More than 27 years had passed between the release of the 1932 version of Tarzan, the Ape Man starring Johnny Weissmuller and this 1959 remake. Over that period of time - and dozens of movies released by several studios - Tarzan had married, acquired a son, been to New York, battled the Nazis, learned perfect English, and assisted in a Guatemalan treasure hunt, among many other improbable plot devices and settings. MGM, which produced the 1932 hit, must have thought it was time to return to basics. What the studio ended up with was its least popular entry in the series. In fact, for many years it was considered the worst Tarzan movie ever made until John and Bo Derek's Tarzan the Ape Man arrived on the scene in 1981. Seen today, the 1959 version has a certain camp value and how could it not with our jungle hero wrestling stuffed animals amid fake jungle greenery?

The movie does return to the original in more ways than one. It focuses on Tarzan's first meeting with Jane, who was eventually dropped from many of the ensuing movies in the popular series. It also uses footage lifted not only from the 1932 release but from MGM's sequel Tarzan and His Mate (1934), throwing in costumes and stock shots from another of the studio's African-set adventure flicks, King Solomon's Mines (1950). The pygmies whose village is wrecked by elephants are played by students from Los Angeles' Fairfax High School in the later release; in the 1932 version they were played by real pygmies.

Casting followed the tradition of having a former athlete play Tarzan. James Pierce (Tarzan and the Golden Lion, 1927) was an All-American college football hero. Bruce Bennett, still billed under his real name Herman Brix when he made a series of Tarzan movies in the 1930s, had been an Olympic shot-put champion. And Buster Crabbe; star of Tarzan the Fearless (1933), and later famous as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, was an Olympic swimming medalist like the movies' most popular Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller. So, if Denny Miller, star of the 1959 version, looks more like a Southern California jock than a denizen of the jungle, it's because he was a basketball star at UCLA when he was signed by MGM. To his credit, Miller has the physique and attitude for the role and is certainly not the worst Tarzan ever to swing from a vine. But for good measure, the producers dubbed in Weissmuller's trademark jungle call anyway. The role of Jane, originally created by Maureen O'Sullivan in 1932, was assigned to Joanna Barnes, who was appearing at the time in the TV series, 21 Beacon Street. Neither she nor Miller displayed as much skin as Weissmuller and O'Sullivan were allowed to show in 1932 before the more stringent enforcement of the production code.

Producer Al Zimbalist was also responsible for the story and production of Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) and later wrote the lyrics to the theme from Taffy and the Jungle Hunter (1965). The script was written by Robert Hill, author of She Gods of Shark Reef> (1958), Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), and the Joan Crawford vehicle Female on the Beach (1955). The original score was composed by jazz musician and arranger Shorty Rogers.

Director: Joseph Newman
Producer: Al Zimbalist
Screenplay: Robert Hill
Cinematography: Paul Vogel
Editing: Gene Ruggiero
Art Direction: Malcolm Brown, Hans Peters
Original Music: Shorty Rogers
Cast: Denny Miller (Tarzan), Joanna Barnes (Jane Parker), Cesare Danova (Harry Holt), Robert Douglas (James Parker), Thomas Yangha (Riano).
C-83m.

by Rob Nixon