Runtime:
100 minutes
Directed
by: W.S. Van Dyke
Starring:
Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith, Maureen
O'Sullivan, Doris Lloyd
From:
MGM
About time I filled a hole in my overall cinema worldview:
Tarzan is a character I have known for most of my life but I've never read any of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, let alone seen any of the films; I knew that he did a lot of swinging on vines and as his yell has been a part of pop culture since the '30's. But even though my mom watched those films as a kid and would check them out as an adult when she could during their TCM showings, last night was a first for me. I watched both this then 1934's Tarzan and His Mate, as I heard that was better... which is true. I'll review Mate Thursday evening.
This film, it has a standard plot (Maureen O'Sullivan is Jane, who is the fiance of a member of a party of white dudes who go to Africa to try and find an area told by legend... which happens to be an elephant graveyard full of ivory; they all meet Tarzan) but there are some problematic moments for sure. The relationship between the two leads could be questioned as he kidnaps her and she eventually falls for him, but that's minor compared to all the racism you see here. It should be no shock that “the natives” aren't treated well, whether it's by “the whites” giving them a condescending attitude or the most heinous moment, which was alleged pygmies (actually, what was known then as “midgets” in blackface!) suddenly becoming the villains.
In the second half of the movie you have to hear Jane shriek and yell often, which does end up being an irritant. Even with all those demerits, I can still say this is fine. It's a typical jungle adventure where you don't see Tarzan for like a half hour-that time is spent getting to know the rest of the characters-and plenty of animals are seen, from alligators to hippos to lions to Cheetah the chimpanzee. There are various man vs. animal battles throughout-like I said, what you'd expect. Some of the effects are rather primitive, although that did not really bother me as I am used to such things from movies of this era. The cast as a whole is fine, and Olympic champion swimmer Johnny Weissmuller definitely was in good shape and he did not exactly have to do much heavy lifting as a dramatic actor.
The success of this film engendered a bunch of sequels, which eventually moved from MGM to RKO and became incredibly cheap; the aspects of this motion picture that are alarming in 2018 may be enough to make people not want to watch this at all, even if it dovetails right into the first sequel. I was able to tolerate those moments and even if I did cringe at times I still say this was fine.
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