Review – Tarzan the Ape Man

I loved these things when I was a kid. One of the local U’s showed Tarzan movies every Sunday morning. My favorite was the one where he fights the Nazis. But of course this is the one that started it all. Johnny Weissmuller puts in his first appearance in the title role that made him famous (at least among people who weren’t Olympic swimming fans), and Maureen O’Sullivan backs him up as Jane. Or to be more accurate he backs her up, as the first half of the movie is almost entirely about her. When I was younger I wondered why they no longer made Tarzan movies, but by the end of this one I had a pretty good understanding of what happened. Though one expects a certain amount of animal cruelty and racial insensitivity in pictures like this, in this one the treatment of wildlife and indigenous peoples is excessive beyond any excuse. I tried my best of accept the picture on its own terms and take the mores of the 1930s into account, but by the time they got to the tribe of short actors in blackface I had to knock the rating down a notch. See if desperate