Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes is likely the most frequently filmed literary character after Dracula and
Frankenstein, though you never would have known it from his pathetic showing in the DVD catalogue. It’s an oversight that Warner Home Video recently corrected—with a vengeance—when they unveiled no less than eight cinematic adventures of the Jungle Lord: a collection of six MGM classics star- ring Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan and Maureen O’Sullivan as “wife” Jane, John Derek’s legendarily awful TARZAN THE APE MAN (1981) and the am- bitious GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES (1984). Spanning over half of a century, Warner’s Tarzan offerings are illumi- nating relics of their respective decades, ever- changing in their faithfulness to the source and, when viewed collectively, serving as a strange sort of history lesson on sex and racism in American mainstream movies. THE TARZAN COLLECTION offers the com-
plete “Tarzan and Jane” saga that Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer produced between 1932 and 1942, before Maureen O’Sullivan called it quits and Johnny Weissmuller was consigned to cheaper vehicles at RKO. Warner’s package spreads the six films over three DVDs (two titles per disc), trumping MGM Home Entertainment’s previous laserdisc box set by including two extra features (the first two films were released individually on LD) and an extra disc of supplements, all for half the origi- nal cost of the LDs. Though picture quality is never as stunning as we’d like, viewing the films in or- der makes for a uniquely enjoyable experience; however, newcomers be warned that the DVD producers have lackadaisically bollixed the or- der by pairing the first film with the third and the second with the fourth. MGM’s TARZAN series offered a completely dif-
ferent form of escapist entertainment for Depres- sion-era audiences than the urban-set musicals of the time. People who worried all day over how they were going to scrape by could lose them- selves in a completely romanticized vision of Af- rica—a private Garden of Eden where archetypal figures of Man and Woman could live happily and healthfully, stripped of all worldly possessions. At their worst, the films are maddeningly repetitive (the crocodile fight from TARZAN AND HIS MATE
The screen’s definitive Tarzan and Jane, Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, captured in a Frazetta-like promotional pose for TARZAN THE APE MAN.
is recycled no less than four times!), cruelly racist at times, and a bit heavy on the romantic frolick- ing. Also, Burroughs’ fans disparage their hero changed from someone who was articulate and capable of adapting to both the jungle and polite society into a monosyllabic savage who, despite coaching from Jane, took years to speak at a toddler’s level and never even saw “civilization” until his sixth adventure.1 Nevertheless, the MGM films offered, in Weissmuller, the most physically graceful and appealingly innocent of movie Tarzans and, in O’Sullivan, the sexiest and most spirited Jane; their chemistry was so strong that you never once doubt their love for each other. These were “A” productions that boasted superb production values. They were charmingly naïve most of the time, yet daringly sexy in the early years, and even occasionally capable—within code restrictions—of capturing the excitement and horror of Burroughs’ violent prose. To most moviegoers, Johnny Weissmuller is
Tarzan; and yet, before the Olympic gold medal- ist traded in his swimming trunks for a loincloth in the first “all-talking” treatment of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ property, the character had already been portrayed on film by five different actors. The most famous of these predecessors was the stocky Elmo Lincoln, a former supporting player for D.W. Griffith, who starred in the inaugural
THE TARZAN COLLECTION 1932-1942, Warner Home Video DD-2.0/ST/+, $69.99 (4 discs), DVD-1
TARZAN THE APE MAN 1932, 99m 47s
TARZAN AND HIS MATE 1934, 103m 47s
TARZAN ESCAPES 1936, 89m 16s
TARZAN FINDS A SON 1939, 82m 3s
TARZAN’S SECRET TREASURE 1941, 81m 7s
TARZAN’S NEW YORK ADVENTURE 1942, 70m 38s
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