Tarzan and the Slave Girl
Director: Lee Sholem
Year: 1950
Rating: 6.5
This is the second in the Lex Barker Tarzan series from RKO. The first one
- Tarzan's Magic Fountain - was so mediocre that I was very hesitant to continue
but much to my surprise this was a huge upgrade. One of the better Tarzan's
in years. Tarzan is of course one of the great racist concepts of literature
transferred to film ever - a white baby gets abandoned in the jungle and
grows up to be the King of Apes ruling over his territory and terrorizing
the native blacks who are generally portrayed as fools or savages. But at
the same time Tarzan is mythical and a part of our Western culture lasting
till today and I have to put aside the whole cultural and imperialistic baggage
of the film that admittedly never occurred to me as a youth and just watch
them without those references. And I have enjoyed many of them. In fact,
I watched all the Johnny Weissmuller films and now am embarked on these from
Lex Barker.
The early Weissmuller Tarzan films are terrific in their savagery with The
Great Escarpment, the black killer tribes, his fighting the lions and the
call of the elephants to stampede the evil villagers. I miss that Tarzan.
At some point the producers decided to make the films more family friendly
- no more Jane swimming naked in the river - and for some reason (racist
I expect in a different way) blacks were slowly eased out of roles in the
films. They were replaced by lost white tribes or tribes played by olive
skinned actors. It is rather silly. Once Tarzan moved to RKO the budgets
got smaller, the natives grew lighter, Cheetah's role got larger and the
plots got less and less interesting till be the end they were fairly dreadful.
No calls to the elephants, no Great Escarpment, no cannibals. Instead Tarzan
lives in this incredibly diverse neighborhood with English colonialists and
various tribes but no blacks. A bit like Beverly Hills back then I expect.
So this one was a bit of a blast from the past. There is some real tension
here, a very cool savage black tribe disguised as bushes with scary white
painted faces and deadly poisonous blow-darts. They track Tarzan and his
party through the jungle killing one after the other (not the white folks
mind you. I would be like, kill the big white guy). And Tarzan calls on an
elephant for help - sure only one but there are budget limitations! We also
have human trafficking - called slaves in those days as a tribe is kidnapping
nubile women from villages and taking them back to their King who seems to
be from a lost Egyptian tribe with a little Mayan thrown in for good order.
All these girls are gorgeous - maybe Howard Hughes's (who owned and ruined
RKO) mistresses.
The slave traders make one little mistake. They take Jane and Lola. Who is
Lola you ask. A hot French Mademoiselle who is mysteriously working in the
jungle with a doctor and who has the hots for Tarzan and any other pair of
trousers. "Her name is Lola, she was a showgirl". Don't mess with Lola. Lola
(Denise Darcel, actually French) gives the film some zip and sex appeal.
Brenda Joyce who had been Jane in a number of Tarzan films retired from the
business after Magic Fountain and who could blame her - is replaced by Vanessa
Brown who you are likely never to have heard of. She was Jane only in this
film as they replace Jane in every film like a bottle of milk. She is ok
- a little more adventurous than previous Jane's - and she kept acting until
1991. In the cast also as the safari leader is Robert Alda, father of Alan.
There are three more Barker-Tarzan films and I just hope they are as good
as this one.
