There is a lot of near-nudity in this jungle adventure nonsense of 1934, one of the last mainstream films to peddle flesh openly before The Code began to bite. Jane's nude swim was edited out as a post-production afterthought, but her jungle garb leaves little to the imagination in any event.
With regard to the story, there isn't much to analyse. Two white hunters, one good and one bad, go on safari to the elephants' graveyard. Martin (bad) wants to help himself to the ivory that's lying around, and Harry (good) carries a torch for Jane, whom he knew in her London society days. He hopes to woo her away from the Ape Man.
The film has much to its credit. If the narrative is fairly flimsy, it is related with gusto, and both sound and images are beautifully clear. The scenery, especially that of the Mutiyah Escarpment, is marvellous. Both Weissmuller and O'Sullivan are amiable and photogenic screen presences.
On the other hand, there is plenty about this effort that is simply preposterous. Let's begin with the animals. Zebras live on plains, in herds. To have one solitary zebra meandering through the jungle is plain silly. The apes are oh-so-obviously guys in gorilla suits. Tarzan's penchant for fighting lions by hand is barmy, and not very persuasively filmed. As for taking on the rhino ... well, the back projection is so obvious that the scene is marginally less frightening than a Liberace TV special. The rhino's attack on Cheetah's mother is unintentionally hilarious, with the man in the monkey suit doing a neat somersault when butted. The rhino itself must be all of three months old. African elephants are everywhere - except that they are actually docile little Indian elephants with big paper ears glued on.
Now for the humans. How come Tarzan lives in the wild, but is always clean-shaven? How does the guy with the five-word vocabulary understand everything that's said to him? One of the native bearers is shot dead for having the impudent nerve to be tired and scared. This murder is condemned, not because it is barbaric, but because everyone else will now have more stuff to carry. The character of Harry is fairly central to the film, but the script forgets to tell us what happened to him.
The vine-swinging is truly awful. Totally studio-bound and entrusted to trapeze artists, it looks exactly what it is - a circus act filmed indoors. Tarzan is made to appear athletic as he climbs up to build a tree-house, by the rather crude expedient of having him climb down, then reversing the motion.
Still, audiences were naive in 1934 ... and Jane looks good.
With regard to the story, there isn't much to analyse. Two white hunters, one good and one bad, go on safari to the elephants' graveyard. Martin (bad) wants to help himself to the ivory that's lying around, and Harry (good) carries a torch for Jane, whom he knew in her London society days. He hopes to woo her away from the Ape Man.
The film has much to its credit. If the narrative is fairly flimsy, it is related with gusto, and both sound and images are beautifully clear. The scenery, especially that of the Mutiyah Escarpment, is marvellous. Both Weissmuller and O'Sullivan are amiable and photogenic screen presences.
On the other hand, there is plenty about this effort that is simply preposterous. Let's begin with the animals. Zebras live on plains, in herds. To have one solitary zebra meandering through the jungle is plain silly. The apes are oh-so-obviously guys in gorilla suits. Tarzan's penchant for fighting lions by hand is barmy, and not very persuasively filmed. As for taking on the rhino ... well, the back projection is so obvious that the scene is marginally less frightening than a Liberace TV special. The rhino's attack on Cheetah's mother is unintentionally hilarious, with the man in the monkey suit doing a neat somersault when butted. The rhino itself must be all of three months old. African elephants are everywhere - except that they are actually docile little Indian elephants with big paper ears glued on.
Now for the humans. How come Tarzan lives in the wild, but is always clean-shaven? How does the guy with the five-word vocabulary understand everything that's said to him? One of the native bearers is shot dead for having the impudent nerve to be tired and scared. This murder is condemned, not because it is barbaric, but because everyone else will now have more stuff to carry. The character of Harry is fairly central to the film, but the script forgets to tell us what happened to him.
The vine-swinging is truly awful. Totally studio-bound and entrusted to trapeze artists, it looks exactly what it is - a circus act filmed indoors. Tarzan is made to appear athletic as he climbs up to build a tree-house, by the rather crude expedient of having him climb down, then reversing the motion.
Still, audiences were naive in 1934 ... and Jane looks good.