Once upon a time, Colonel Parker (Robert Douglas) was a very successful
trader in Africa ... but that was long ago, now his company has collapsed,
his money has run out to the extent that he had to call his daughter Jane
(Joanna Barnes) back to Africa from one of the best private universities
in England, and to escape a native uprising and maybe even recoup some of
their lost fortune, they see themselves forced to team up with adventurer
Holt (Cesare Danova) on his quest into uncharted country in search of the
mythological elephant graveyard. On the way there, they almost fall prey
to an elephant stampede, and Jane escapes certain death only thanks to the
interference of wild jungle man Tarzan (Denny Miller), who's apparently
lord of the elephants, and who takes her to his (rather modern) treehouse
to get over her shock. At first shock, Jane soon finds herself fascinated
by the wild man, even sort of falls for him ... when she's
"saved" by her dad and Holt (who has of course long fallen for
her). On they go, and then they are attacked by natives, but Tarzan saves
them by creating an animal stampede. On our trio of explorers go to
find a lost city - of course inhabitated by a lost tribe that immediately
decides to sacrifice them to some God ... Colonel Parker dies, too, before
Tarzan can be informed by one of his chimps, and he saves the day by an
elephant stampede (see a pattern here?). One of Tarzan's elephants is
fatally wounded in this stampede, and dying, he retreats to the elephants
graveyard, with Jane, Holt and Tarzan close behind. Jane and Holt rejoice
seeing the millions of Pounds in ivory before them, but Tarzan can't but
mourn the death of his friend the elephant ... and when Jane sees this she
knows her place is with him, not with Hold and civilisation - and Holt is
a good enough sport to let her go. Almost certainly one of the
worse Tarzan-movies
out there: Made at a time when Sol Lesser (who had made the last
more-than-a-dozen Tarzan-flicks)
had grown tired of the property and MGM
(producer of 1932's Tarzan the
Ape Man) saw a chance to make the jungle man their own again - but
this lacklustre effort wasn't even worth the little money spent on it.
Basically, it was inferior to the movie from 27 years earlier in every
aspect (arguably apart from the fact that it was shot in colour, but we'll
get to that even): For one, the film was shot on a tight budget, and it
shows - especially when scenes of the black and white Tarzan
the Ape Man and its sequel Tarzan
and his Mate are edited into this movie, giving it a weird and
unmotivated back and forth between colour and black and white that's
simply not convincing, almost schizophrenic, especially when colour flames
are superimposed over black-and-white images. (Another film this film
lifts scenes from is 1950's King Solomon's Mines by the way, plus
any number of Africa documentaries, supposedly.) On top of that, Tarzan
actor Denny Miller simply lacks the charisma the character so badly needs,
plus the plot is really dumbed down from the earlier version. On top of
that, the jungle sets are often less than convincing, and for a big
adventure this was made on a very small scale. So in all, a
disappointment ... though in a so-bad-it's-good way, you will at least
find something to enjoy about this.
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