Tarzan series

(On Cable TV, January 2021) The tale of Tarzan is so well known that it has escaped its origins: Everyone knows the basics, but few will point at the 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure novel as the one source from which they know how it goes. Regularly reinterpreted according to each generation’s own liking, people are free to point at various interpretations as “their” Tarzan. 1981 Bo Derek, 1984 Christopher Lambert, 1999 Animated Disney film, 2016 Alexander Skarsgaard—all good choices, and that’s not including the endless pop-culture references and parodies. But in movie history, “the” big Tarzan is former Olympian swimmer Johnny Weissmüller who ended up playing the character in twelve films from 1932 to 1948, a series that most famously introduced the famous “Tarzan Yell” instantly recognized but hardly ever successfully imitated. As such, Tarzan the Ape Man is pretty much the Tarzan film you’d expect from early-1930 Hollywood: Technically rough (with plenty of soundstages in between the stock footage), incredibly racist toward African people, sometimes ridiculous, occasionally impressive and a good showcase for Weissmüller. Even though it presents the story stripped down to its barest and most obvious components, it can be tough to watch today—the dismissal of the native population in favour of the white explorers in “deep dark Africa” is insulting to everyone; and the fight between Tarzan and a lion (or rather an obvious stunt double with a lion, intercut with Weissmüller with an equally obvious puppet) is either hilarious or endearing. It’s probably worth a look despite its problems, if only as an illustration of the racism and technical limitations of even top-billed action movies at the time. On the other hand, there are newer and better incarnations of the Tarzan legend out there for anyone coming in fresh to the character.