The NEW ADVENTURES
of TARZAN
Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises (1935)
Dir. Edward Kull, Wilbur F. McGaugh
256 min. / B&W / 12 Chapters / 1.33:1 /DTS 2.0 SDH
Film Masters Blu-ray $21.99*
In the early days of talkies, several independent producers decided that the popularity of silent serials would carry over and a 10, 12, or 15 episode chapterplay was a lucrative option for theatrical sales to bring adventure-loving patrons back week after week. Sadly, the high costs and low production values doomed most of these serials, and by the mid-1930s, after dreck like Young Eagles, The Clutching Hand, and The Black Coin, serials were left to production companies that worked directly through Columbia, Universal, and Republic for distribution. Two independent serials deserve special attention, however: early talkies with Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, produced because Burroughs had double-sold the valuable property, much to MGM’s chagrin when they began their Tarzan series with Johnny Weissmuller.
Tarzan the Fearless (1933) is a lost serial, although not a great loss, frankly, and the featurized version exists to bear that out. Buster Crabbe starred.
The New Adventures of Tarzan is quite a different story. Edgar Rice Burroughs was unhappy with several of the screen adaptations of his ape man, and when the MGM contract expired after two films, Burroughs decided to produce his own picture to show Lord Greystoke as intended, educated and quite loquacious when not vine-swinging. With ERB’s partner Ashton Dearholt, a plan was devised to produce an original story that could either be shown as a feature film, a 12 chapter serial, or as a “mini-feature” followed by the remaining episodes. Herman Brix won the lead; he reportedly was MGM’s original choice for their movie Tarzan but had to step out when he was injured doing a stunt in a football picture. Like Weissmuller and Crabbe, Brix (who is better remembered by the name he assumed after the war, Bruce Bennett) was an Olympic athlete; in his case, not swimming but track & field.
Dearholt, an actor (under the name Richard Holt, no relation to Jack or Tim) had a longing to get into production, and with the MGM Tarzan contract temporarily in abeyance, jumped at the chance to form Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises for a series of pictures (of which only this one was made before Tarzan headed back to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). As an added bonus, the production company moved to Guatemala, where the film would actually be made in the jungle, and frankly, from here the back story gets more interesting than the finished product: in addition to the dysentery that laid up the entire cast and crew throughout shooting, the heat and sun ruined hours of footage, and political troubles in the country kept the team constantly on the move. Even trickier, Dearholt fell in love with leading lady Ula Holt and left his wife for her, while Burroughs fell for a friend of Dearholt’s (who was half his age) and left his wife for HER and my GOODNESS, those hot Guatemalan nights.
Okay, so, on to the actual story. Lord Greystoke has given up his posh English existence, taken his loin cloth out of storage and headed back to Africa to commune with his monkey but when he learns that his friend D’Arnot, in search of the fabled Green Goddess idol in Guatemala, has been captured by a dangerous tribe of… of… well, of Guatemalans, he is off to the rescue with a beautiful government agent and a party of explorers who all want the idol for their own purposes. From then on, we are treated to well over four hours of the usual Tarzan hijinks, from ancient stock footage of animals to damsels in distress to savage natives to an idol that not only carries a king’s ransom in gold but also a secret formula for a powerful new explosive, making it one CRAZY Guatemalan idol.
Brix is acceptable as Tarzan; emotion was never the actor’s strong suit, but with Tarzan, it’s not like he has to cry, show terror, or make any sort of facial expression. He DOES have a Tarzan yell, one of the worst: he seems to be yelling “MORE BANANAS!” and then screaming in pain when he doesn’t get them. Ula Holt plays “Ula” and she’s terrible; making nice with the producer was probably how she got the role, I’ll bet. Speaking of Dearholt, he plays the villain. Maybe he got the part by sleeping with the leading lady. The monkey is Nkima, who may have gotten the part by sleeping with Cheeta, nothing would surprise me with this picture.
Is the result any good? Well, Tarzan fans, serial fans, and people interested in a movie crew’s peccadilloes will love it, I suspect. The best part, we thought, was the footage in Central America, lots of interesting villages and locales that you don’t see much in movies. The New Adventures of Tarzan was filmed on the cheap, original materials are long gone, and Film Masters has done what they could with the picture and sound and made it more than watchable, with subtitles a big bonus. Be forewarned: the opening chapter is a full 57 minutes and the final chapter is the recap episode in case you missed (or slept through) the first 11 episodes.
Worth noting that although Film Masters’ promotes this at 240 min., we clocked it at 16 min. longer, and we would never lie to you, our beloved Balconeers. There’s no bonus material included, but you won’t need any.