Tarzan Triumphs
| Tarzan Triumphs | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Wilhelm Thiele |
| Written by | Carroll Young (story and screenplay) Roy Chanslor (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Sol Lesser (exec. producer) Wilhelm Thiele (uncredited assoc. producer) |
| Starring | Johnny Weissmuller Johnny Sheffield Frances Gifford Stanley Ridges |
| Cinematography | Harry J. Wild |
| Edited by | Harry Horner |
| Music by | Paul Sawtell |
| Distributed by | RKO Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 76 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Tarzan Triumphs is a 1943 adventure film in which Tarzan fights the Nazis. Johnny Weismuller had portrayed the popular Edgar Rice Burroughs character in six films with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but this was his first with the producer Sol Lesser at RKO Pictures. Weismuller was reunited with two of his three co-stars from several of the earlier films, Johnny Sheffield and Cheeta, but Maureen O'Sullivan was unable to reprise her role as Jane because the franchise switched from MGM to RKO, and O'Sullivan was an MGM contract player.[1] Instead, Frances Gifford played the princess of the lost city of Palandrya, which is conquered by Germans.
Plot
Tarzan and Boy are living on the Great Escarpment, though Jane has returned to England. A small force of German paratroopers lands and takes over the lost city of "Palandrya" as an advance base for the conquest of Sub Saharan Africa. Tarzan continually ignores the requests for help from the helpless and enslaved Palandrians, saying, "Jungle people fight to live, civilized people live to fight."
Only when Boy is kidnapped by the Germans does Tarzan shout, "Now Tarzan make war!" Tarzan infiltrates the lost city, destroying a machine gun and defeating the German invaders with his knife and an elephant blitzkrieg. The film's final scene has Cheeta speaking into the defeated Germans' short wave radio to call Berlin; the Germans mistake Cheeta for Adolf Hitler.
Cast
- Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan
- Johnny Sheffield as Boy
- Frances Gifford as Zandra
- Stanley Ridges as Colonel Von Reichart
- Sig Ruman as Sergeant
- Philip Van Zandt as Captain Bausch
- Rex Williams as Lieutenant Reinhardt Schmidt
- Pedro de Cordoba as Oman, the Patriarch
- Sven Hugo Borg as Heinz
- Stanley Brown as Achmet
Production
The U.S. State Department informed Sol Lesser that a Tarzan film would be an ideal way to spread the message of democracy's battle against Fascism to the American public.[2] Lesser's first RKO Tarzan film had made the Ape Man a symbol of American isolationism. The film was the highest grossing of Lesser's Tarzan films.[2]
Unlike in previous Tarzan films, the natives are played by whites in South Sea Island costume rather than the black Africans of the MGM films. This use of non-blacks as natives continued for several other Tarzan films in the 1940s.
References
- ^ "Notes for Tarzan Triumphs (1943)". Allmovie. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
- ^ a b p. 140 Etter, Jonathan and Grauman, Walter E. Quinn Martin, Producer 2003 McFarland
