viewers, can even catch our breaths, great apes are attacking from above, heaving boulders onto the backs of precariously perched porters and sending them screaming into the void (the log sequence from KING KONG, released the previ- ous year, would appear to be an influence here). Tarzan arrives in the nick of time, his patented yell cowing the apes into submission, and Weissmuller’s entrance is particularly grand as he effortlessly slips down a vine with the grace of a cat to stand alongside a roaring ape. Jane (O’Sullivan) arrives, too, wearing a risqué, thigh- exposing presage to the bikini, and swan-dives out of a tree to be hilariously caught by her ape- man lover. A happy reunion is marked by Holt’s introduction of “Martin, my friend,” to Tarzan, who thereafter innocently refers to the man destined be his enemy as “Martin-My-Friend.” The terrors of daylight give way to the sensu-
ousness of evening. Lit by flickering firelight, Holt and Arlington attempt to seduce Jane back to the civilized world with coffee, makeup, jewelry and clothes. She slips into a shimmering evening gown (we see her nude silhouette through a tent) and dances with Arlington who has brought with
him a gramophone. “You’re a fascinating little savage,” he announces before kissing her. Jane pulls back, afraid perhaps for nearly giving in to the temptation. Later, her new clothing—a sym- bol of civilized vanity—becomes entangled in a tree, nearly causing her death when a mad rhino charges. Promptly, Jane changes back to her safe jungle attire. Learning that their “guests” intend to take his dead friends’ tusks from their sacred resting place, Tarzan assembles a herd of el- ephants to charge upon the safari camp, but “Mar- tin-My-Friend” is not to be deterred; he trails Tarzan the next morning and shoots his adver- sary from a distance, sending the white ape plung- ing into a stream. The animals of the jungle rescue their friend and carry him away, while Jane and the others search in vain and finally conclude that Tarzan, King of the Jungle, is dead. As the safari trudges back to civilization, Cheeta
appears before Jane, and intuition tells her that Tarzan still lives; however, a fierce tribe known as “The Men Who Eat Lions” suddenly surrounds them, randomly plucking black members out of the group to meet offscreen ends. A round of gunfire enables a few of the party to dash for a
TARZAN AND HIS MATE ups the ante for “back to nature” eroticism.
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