As we approach the release of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) we're ogling past screen incarnations of the Lord of the Apes...
Tarzan aficianados will cry foul that I've skipped ahead to 1966 in this retrospective but the awesomely named actor Jock Mahoney wouldn't mind. He only made two Tarzan films in the mid sixties... and barely finished those. He got deathly ill on the second, lost 40 lbs during the picture, and couldn't get out of the jungle fast enough. The first of those pictures lost money, too.
You see, in the wake of the phenomenal success of Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964), James Bond was the new #1 adventure hero and Tarzan was old news. The Tarzan franchise took note and tried to combine the two with Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966), introducing the closest thing they could find to Sean Connery's swarthy dimpled masculinity: Mike Henry.
Mike Henry was a professional football player with the Los Angeles Rams but he left sports for the actor's life and donned the Tarzan's loincloth.
...Or, should we say his suit.
In addition to introducing Tarzan as a jet-setting perpetually-endangered looker in a suit, this new 007 style adventure also begins with a kitschy mod score over colorful credits, an opening action sequence that's somewhat disconnected from the movie that follows, and an intelligent international criminal with a taste for booby-trapped gifts. So, you know, we're definitely in Bond territory...
The earth toned suit color was a great choice since he's immediately rolling around on Mexican soil under attack
Evil shorthand: leopard print ascots, jewelry obsessions, and cruelty to animals.
The villian Augustus Vinero (David Opatoshu) is in search of the titular riches and has kidnapped "Boy" -- excuse me "Ramel" (Manuel Padilla Jr) -- a soon-to-be surrogate son for our vine swinger. Ramel is the only clue to this Valley of Gold's whereabouts so Tarzan's got to rescue him and beat Augustus to the Valley to protect the valley-dwellers. Complication: they're pacifists so Tarzan is in this alone.
Because of the 007 influenced first two reels, Tarzan's return to his familiar look in the loincloth has the popcorn charged "POW!" of a superhero donning his costume for the first time. He even prefaces the quick thrilling stripping (offscreen alas) with the unintentionally hilarious line:
I'll need a good rope, a hunting knife, and a soft piece of leather.
And reemerges like so...
The outfit is casual, but practical.
(Yes Tarzan actually says this.)
The reaction shot is priceless
Behold. Your first Tarzan with visible abs. Did he oil up when he ditched the suit or is that just audience drool?
You can take the man out of the jungle but you can't take the jungle out of the man, etcetera. In a fun Beastmaster style narrative twist, Tarzan frees a leopard for his "scout," a lion for his "mucle," and Cheeta (now called "Dinky" for some reason) for his "lookout" and also his comic relief and also because it's a Tarzan movie. He's ready to go and refuses an offer of 50 armed men because "they'd only slow me down." Can 50 armed men climb trees like Boy, swing on vines like Cheeta. Can they swim with the quick ease of big cats?
One thing this adventure definitely has over our previous installment (though it's nowhere close to the overall quality of Tarzan's Greatest Adventure) is a lot of animal action. Tarzan gets up close and handsy with this live lion, live chimpanzee, and live leopard for the bulk of the picture with no obvious visual cheating.
Despite that tangible thrill, the series still insists on weird cutaways to obviously unmatched wild animal photography. But at least that tradition is jazzed up with some weird aesthetic impulses. In one scene when the leopard and lion attack the villain's henchmen there are gorgeous super weird shots of wild night birds with freaky eyes looking on in cutaways. And we even get a shot of armadillos, and possums with babies and other South American creatures since Mexico isn't exactly known for the elephants that usually populate Tarzan pictures.
The other unqualified plus is the camera's thirst for Mike Henry's body. As in this perfect scene when Tarzan goes fishing to feed himself and Boy.
Tarzan goes fishing
16 seconds later
Proud Fisherman
And in 16 seconds flat after he dives in. Did they swim up to Mike Henry underwater and hand him two live fish to reemerge with? Screen trickery before CGI!
Tarzan and the Valley of Gold is weirdly frontloaded with the thrills dissipating as you go along which is too bad for the limp finale! But it does reach full giddily retro power with an adorably innocent sexually loaded setpiece at the end of its second act when Tarzan rescues a woman from a python... and then her own jewelry.
SYMBOLISM! *winkwink*
SEE a beautiful woman become a human bomb!
One of the movie poster's taglines results in this camp classic sexless sex scene in which Tarzan and Sophia, the villain's ex girlfriend played by Nancy Kovack (replacing Sharon Tate !!! between pre-production and filming) both appear to be orgasming as he removes her bomb necklace with the strength and control of his bulging biceps. If it's jostled too quickly it'll explode killing them both.
Oh that I had gifs to show you of their heavy breathing because it. is. perfect. But these still frames will have to do.
The finale in the titular city is kind of a let down though the villain comes to a poetic end. But the journey is almost worth it just for the purest distillation of Hollywood's have-it-both-ways political tendencies I've possibly ever seen in a movie. The valley chieftain's pacifism is exalted throughout the movie until the very end when he's like...
I was wrong. Sometimes one has to use violence.
To wrap up...
Mike Henry is a very attractive ape man but, as with Gordon Scott, he's dull in close-up since he's not much of an actor. We haven't been looking to the future much in this series but all these handsome star athletes without much camera savvy (the kind the Tarzan franchise favored from the beginning though Weissmuller overcame whatever limitations he had to be just perfect in the role), have me longing for Christopher Lambert's Greystoke (we'll get to him in about a week) and Alexander Skarsgard's new Tarzan (opening July 1st) because those guys are real actors who happen to also be easy on the eyes.
A TELEVISUAL EPILOGUE W/ RON ELY
We don't have time to delve into the various Tarzan TV series, and they're not readily available without spending lots of money or illegally downloading (neither of which we do here at TFE), but it's worth noting that the first TV series in the late 60s was also meant to star Mike Henry. He pulled out due to "exhaustion and unsafe work conditions". Which is too bad because he seems comfortable with, if not especially enamored of, the animal actors. As with Jock Mahoney he did not have a good experience and eventually sued the producers. Replacing him was Ron Ely, a slimmed down but very fit Tarzan following the bulky muscle of Scott & Henry. They kept Manuel Padilla Jr and renamed him "Jai" for the series so Tarzan had a Boy again.
Tarzan never files adoption papers but he likes playing single father and he's skilled at animal husbandry so who needs Jane?
Ron Ely is not an Oscar winner in the acting department, either, but competent. He had an easy television friendly charm and the dimpled not-quite-sexual sex appeal of someone who the whole family could enjoy together for the series weekly airings. He probably looked really good on magazine covers at the time. Who knows? It's before ours. But if this series ever goes to streaming, we're in. Guest stars included Ethel Merman (!) as a religious leader, and in an episode with singing nuns, Diana Ross and the Supremes!
Stop in the name of Love Celebrity Cameos
After this last flush of Tarzan mania in the 1960s, the franchise would go dormant until 1981 and would never really be a major franchise again. All the Tarzans that have followed, to date, on film and television have been stand-alones whether by intention or failure.
Will that also hold true for 2016's The Legend of Tarzan? We'll find out after the new movie premieres on July 1st and the new Netflix animated series Tarzan & Jane hits in the fall. Someone is always trying to make Tarzan happen again.
NEXT UP: That perfect "10", Bo Derek, plays Jane in the legendarily awful but titillating Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)
All Chapters:
Ch. 1 Buster Crabbe in Tarzan the Fearless (1933)
Ch. 2 Johnny Weissmuller & Maureen O'Sullivan in Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
Archive Extra: Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Ch. 3 Lex Barker in Tarzan's Peril (1951)
Ch. 4 Gordon Scott in Tarzan's Great Adventure (1959)
Ch. 5 Mike Henry in Tarzan and The Valley of Gold (1966)
Ch. 6 Bo Derek & Miles O'Keeffe in Tarzan the Ape Man (1980)
Ch. 7 Oscar loves Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan: Lord of the Apes (1984)