Tarzan's Peril
Tarzan's Mate in Peril / Tarzan and the Jungle Queen

USA 1951
produced by
Sol Lesser for RKO
directed by Byron Haskin
starring Lex Barker, Virginia Huston, George Macready, Douglas Fowley, Glenn Anders, Alan Napier, Edward Ashley, Dorothy Dandridge, Walter Kingsford, Frederick O'Neal, Wesley Gale, James Moultrie, Buster Cooke, Bruce Lester, Frances Driver, Milton Wood, Joel Fluellen, Stanley Logan, Davis Roberts, Martin Wilkins, Jamel Frazier, Maxie Thrower, William Washington
screenplay by Samuel Newman, Francis Swann, additional dialogue by John Cousins, based on characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, music by Michel Michelet

Tarzan, Tarzan (Lex Barker), Tarzan at RKO, Sol Lesser's Tarzan

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Villain Radijek (George Macready) has just broken out of jail, and now he's heading back for the jungle, to deliver firearms to an evil jungle king, Bulam (Fredeerick O'Neal) ... whose most evil deed it seems to be to long after good and pure jungle queen Melmendi (Dorothy Dandridge), who constantly spurns his advances. To get his weapons to Bulam, Radijek even kills two commissioners (Alan Napier, Edward Ashley) and his two business partners (Douglas Fowley, Glenn Anders) - and of course he ultimately helps Bulam to kidnap the jungle queen and enslave her tribe.

For the longest time, Tarzan (Lex Barker) tries to stay out of everything ("This time, Cheetah, Tarzan no interfere."), and instead he goes fishing with Jane (Virginia Huston), but ultiamtely the events catch up with him and he frees Queen Melmendi and her tribe almost singlehandedly. Only Radijek escapes, and he manages to take Jane hostage - but it wouldn't be Tarzan wouldn't he save his loved one and see to it that the villain gets his just dessert.

Definitely the best-looking Tarzan-film in quite some time, and certainly the most accomplished so far of the Lex Barker Tarzans: The scenery looks much more convincing than in previous films (and portions of the film are said to actually have been shot in Africa), the natives are black for a change (in his films with Sol Lesser, Johnny Weissmuller exclusively dealt with white natives - in Africa), and quite a few scenes at least seem to depict authentic jungle life.

Aside from being better looking than previous Tarzan films, Tarzan's Peril has pretty little to offer though: The story is run-of-the-mill to the point of being uninteresting, Jane, whom Maureen O'Sullivan portrayed as a free spirit and adventuress in her own right, has turned into the perfect housewife in Virginia Huston's hands, and Tarzan himself seems to be in the movie only by accident: He has little to do until very late in the proceedings (the finale actually) and spends most of the time of the film telling his chimpanzee that he will not interfere - to a point that one wonders why he even bothers to tell it anymore ...

What can I say? Not one of the better films of the series.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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