Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ popular books, this is the
very first in MGM’s long-running series about the feral white man who lives and
talks with the animals in darkest Africa . Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller plays the
title character, as he would for the next decade and a half. There is no end to the absurdity in almost
every scene, and it may, in fact, be intolerably primitive to most modern
audiences, but this archaic artificiality is also part of its appeal, to be
enjoyed not ironically but on its own terms.
From its horrible rear projections to the ridiculous speeded-up shots of
Tarzan climbing around in the trees, it can be hard to take, as is the fact
that there is no explanation for how Tarzan manages to live in the wild and yet
has a perfectly coifed hairdo, no beard, and not even a skin tan. But there’s still something potent about the theme
of white men’s arrogant disregard for life, (animal and otherwise), and there’s
something affecting about Jane’s immersion into this wild world and her growing
affection for the ape-man she’s found and whom no one else understands. Like some other films of its time – Island
of Lost Souls (1932), The Sign of the Cross (1932) and King Kong
(1933) – that came before and during the transition into the Hays Code era, Tarzan,
the Ape Man also benefits from a risqué playfulness, lurid violence and a
primordial quality that makes it seem almost otherworldly. Flaws notwithstanding, it’s impossible not be
enraptured by the surreal finale in which a tribe of dwarfs captures the white
intruders and drops them one by one into a pit to be mauled by a gigantic,
bloodthirsty ape, a fate from which Jane is rescued by a Tarzan-instigated
elephant stampede.
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