As we approach the release of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) we're ogling past screen incarnations of the ape man...
While there's plentiful competition for "Worst" Tarzan movie in the first 90 years of ape-man cinema, there's no competition whatsoever in the annals of Official Tarzan movies for "Least Tarzany" of all Tarzan Movies. That dubious honor belongs to the infamous 1981 Bo Derek film. Despite sharing a name with the original Weismuller film, Tarzan is, for the first time in history, a 100% bonafide Supporting Character. That's reflected in the credits where Miles O'Keeffe is third-billed and has not a single line of dialogue and in the poster, in which he doesn't appear at all!
For younger readers explanation is definitely necessary this time. Some stars maintain name recognition after their heyday even if younger generations aren't exactly sure why they're so famous. Other names provoke blank stares. Bo Derek, still very much alive at 59, was once very famous but is surely the latter kind of star. Who?
[More, but mostly NSFW, after the jump...]
Bo is constantly falling in water (or, in lieu of stumbles, splashing it on herself) so that her clothes will be see through.
(There's a reasonably funny Bo Derek joke in the very 80's themed Hugh Jackman movie Eddie the Eagle --just out on DVD -- that I wondered if anyone would understand when it screened earlier this year.)
Bo hit superstardom running on the beach with tightly braided wet hair and breasts bouncing long before Baywatch existed in the box office sensation "10" (1979) starring Dudley Moore and Julie Andrews. True Fact: I've never seen that movie (or any Bo Derek movie until doing this series!) but her cultural prominence in the early 80s was such that everyone knew what you were talking about when you said "10" or Bo Derek. By the time I was eagerly relishing family trips to the movies it made perfect sense when blurbs for Splash (1984) in newspapers read something like this...
If Bo Derek was a 10 then Daryl Hannah is an 11"
Bo parlayed the household-name success she won from that '79 comedy into three headlining gigs as an actress/producer with her husband John Derek directing: Tarzan the Ape Man (1981), Bolero (1984), and Ghosts Can't Do It (1989). Think Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone's keep-it-in-the-family movie empire with soft core titillation as the selling point rather than laughs.
Not that there aren't unintentional laughs in Bo Derek movies...
OHMYGOD!
Jane Parker (Bo Derek) meets the father she doesn't know (King Arthur himself, Richard Harris, as James Parker) in these two images above. Is Bo calling out her Lord and Savior because she's scared of the happy Africans running towards her boat, or terrified of her manically flashing THESPIAN father splashing about and shouting? Her acting is too stiff to give you fair indication of which. (Key Stupid Trivia Note: Bo Derek tied with Faye Dunaway's Mommie Dearest at the Razzie Awards for Worst Actress this year.)
In this Tarzan series we've seen the franchise affected by prewar sexual equality (of sorts), 50s domestic comformity, and even Bond-like 60s sophistication and restlessness. The forces guiding Tarzan the Ape Man, beyond capitalism, are harder to explain or place because it's such a vanity project. Nevertheless beyond the very 80s explosion of interest in hard bodies and physical fitness, if we stretch we can detect an embryonic clueless whiff of the forthcoming "girlpower" of the 1990s, albeit without any of its actual power. Take an early scene by campfire in which Jane wonders if her new man friend Harry Holt (played by another former sex god, John Philip Law, most famous for playing Sinbad in the 70s as well as that winged hottie in Jane Fonda's Barbarella) is jealous of her adventures thus far.
Publicity still. Not from the movie (nice pose, Bo)
Jane: It's a man's world. Women aren't allowed to be participants. We're here for your pleasure, not for ours.
Holt: Doesn't sound as though you like us very much.
Jane: I don't dislike men. I envy them. I envy your freedom. I resent not having my own.
Only what kind of freedom is this Jane Parker not afforded? The film tells us she's a filthy rich globe trotting heiress. But even though feminism should not be equated with prim sex-negativity, and we certainly don't begrudge Bo Derek her sex-symbol fame, the male gaze is so strong in this movie that Jane really IS here for our pleasure, not her own.
Much much later in the movie, Jane hears the infamous Tarzan yodel and her motley crew of explorers begin to tell tales of this half man / half ape who is "100 feet tall" ..."Maybe 200 feet."
Jane wonders if Holt is afraid and her father interrupts, moving into Oscar Baiting Monologue Mode because Richard Harris simply cannot stop himself and was surely hired for just this reason.
Of course he's afraid. He's got to be afraid. That's where the bloody fun is. You're afraid, yes, you are afraid and you are alive. Your blood is rushing through your veins. Your heart is pounding out of your chest and you're more alive in this moment than you've ever been in your entire life. Because you are afraid. Yes, because you are afraid. Fear is intoxicating. Fear of the dark. Fear of the unknown.
...Fear of overbaked ham ... Fear of truly terrible movies...
Fear of a 500 foot white monster. It was fear that first brought gods into the world!
After the monologue, Harris settles back in his chair like a smug Colonel Kurtz wannabe, and the movie finally picks up.
The adventurers find a beach and as Bo bathes (what? salt water is so cleansing!) a lion arrives waiting for her on the shore and we hear Tarzan's yell again. HE'S FINALLY HERE.
Here's the lion's face when it first sees Tarzan.
The thirst is real.
(The lion doesn't lick his lips for Bo. Just sayin')
Miles O'Keeffe, a first time film actor though you'd never know it (KIDDING!) can't even run convincingly on camera, but he's such a marble cut vision and the film has such a limited use for him, that it's just fine. As Tarzan he moves very very slowly (and often in slo-mo) and as a result you can see each movement of muscle or in this case his rock hard ass in the skimpiest Tarzan costume from any Tarzan film. [Trivia: The costume design was by Patricia Edwards, the former Mrs Blake Edwards before Julie Andrews, but the divorce was clearly amicable as he hired her for "10" as well as his Pink Panther movies.]
Bo's dim Jane is very confused about Tarzan's actions. He grabs at her in the ocean but doesn't hurt her and her father actually has to explain to her that "He wants you. This son of a bitch, wants you."
None of this makes any sense until you get to one of the movie's most hilarious scenes in which Jane hovers over an unconscious Tarzan, who is near death from a python battle that seems to last an eternity in its slo-mo double exposed way. Then the big reveal: busty Jane is actually a virgin!
I've never touched a man before.
So she creeps a feel of this foiiiiyyyyne specimen.
It's nice. It's very nice.
When Tarzan wakes up Jane realizes that he too must be a virgin.
Miles wondering why 70s & 80s sex symbols so often had thin lips
Bo needs her potassium. NOT a phallic symbol.
You'd have to be. There's no one. It's a strange problem.
Tarzan follows Curious Jane's lead, groping her goods but at least she's conscious for it and gives consent whilst feeling guilty ('I know it's wicked!') which one supposes is meant for extra titillation.
Anyway, the movie is terrible terrible terrible. But funny!
After Jane is kidnapped by a multiracial tribe of Mad Max rejects painted up in white, black,red, and other colors, things gets much weirder. The movie never explains anything it needs to explain like why they've captured Jane, why they appear to be from multiple countries, why the leader is brain damaged, or what exactly they're going to do with Jane and the men (possibly rape, then indoctrination into the cult?) and it drops the ball on just about every character thread it pursued for the first hour with the supporting cast.
But it does explain things that don't need explaining. What follows is actual dialogue!
They're washing me just like a horse!
They're smearing me with paint!
The most hilarious thing about the climax is that Bo whinily narrates each new humiliation as if we're confused about what we're looking at. Sadly she stops talking when Tarzan arrives to save her and has a slo-mo battle with the infantile muscle man cult leader in which they seem to be trying to kill each other by squeezing their abs and groins together with arched backs.
This part we needed her to explain; Jane is useless.
Tarzan the Ape Man's (1981) reputation would likely be much larger today in the 'Bad Movie We Love' department if it was 45 minutes shorter. Should you ever be compelled to watch it -- you poor poor thing but who am I to judge any rental queues -- do yourself the most enormous favor by starting there with Bo's ocean bath 42 minutes in. The only thing you'll miss is Richard Harris overacting and lots of shots of Bo gazing at things, conveying nothing.
It's only once Tarzan arrives and the camera has two stars to ogle and a reason to fully move into its soft core inclinations that the movie delivers (and how) on its utterly camp promise of an exhibitionist love affair between two simpleton virgins in the jungle.
The camp adventure culminates in a bizarrely funny ending / credits sequence in which Tarzan and Jane cavort so gaily with a chimp who licks Janes nipple (I'm not making this up) and a handsy bi-curious orangutan that the movie makes a retroactive case for itself as an ode to jungle swingers (minus the vines) and bestiality.
What on earth were the casting conversations with "Gentle Jungle" like?
NEXT UP: The only "prestige" Tarzan. It's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), literally the only live action Tarzan to win Oscar nominations.
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)