TARZAN THE FEARLESS (1933)
Article #1421 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-3-2005
Posting Date: 7-3-2005
Directed by Robert F. Hill
Featuring Buster Crabbe, Julie Bishop, E. Alyn Warren

Tarzan swings around a jungle and meets some people.

I saw this movie once years ago, and the only thing I could remember about it was that a chimpanzee did a lot of backflips. Having seen it again, I can see why; the plot is such an incoherent mess that it’s unlikely you’re going to remember any of it. Granted, there’s a reason this movie is that way; it’s actually a feature version of a serial and feels like it. The original serial is lost, but seeing this doesn’t really make me want to spend a lot of time looking for it. It does leave me wondering what I’m going to remember about it years from now. Maybe I’ll remember that an inordinate amount of the running time is spent dealing with a phonograph. Maybe I’ll remember that Buster Crabbe’s Tarzan’s main way of expressing himself to people is giggling like an idiot. Or maybe I’ll remember that, despite the fact that Crabbe is wearing one of the skimpiest loincloths I’ve ever seen, he still has room in it for a knife and a picture of his girlfriend. At any rate, I hope that I don’t remember the scene where Crabbe and Julie Bishop try to emulate the back-and-forth banter that Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan had in TARZAN, THE APE MAN. Somehow, though, I think fate will be kind, and years from now, when I think of this movie, I’ll think of a monkey doing backflips. Sad, isn’t it?