Movie Review: Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Synopsis: Jane Parker travels to Africa to join her father, an ivory trader in search of a fabled elephant graveyard. Despite her father's misgivings, Jane joins his latest expedition into the jungle only to be kidnapped by a mysterious white man in a loin cloth who lives with the apes. Despite being scared, Jane manages to communicate with the man, learning his name is Tarzan, and eventually falls in love with him. However, while she has a desire to live in the jungle with Tarzan, her duty and devotion to her father stand in the way, as do the dangers (animal and human) that surround them.
Who's in it? The movie stars Maureen O'Sullivan, Johnny Weissmuller, C. Aubrey Smith, Neil Hamilton and Ivory Williams.
Review: I came across Tarzan the Ape Man in my library this morning and while it had been a long time since I last watched this film and couldn't remember enough about it to know if I enjoyed it, I ended up deciding to give it a try. Overall, it turned out to be a good choice.
The story the film tells isn't anything overly complicated - girl meets ape man, girl falls in love and then needs to be rescued. There's no attempt to explain Tarzan's (Weissmuller) backstory (or even how he got the name Tarzan) and even though there is technically a romantic rival for Jane (O'Sullivan), Harry Holt (Hamilton) he never even bothered putting up a fight.
I also thought Jane and Tarzan did make a great couple in this film. The romance seemed legit rather than forced and there were some romantically funny scenes, including when she first tries to communicate with him by telling him her name.
One thing that surprised me were the special effects and action scenes. It was clear the movie was using a lot of stock footage, but it was done in a way that wasn't distracting (like lot of other films from this time period). Plus, some of the fight scenes, especially the one involving Tarzan fighting two lions, were pretty realistic and intense.
As would be expected from a film that is nearly 100 years old, there are things about this movie I wouldn't describe as being family friendly. A lot of animals die violent deaths (I'm going to assume not for real, but it looked real enough for me not to be sure), there are white actors in blackface and, unless I misinterpreted Tarzan's first encounter with Jane, an attempted rape scene. However, other than the blackface, I'm willing to give that a pass because it did add quite a bit of realism.
I think my biggest complaint about the movie is the writers needed to pick a lane when it came to Jane's personality. Early in the film, she's portrayed as strong and independent, even going as far as to show her skills using a gun. After meeting Tarzan, she became the exact opposite, weak and frail and always in need of the men in her life to save her (oh and boy, could she scream). I would have liked to have seen a lot more of the former.
This is also one of those movies that is quite a bit longer than it really needed to be because some scenes were unnecessarily drawn out. The irony with that was I thought the ending, in comparison, was a bit rushed and would have much rather seen that given enough time to do things right than watch Cheeta's (Jiggs) entire journey to warn Tarzan about Jane being in danger.
Final Opinion: This movie is a classic for a reason and, while some of the material was expectedly dated, it still turned out to be a fun film to watch. I'd recommend giving it a chance.
My Grade: B+
________________________________________________________________
Here are some reviews of other movies from 1932:
Movie Review: The Death Kiss (1932)
Comments
Post a Comment