Tarzan of the Apes
65 min. / B&W / 1.33:1 / DTS HD-MA 2.0 MONO
Film Masters Blu-ray-R $21.99
Available from Movie Zyng
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) hadn’t found much success in various careers he’d tried but he enjoyed reading pulp fiction and in his mid-30s he gave that he whirl, submitting science fiction stories to All-Story Magazine with some success. Conjuring up the scion of a noble British family raised in Africa – by apes, yet – ERB wrote Tarzan of the Apes, published in All-Story in 1912, and created, along with Superman and Sherlock Holmes, one of the three great fictional heroes of our age. The first stories, compiled in book form a couple of years later, remain an exciting and highly enjoyable read; the first sequels get dragged down by racism and require a strong stomach to get through.
In 1916, ERB sold the rights to his first Tarzan story for a screen adaptation to a new production company, National Film Corporation, and filming began in the jungle wilds of Louisiana(!) with Winslow Wilson as Tarzan. The newly-formed film company ran out of money and embarked on a stock-selling tour to raise funds, and Wilson bolted. When filming resumed, there was a new Ape Man: D.W. Griffith protégé Elmo Lincoln, not much of an actor but with a physique that looked as though he could shatter chains with one inhale.
The film, for the most part, follows the first part of the book fairly closely, with some artistic license. Lord and Lady Greystoke are marooned on the coast of Africa after a shipboard mutiny; she gives birth and dies and the apes descend, kill dad, and spirit the baby off to raise themselves as Tarzan, the hairless ape wonder, well played as a kid by Gordon Griffith, who – unlike Mr. Lincoln – could act (and had his own hair and didn’t need a wig). Enid Markey is the shy lady Jane Porter, enamored of her barrel-chested rescuer but not too shy to slap his hand away when he tries anything, buster. There is some controversy about the length of the original theatrical release, but what has survived in a 65 min. version in good shape; it was one of the few silent movies played in regular rotation on TV when I was a kid in Northeast Ohio, and it was always a favorite.
The film’s success led to a sequel the same year, The Romance of Tarzan, now lost, but which reunited Mr. Lincoln and Miss Markey. Unhappy with the financial arrangements (ERB ended up suing the producer), Burroughs took his Ape man to the Weiss Bros., now notorious for their low-budget, painfully bad films, who churned out a low-budget, painfully bad Revenge of Tarzan with Joseph Pohler inheriting the role and then fleeing Hollywood. With neither Pohler nor Lincoln available for a sequel, the result was a 15-episode serial, The Son of Tarzan, with Kamuela Searle as Korak, and Searle did not survive the experience, killed by a rogue elephant in the final days of filming. ("Tarzan die for art.")
After all that, it was decided the safest thing to do was to bring back Elmo Lincoln, and a new production unit was set up to pry him loose from Universal Pictures, where he’d been filming serials under such titles as Elmo the Fearless and Elmo the Mighty (but not Elmo the Ticklish). 16-year-old Louise Lorraine was brought in to play Jane opposite 32 year old Lincoln in this 15-episode serial The Adventures of Tarzan (1921), lost to us today but available in a condensed featurized version released in 1928 and included as a bonus in the new Film Masters Blu-ray. A kidnapped Jane is dragged by villains to Opar, ruled by Queen La, but Tarzan and a guy in a monkey suit are on their way for the rescue.
Tarzan was off-screen from 1921 to 1926, returning for a series that lasted through several producers and the death of ERB, until the mid-1960s, when the character moved to television.
How’s that for an introduction? You get your money’s worth ‘round here, bub. The new Film Masters BD-R of Tarzan of the Apes presents the film looking and sounding (there’s an orchestral score) as good as can be expected from a film whose original materials are long gone, and honestly, The Adventures of Tarzan looks even better (and, possibly because it’s a condensed version of a serial, flies by at a dizzying pace, plus it’s got a better Jane, although one wonders where her dress came from, it is… well, you just have to see it).
The films are historical artifacts, to be true, but for lovers of Tarzan and silent action pictures, you’re really getting a fun watch here, and even though you won’t be able to forgive Tarzan’s wig or severe jawline or the mix of human and real monkeys (it was a different time, my friends), it’s fun to see Kala, Tantor, and other favorite characters hobnobbing with the first Lord of the Jungle.
