I told Alexa to list Tarzan movies, and this was among the first to pop up after the more modern entries. My copy of the film, a Turner Classic Movies DVD featuring a second Tarzan movie that escapes me at the moment, is unscratched but doesn't like to play for some reason. So I decided, why not?
This was on Amazon Prime, and the quality, picture and sound, was very poor. Originally a serial,it was later edited into a movie length feature. My guess is like other serial-to-movie conversions, there is a good chunk of material missing. I watched it anyway. Once finished, I decided this movie deserves a remaster even if only for how odd it is. Flash Gordon as Tarzan, and is it a sequel? --a prequel? --a reboot?
Tarzan the Ape Man with Weissmuller came out only a year earlier in 1932, and is a superior film in most every way, and most of what makes that franchise recognizable is missing here: no Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane, no Neil Hamilton (later Commissioner Gordon on the 60s Batman TV show) as Jane's jilted lovesick fiancé Harry, no stock footage of colonial Africa, and no Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan.
Not that Crabbe does a bad job. His Tarzan and Weissmuller's take on the character are largely interchangeable. Both are the monosyllabic meathead incarnation of the ape man, not the cunning, mimetic autodidact of ERB's novels. Still, Crabbe has a grinning pretty-boy take on the character whereas there was often a somber menace to Weissmuller's thousand yard stare.
O'Sullivan or not, Jane is nowhere to be found. Instead, we have blonde Julie Bishop (billed as Jacqueline Wells) as Mary Booth for Tarzan's love interest. Don't expect anything even a fraction as titillating as the nude swimming scene from the pre-code Tarzan and His Mate. However, I'm sure the ladies in the audience (of yesteryear and possibly even today) didn't mind Crabbe's very brief jungle kit, which leaves a lot of his ass hanging out in several scenes.
According to the opening credits, the story is by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and it does play out like one of his plots: several guys after the same girl, a lost Egyptian tribe worshiping an idol, plot points hanging upon handwritten notes and maps, people getting captured and escaping and getting captured again, etc. Unfortunately, ERB must have lacked ultimate creative control. Crabbe's Tarzan doesn't come any closer to the original character than the Weissmuller films, which remain the definitive classics.
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