TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION (1927)
Article #791 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-15-2003
Posting Date: 10-12-2003
Directed by J. P. McGowan
Featuring James Pierce, Frederick Peters, Edna Murphy

Tarzan and his faithful lion Jab try to prevent crooks from stealing the jewels of a native tribe.

With a rating of 3.8 on IMDB at the time of this writing, one thing I can say is that this particular movie doesn’t seem to be too popular among Tarzan afficiandos. This may well be due to the blandness of James Pierce in the title role (no, he does NOT play the golden lion). He really doesn’t make Tarzan a memorable character at all. Not that it really matters; the movie is so focused on action that character development is left on the wayside fairly early on in the proceedings. The most interesting things about this movie are 1) the presence of a faithful lion friend for Tarzan; he is even referred to as the “friend of the lions”, which, considering how many fights he has with them in other movies, leaves me wondering just how much of a cat person he is. Thus, instead of everyone being charmed by the presence of Cheetah, we find them perpetually nervous in the presence of Jab, who occasionally has to be disciplined by Tarzan to keep him from thinking of the guests as lunch. The other interesting aspect of the movie is the presence of Boris Karloff as (get this) a disgraced African chieftain. Ain’t Hollywood casting wonderful?