"Thrill After Amazing Thrill...as savage hordes...inflamed by crafty foes...hunt down Tarzan and the lovely maiden he is guarding!" screamed the tagline for Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943), yet another in the long series of Tarzan films that Johnny Weissmuller made between 1932 and 1948. The character of Jane, normally played by Maureen O'Sullivan, did not appear in this film though her off-screen character sets the plot in motion. In a letter to Tarzan from London (where she is working as a nurse), Jane asks him to help the war effort by locating the fever medicine plant; its rare properties can be used to produce a serum for treating malaria and aid the Allied cause. So Tarzan, Cheetah and Jane's son, Boy (played by Johnny Sheffield) set out on a desert trek but get mixed up with an American magician (Nancy Kelly), prehistoric monsters and, because it was made during World War II, Nazi spies. Allegedly, Tarzan's Desert Mystery went through several rounds of rewrites, with the film going into production from April-May 1943 and many scenes reshot in August 1943, which changed the storyline considerably.

Although the story was written by Carroll Young and Edward T. Lowe, Jr., the publicity posters proclaimed the film as "Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan's Desert Mystery." The working titles were Tarzan Against the Sahara and Tarzan and the Sheik. Wilhelm Thiele directed, with Sol Lesser producing and cinematographers Harry Wild and Russell Harlan shooting the film on location at the Alabama Hills in Lone Pine, California. Other scenes were cut together with stock footage left over from Hal Roach's One Million B.C. (1940). Future Academy Award winning actor Ben Johnson doubled Weissmuller for the scene where he leaps on a horse, and the stallion Jaynar was played by Dice, who had worked with Richard Dix, Wild Bill Elliott and Gene Autry.

When Tarzan's Desert Mystery opened in New York on December 26, 1943, Variety declared the "photography highly effective", but noted that Otto Kruger "just doesn't belong as a Nazi." The Hollywood Reporter admitted that "any adventure of Tarzan is an assured box office property [...] But it also should be recorded that the entertainment falls below standard for the perennial series. It makes too many compromises and wanders too far from the domain where Tarzan is seen to his best advantage." T.S., writing for The New York Times predicted that the sequence where the Nazi is eaten by the giant spider "should have the children screaming in their sleep for months to come--it's a curious episode to include in a children's movie. Or are the little wretches really so bloodthirsty?" In an aside to Maureen O'Sullivan, T.S. noted that Tarzan remained faithful to Jane - he never so much as winked at Nancy Kelly throughout the entire film.

Producer: Sol Lesser
Director: William Thiele
Screenplay: Edward T. Lowe (screenplay); Carroll Young (story); Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters)
Cinematography: Russ Harlan, Harry Wild
Art Direction: Ralph Berger, Hans Peters
Music: Paul Sawtell
Film Editing: Ray Lockert
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan), Nancy Kelly (Connie Bryce), Johnny Sheffield (Boy), Otto Kruger (Paul Hendrix), Joe Sawyer (Karl Straeder), Lloyd Corrigan (Sheik Abdul El Khim), Robert Lowery (Prince Selim), Frank Puglia (Magistrate), Philip Van Zandt (Kushmet).
BW-70m.

by Lorraine LoBianco

SOURCES:
Hillman, Bill and Sue-On. ERBzine Issue 0624. http://www.erbzine.com/
Hollywood Reporter "Tarzan's Desert Mystery." Dec. 1943.
T.S. The New York Times "Tarzan's Desert Mystery." 27 Dec 43
Variety Staff "Tarzan's Desert Mystery." Dec. 1943.
IMDB