never found out what he was doing on the ship and why some wounded leave the ship. I've not seen a Tarzan Movie for a while and of course not all were masterpieces but at least somehow entertaining. This is entertaining but on another way. So bad that's funny and annoying too. There are some bad footage taken from an old BW Tarzan Movie. What did they thought the audience wouldn't recognize black & white scenes in a color movie? There are also other footages taken from other movies. Most of the scenes are terrible hilarious. BTW what is a spider doing on the top of a mountain? Aren't Pygmies people of short stature? Please watch out the attack of the natives. Interesting Tarzan cannot doesn't say many words only the scream in that. The scream is clearly taken from Johnny Weissmuller but I don't think that he would like this movie. Next to the Bo Derek Tarzan this is the worst. Better you don't watch it.

This particular Tarzan movie (made by the Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio) has long had a very bad reputation, which may explain why Turner Classic Movies (which has free access to all the older MGM movies) seldom shows it. Is the movie really deserving of its bad reputation? Pretty much so, in my opinion. Made during the start of the long decline of the studio, it's really obvious that the top brass did not give the filmmakers adequate funds or resources. For example, the movie is jam-packed with stock footage, even having the gall to showcase some stock footage that was originally filmed in black and white while the newly shot footage was shot in color. Things aren't much better when it comes to the newly shot footage. The newly shot footage often looks cheap, with (among other things) tacky set dressing and poor special effects. There's also no feeling of great adventure, or even awe and wonder. Instead, scene after scene seems to have been shot with great haste without considering if the scenes would grab an audience. This may explain why the actors seem to be going through the motions. This includes the title character, who comes more like a lucky doofus instead of someone who has skill and knowledge about how to conquer every challenge and danger in the jungle. And believe it or not, Tarzan pretty much comes across as a secondary character instead of being up front and center! It's then a real surprise that Tarzan in this movie doesn't keep letting out a loud shout of pain instead of his familiar yell.

Rather than go to the unnecessary trouble and expense of hiring actors nd shooting lots of new footage to make his film, producer Al Zimbalist cast Denny Miller , a UCLA basketball star with no acting experience, as Tarzan....then,larded the film with as much stock jungle footage from the 1950 film "king solomans mines" as he could. And when that ran out, he used footage from the original 1932 classic "tarzan the ape man" starring Johnny Weissmuller.

of course there was the small problem that Zimbalist's film was filmed in color and weissmullers was in black and white...but zimbaslist got around that by having the black and white footage tinted to make it appear as if it had been filmed in Technicolor, like the rest of the movie. but it didn't. it didn't even look like denny miller. in one scene you can actually see johnny weissmullers face clearly as he fights a crocodile.

What little footage zimbalist did bother to flm was awful.in one important action sequence, real footage of an animal trainer dressed as Tarzan wrestling with a live leapard was combined with shots of miller wrestling with a large stuffed animal complete with close ups of its face, plastic fangs, button eyes and all!

bad bad bad bad bad

I remember seeing this in the theater when it was first released and being appalled at its lousiness. So strong was that impression that I remembered now, 45 years later, that I could find it by searching IMDb for "Denny Miller". I talked for days, weeks, months and now years afterward about the miserable "borrowing" of scenes from the original Weissmuller films and color-tinting them in a vain attempt to blend in with the new footage. One example: a burning pygmy village features brown tinted film with flames overprinted. The pygmies calmly go about their quiet life while their huts supposedly burn around them. This is undoubtedly the WORST Tarzan movie ever made. Even Elmo Lincoln is better.