Tarzan's Peril
Director: Byron Haskin
Year: 1950
Rating: 6.5
This is the third in the Lex Barker series of five
Tarzan films from RKO. The first one was quite disappointing, the second
one was a big improvement and gave me hope but this third one dashes those
hopes fairly quickly. One measuring stick to use to evaluate a Tarzan film
is how much time Cheetah gets to go solo - the more he gets to do his shtick
the worse the film - unless of course you are a huge fan of chimpanzees.
Cheetah gets a lot of time here - more I expect than Tarzan and sadly more
than the female star - no, not Jane but one of the legendary black actresses.
The film has a good beginning and a good ending but it is mainly filler in
between. Lots of footage of Africa and wild animals - but these animals never
share the same screen with Tarzan other than a baby elephant. We do get a
rubber snake that Tarzan kills and almost amusingly a cut-out of an elephant's
head that comes in at the side of the shot for a second to help Tarzan. Ah,
for the days of elephant stampedes to run over the bad guys or the cannibals.
We even get to have Tarzan and Jane having a how was your day conversation
while preparing dinner which felt like a scene out of the Donna Reed Show.
The beginning of the film which is actually shot in Kenya has a terrific
dance performed by a tribe to commemorate the crowning of the new Queen.
The Queen is the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge. On one hand it is rather sad
seeing her in a B Tarzan film in which she gets something like fifth billing
and she disappears for about 50 minutes - but still it is Dorothy Dandridge
- who would later go on to star in two musicals Carmen Jones and Porgy and
Bess. Her early death at 42 years of age lends a certain tragic air about
her but her life was generally fairly successful first as a singer in the
Dandridge Sisters, as a solo artist and then as a film actress. Of course,
her race very much limited her choice of roles and she had to take a lot
of crap - but she had a film made of her with Halle Berry and a few biographies
written about her.
Some evil white men (the always rotten George Macready) are smuggling in
arms to a tribe in which the leader wants to use the weapons to get the woman
he desires - Dandridge - which is understandable but she wants nothing to
do with him. Tarzan of course comes to the rescue - again the white man saves
the day! Jane is played by yet another actress (Virginia Huston) - none of
them seem to stick around for long - who is very attractive but looks like
she is ready to go to a cocktail party on Fifth Avenue. She would be gone
by the next film. Perhaps this changing of Jane's was a version of a casting
couch by RKO owner Howard Hughes.
Lex Barker is a decent Tarzan - very fit - though not the swimmer that Weissmuller
was - but then few were - and his accent changes constantly and he seems
unwilling to fight live drugged up tigers or lions as Weissmuller did - but
he did great fighting a man-eating plant and that rubber snake!
