Multiple winner of the Olympics Gold Medal for swimming, pantheon athlete Johnny Weismuller became the most well-known and popular incarnation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Ape Man in this wild pre-Code feature for MGM, directed by W.S. Van Dyke (The Thin Man). Maureen O’Sullivan (mother of Mia Farrow) plays Jane, daughter of British explorer James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith). She ends up lost in the jungle, is rescued by Tarzan and has soon become so charmed by his strength, goodness and simple ways that she becomes his mate, much to the consternation of her father and cohorts when they are reunited. Separated, perhaps for good, Jane wishes to stay with Tarzan, but her father’s expedition is captured by a tribe of violent pygmies, something which brings Tarzan to the rescue with a herd of elephants. The first in a series of 12 films with Weismuller as Tarzan, filmed at MGM and RKO throughout the 1930s – 1940s.
“Holds up remarkably well…an exciting adventure, highlighted by a scary attack by a tribe of bloodthirsty dwarves who lower their prisoners into a pit holding a monster gorilla.” – Stuart Galbraith IV, DVD Talk
