Radio Recap: Tarzan

Tarzan of the Apes had a variety of different radio programs over the decades but at this stage, I want to talk about the 1930s Tarzan serials, each of which was adapted directly from Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels; they covered Tarzan of the Apes (1932-1934), Tarzan and the Diamond of Asher (1934, adapted from Tarzan and the Golden Lion) and Tarzan and the Fires of Tohr (1936, adapted from Tarzan and the City of Gold).

I wrote about what makes Tarzan problematic many years ago in a blog post about Tarzan's comic strips, and I published an essay about the inherent racism of Tarzan in my series of essays about the Black Panther (the one titled: "Exploring White Privilege in Christopher Priest's Black Panther: Part 2").

All of this is just to say you can't wander into Tarzan with your eyes shut. The amount of racism varies (since Black people in Tarzan stories are often barely visible) and they can be enjoyed as simple adventure tales. Caveat emptor.

According to John Dunning in On the Air: "The original Tarzan radio adaptation has come to be regarded as the first major syndicated serial." It was sponsored by Signal Oil, better-known to us as the sponsors of The Whistler.

Tarzan of the Apes had an interesting cast, with James Pierce as Tarzan; he'd played Tarzan on the big screen in Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927) and his wife, Joan Burroughs (Edgar's daughter) portrayed Jane Porter. Other cast members included Gale Gordon, Frank Nelson, Hanley Stafford and Jeanette Nolan - all terrific radio professionals (you can hear them in a lot of 1930s syndicated fare).

The latter two serials recast Tarzan with Carlton KaDell; apparently Edgar Rice Burroughs had withdrawn his support by then, which was probably why his daughter and son-in-law left the series.

I actually find these Tarzan serials to be a step-up from the majority of juvenile adventure serials; when you look at the best-regarded of the genre, I Love a Mystery, you find each episode tends to open on the characters recapping what happened to them in the previous installment; then each of the cast members will have a quick scene to remind listeners who they are; then in the last 2 minutes, something dramatic happens. By contrast, the Tarzan serials have a relentless pace - they don't follow a formula like I Love a Mystery, they just adapt from the books and go on and on until they run out of time! Consequently, the climax of each episode can be surprising because there are no cues to indicate when it's about to finish.

You can hear the Old Time Radio Researchers' collection of Tarzan of the Apes episodes with the YouTube playlist below:

You can hear the Old Time Radio Researchers' collection of Tarzan and the Diamond of Asher episodes with the YouTube playlist below:

You can hear the Old Time Radio Researchers' collection of Tarzan and the Fires of Tohr episodes with the YouTube playlist below:

OTR Holiday Month Day 16: Tarzan

Everyone wants to get in on the holiday spirit - even everyone's favourite problematic jungle hero! Tarzan presented the episode "Congo Christmas" on December 27, 1951. This one features moon worshipers trying to rise up against Christians just ahead of Christmas. Good thing Tarzan's there to make peace! You can listen to it on archive.org here.

Angola on the Radio #1: Tarzan "Across a Continent"

From time to time I feature "Angola in the Comics" on this blog and I've long wished to continue that trend by spotlight occasions where Angola appeared as the setting for an old-time radio program. However, I couldn't find any instances... until now.

I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising that the series in question is Tarzan. (I last blogged about Tarzan in Angola here) There weren't too many jungle adventure programs on the radio and although Tarzan had a program in the 1930s, he sat out the 1940s. Finally, in the early 1950s Tarzan returned to radio as a half-hour syndicated adventure program starring Lamont Johnson and that's where I've drawn my example from.

The episode is called "Across a Continent" (March 15, 1951). The story opens in Bechurata, which appears to be somewhere on the east coast. Tarzan looks up a governmental agriculture officer, one Erik von Horn (the Germanic name suggesting the setting is in a former German colony). Tarzan takes an interest in Gabrielle, a singer at Von Horn's nightclub (she sings in French, somewhat complicating clues about the locale).

After discovering Von Horn is a criminal, Tarzan goes on the run and takes Gabrielle with him. Gabrielle claims to have friends in Luanda who will take care of her. Tarzan points out Angola is on the opposite side of the continent, but being a gallant hero he agrees to lead her there. As they travel Tarzan begins to fall in love with Gabrielle (no idea where Jane is supposed to be on this radio series), but just as they're nearing Angola, Gabrielle is arrested by a team of international policemen for diamond smuggling.

It's not a bad use of Angola - I get the sense the writer had at least cracked a book open before writing it. Near the end Gabrielle and Tarzan are inside a cavern and declare Angola is "just over this ridge," Tarzan estimating themselves to be about a mile from the country. This is one of the few 'jungle adventure' stories I've heard which really has a sense of Africa as a continent instead of a vague/vast jungle.

It's a bit distracting that von Horn's top aide is played by the guy who did advertisement for Kellogg's Corn Pops on radio's Wild Bill Hickok. It's hard to accept him as menacing when any moment I expect him to extoll the virtues of Sugar Corn Pops to Tarzan.

You hear "Across a Continent" for yourself at archive.org. You can even buy the 1950s Tarzan series from Radio Spirits if you've got money burning a hole in your pocket.

Angola in the Comics#7: Tarzan in Luanda!

Hello and welcome back to an occasional feature on this blog entitled 'Angola in the Comics.' In this series I investigate appearances by the nation of Angola in comic books and determine how faithfully the country is represented. The assumption is that Angola will not be well-realized, so those instances where the comic book creators get particular details correct are always worth noting.

Every entry in my 'Angola in the Comics' series has been from the pages of old 'jungle adventure' comic books, which were once a very fertile genre in the comics (plus prose & film). The few appearances of Angola which I've discovered owe a lot to the simple wealth of 'jungle comics' out there; with creators constantly needing new plots, there were bound to be a few stories set in Angola just as a matter of statistics.

But up until now I haven't dealt with the king of the 'jungle adventure' genre, the fictional character who is basically responsible for the entire brand of storytelling. I'm speaking of course about Tarzan, but before I can get to his visit to Angola, first I have acknowledge the problem of Tarzan.

THE TARZAN TALK

Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in a 1912 pulp magazine story 'Tarzan of the Apes,' Burroughs' character became so popular that the author put out a regular series of new prose adventures throughout his life, novels which continued to be republished after his death - along with works by new authors. Tarzan was adapted into radio, film, television and - significant to us - comic strips & comic books.

Although Tarzan was initially based in the jungles of the Congo, Burroughs sent the character to various locales around the globe (and beneath it, for that matter). Although Burroughs wrote vividly about Africa, he'd never been there; his Tarzan adventures were as much fantasy as anything else and were enjoyed by both children and adults. With success came a legion of imitators; everyone in the 'jungle adventure' genre - from Sheena to the Black Panther - owes a debt to Tarzan for popularizing the tropes they use.

The sheer amount of Tarzan product means you're probably familiar with some of the recycled tropes even if you haven't watched or read a Tarzan story. Frequently these stories concern the adventures of a white person who lives in the African jungle (if it is named, it is almost certainly the Congo) and is almost definitely an orphan. This hero has a strong connection to the African wildlife and can even 'speak' to them. They battle ferocious predators, cruel hunters (usually poachers), greedy treasure hunters and 'savage' natives (possibly cannibals). When they lack for adventure they need only trek a few miles to the east to find a lost outpost of ancient Egypt or trek north to find a valley where dinosaurs still roam. Africans in these stories who are not the hero's enemies are considered friendly, simple folk, regarding the hero with a kind of fearful awe; they live in modest thatch huts with no sophisticated technology, yet their women are modest enough to cover their chests; they can be easily riled up and misled by an evil chief, a scheming would-be chief or an evil witch doctor.

As the decades passed by, the Tarzan series remained moribund, frozen in amber; while Burroughs had permitted Tarzan to grow and change somewhat in his novels, the films kept a very rigid status quo. Of course, the real world's Africa wasn't standing still - even as independence began creeping across the continent in the 1950s, Tarzan hesitated to change with the times. By 1970, Tarzan had fallen from favour; with almost all of Africa independent there could no longer be any pretense of his adventures as anything other than fantasy. The films and comic strips dropped off and scholars began questioning many of the assumptions and implications dating back to Burroughs' first story. Tarzan became a tainted brand, even racist.

Small wonder then, that Tarzan material since 1970 has almost all been deliberately positioned as a 'period piece,' set in the 1910s when Africa was firmly in the grip of colonialism. Eventually, the Tarzan brand became comfortable enough to address the truth of what colonialism had been and to downplay Burroughs' racist views of white superiority. The 2016 motion picture The Legend of Tarzan even went to the trouble of pitting Tarzan against one of history's great real-life villains from the Congo (Leon Rom) and teamed up Tarzan with a historical African-American hero who was also in the Congo (George Washington Williams).

Perhaps a contemporary-times take on Tarzan could also be made to work if one simply did the homework on what Africa is like today. A white man brought up by apes in the contemporary Congo would be quite a different character than who Burroughs imagined; it would be an interesting challenge to deconstruct Tarzan by contemporary standards - possibly not one which the Burroughs estate would be interested in getting into.

Anyway, let's get back to Angola.

TARZAN IN ANGOLA

In January 1951, writer Dick Van Buren and artist Bob Lubbers had only been working on the Tarzan daily newspaper strip for half a year when they told a storyline set in Angola. It begins with a single line from a story fans have called "The Plaque" when a steamship bound for England explodes while said to be approaching 'the port of Luanda,' which is, of course, Angola's capital.

This leads to a lengthy arc where Tarzan searches for survivors of the ship and traces one of them into an underground kingdom of the 'swamp men,' reptilian men led by a beautiful woman (lost kingdoms of ugly men ruled by beautiful women were also a common trope in adventure fiction of the time). Tarzan finally escapes the underground kingdom and brings his English friend to Luanda, which is where Tarzan is at the start of the story fans call 'Senor Lazar.' Notably, Luanda is called a port of 'Portuguese West Africa,' not Angola. Portugal wasn't even a member of the United Nations at the time of this comic; in fact, this same year, Angola was officially declared a 'province' of Portugal, one of the means the country employed to try and hold on to Angola, even as other colonial powers were girding themselves to let their colonies go free.

Wandering Luanda, Tarzan saves a woman from being mugged, which draws the attention of Señor Lazar, a powerful plantation owner. Observing Tarzan had murdered the woman's mugger he has Tarzan arrested. To avoid standing trial for murder, Lazar cuts a deal: he wants Tarzan to capture an American whom the authorities haven't been able to arrest.

As Tarzan heads to the American's location, he passes 'Fazenda Lazar,' so props must be given to Van Buren & Lubbers for getting some correct Portuguese (but a subtraction for when they use 'gracias,' which is Spanish). Further, it's a coffee plantation, which was indeed a major crop in Angola of the time. The American turns out to be named Holt and is running a coffee plantation in competition against Lazar, which is the real reason Lazar has pit Tarzan against him. Using his sway with the authorities, Lazar is trying to tax Holt out of business. Failure to pay the taxes is the crime Holt is guilty of.

At Holt's plantation, Tarzan meets José, the butler. José has a plan to raise 1,000 escudos (props for the correct currency): by winning a bullfight in the 'Plaza de Toros.' So, props for the use of bullfighting (which was a sport in Luanda in those days) but minus for again using Spanish. Confusing Portuguese and Spanish is a frequent problem I've noticed in popular culture of the 1930s-50s, such as in the motion picture Macao.

Tarzan returns to Luanda and tells Lazar he's going to be a matador so that he can win the bullfight and its bounty of 1,000 escudos so that Holt's taxes will be paid. Naturally, even though Tarzan is not a trained bullfighter he wins the match and claims the money. The woman Tarzan rescued at the start of the story - Lucia - comes to work for Holt as a secretary on the plantation.

Having apparently nothing better to do, Tarzan hangs out on the plantation as the new foreman and we finally see a few African faces among the plantation workers. Of course, Tarzan gets them to work for Holt without pay initially, so there's still something problematical about all of this. One night a panther attacks the laborers but Tarzan kills it and surmises Lazar unleashed the animal. Mere moments later, Lazar sends a mob of men with torches to assault Holt's plantation. Holt saves Lucia from a fire the mob start while Tarzan fends off the attackers and puts out the blaze.

Lazar now challenges Tarzan to a duel to the death (a fat cigar-smoking man versus the lord of the jungle? gee, whoever will win?). Tarzan accepts, even though the duel will be fought with Lazar's gun against Tarzan's bow. Although Lazar fires two shots, one of them wrecking Tarzan's bow, Tarzan throws his knife into Lazar's neck, killing him. Thus ends the problem of Lazar. Holt and Lucia decide to get married. Tarzan heads back into the jungle.

• +1 estrela for the correct use of Luanda as a port and reasonably developed city
• +1 estrela for using a leopard (though panther might not be quite correct)
• +1 estrela for the correct currency, escudos
• +2 estrelas for correctly placing bullfighting and coffee in Angola
• +1 estrela for a few correct uses of Portuguese
• -1 estrela for inserting Spanish the rest of the time

TOTAL SCORE: Cinco estrelas!

"Can you really talk to animals?" The Legend of Tarzan review

I certainly don't pretend to be a Tarzan expert; although I have enjoyed some Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, the Tarzan books haven't interested me; I've watched a few Tarzan movies and found them basically unremarkable (or disastrously awful); and while comic books are one of my favourite mediums and the Tarzan comic strip is considered legendary, I find it overwritten and uninteresting.

And yet, I became fascinated by this year's film The Legend of Tarzan. Certainly fans of the novels were excited as this film drew in references to the tribes, apes and locales which had heretofore been ignored in film adaptations and I was happy to see these fans pleased. However, my interest in this film didn't come from the Burroughs novels but a different book entirely: Adam Hochchild's King Leopold's Ghost.

During my first visit to Africa in 2011 I found the book King Leopold's Ghost in my uncle's study (where my bed was) and began reading it in the evenings. This book made an indelible impression on me and how I came to interpret the history of Africa. Perhaps it sounds strange to you that while I was living day-to-day in contemporary Africa I spent my nights delving into historical Africa, but King Leopold's Ghost gave me an education which I sorely needed, as nothing in my formal education had delved into the African continent. I had wondered why colonialism was considered an evil practice and this book explained why: because, at it's heart, it makes entire nations into slave states.

Thus, when I learned two of the real people I learned of in that book - George Washington Williams (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) - were characters in this new Tarzan picture. Fictionalized versions of both men, to be sure, but I was fascinated to see elements from King Leopold's Ghost working their way into mainstream popular culture.

The Legend of Tarzan was a fairly decent picture, as it happens. Alexander Skarsgard played him as yet another hero-who-resists-the-call-thank-you-for-ruining-pop-culture-Joseph-Campbell character but his initial reasons for denying his identity as a jungle lord were interesting and it meant the film gradually worked its way up to the familiar image of shirtless, vine-swining Tarzan.

It's kind of disappointing to see the once-great Djimon Hounsou reduced to playing bad guys (as in here and Guardians of the Galaxy) but his character was at least given some dignity. It also helped that while Hounsou character is basically the stock evil African chief character, he's not the primary antagonist - Leon Rom and his fellow white colonialists are the true villains. Tarzan is likewise less of a great white saviour in this film as he shares the heroic spotlight with Williams and many of the fantastic feats Tarzan performs are shown to be things other Africans. It staves off the many assumptions and implications of earlier Tarzan tales.

The film is mostly a reasonably believable historical picture but for the film's Jane, played by Margot Robbie. Robbie's Jane has a cynical edge which feels a little too 21st century in perspective. In one notable instance, Rom talks to Jane about the rosary his Catholic priest gave him. "Sounds like you were very close," Jane remarks acidly. We of the 21st century understand that Robbie's Jane is alluding to Rom's priest having a pedophiliac interest in him when he was a child, but does that make sense in a story set well over 100+ years ago? To whatever extent that practice was going on in Rom's day and time it was definitely much less-publicized than today. Indeed, Rom makes no visible reaction to Jane's remark as Waltz plays him as a man of his own time, not an anachronism like Robbie's performance.

It's a perfectly decent film, a lot more sober than the typical Tarzan tale.

Review: Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)

"Do you know you're more beautiful than any girl I know? Oh, you're a lot more."

- Jane (to Tarzan)

Following the success of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark (in 1977 & 1981, respectively) Hollywood seemed to believe audiences were experiencing nostalgia for good ol' fashioned adventure films; somehow, this led to the decision to launch wave after wave of nostalgia-fueled properties which, 1979's Superman aside, were not successful: Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon. The Lone Ranger.

It's amidst this backdrop that 1981's Tarzan the Ape Man came to be; I can only assume producer-star Bo Derek and her director-husband John Derek selected Tarzan as the actress' next vehicle because they felt there was money to be made from exploiting the supposed nostalgia wave. I had heard the resulting movie was pretty bad; yesterday I watched it and... it is bad. Really quite very bad.

Tarzan the Ape Man tells the tale of Jane Parker, a young woman who journeys to Africa to find her long-absent father. Learning her father is about to undertake an expedition into a region of Africa never before seen by white men, Jane determines to accompany the group to prove she's as beautiful, intelligent and courageous as every character in the film claims her to be. The party falls prey to certain pitfalls during the trip, none greater than a tribe of body-painted people who kidnap women. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yes, Tarzan is also in this picture.

This film makes so many baffling decisions I hardly know where to begin; how about the action scenes? Yes, both of them. In the first, a snake attacks Jane and Tarzan leaps to her rescue, wrestling the snake off her body. This thrilling sequence is shot as a series of slow-motion close-ups and fadeaways, making it impossible to see what's going on; the snake isn't really defeated, the sequence simply ends so another scene can begin.

Second, we have the battle with the painted people at the climax. When they first attack the expedition, we see them chasing Jane and then... look I can't make this up... there's a spin cut and the fight is over, the expedition has lost. No action scene required, just the same scene transition you'd expect from a prime time sitcom. Tarzan does rescue the expedition by battling the painted chief. Although the fight goes on for about 3 minutes, that's only because the entire scene is shot in slow motion, just in case the viewer mistakenly found themselves getting excited. Shots of Tarzan swinging on vines are similarly done in slow-motion. Supposedly this film had former Tarzan star Jock Mahoney as its stunt coordinator; it's hard to imagine what he did all day on set when he was supposed to be preparing stunts... it sure didn't make it to the final cut.

Let's talk about clash of tone. Near the end, Jane is tied up, washed and painted by the painted people. While Jane sobs and descends into hysterics, her father rants inanely. On paper, this could be a disturbing scene. Unfortunately, the film's director was married to Jane and he shot this sequence for maximum titillation. Emphasis on "tit."

In another sequence, there are shots of the expedition climbing across a steep mountain using ropes. Frequent cutaways to the ropes show them growing frayed by the constant tension. Suddenly, one of the ropes breaks and a porter falls to his death. Cut to a dramatically lit Mr. Parker who raises his fists to the sun and bellows, "Why did you do that?! WHY?!" On the page, it sounds like tragedy; instead, it's one of the funniest moments in the film.

Oh yes... laughs. You really have to laugh when you can while watching Tarzan the Ape Man because unlike any other Tarzan film I've seen, this one takes itself completely serious. So much of this film could have been redeemed with moments of light comedy, but the intent was apparently to make a "serious" Tarzan picture. It's clearly not for boys (ie, the R-rating)... I can only assume they hoped women would be receptive to the supposed sweeping romance of Jane's love for Tarzan.

And yet, I'm not sure if the Jane-Tarzan relationship really is the point of the film; Tarzan doesn't enter the picture until it's already half over and even when he and Jane do begin their hour-long staring contest, it holds less passion than any given scene from the Blue Lagoon (which was filmed with teenagers, I remind you). Having no dialogue, Tarzan's motivations are a mystery; he alternates between fear and fascination with Jane until they finally hook up immediately before the closing credits.

At one point, Tarzan is unconscious and Jane begins pawing after his body, remarking "I've never touched a man before!" while grinning like a schoolgirl. Lest you accuse the film of double standards, when Tarzan revives he spends about a minute feeling Jane's breasts. The difference, I suppose, is that Jane is intelligent enough to realize fondling Tarzan is wrong, yet does so anyway (and with glee); Tarzan is curious and uneducated. At various points I felt as though I was watching an adult molesting an innocent child, which is surely not the stuff sweeping love stories are made of.

Bo Derek starred as Jane Parker. I'm not too familiar with Derek's career, but this film certainly doesn't make a case for her being unjustly forgotten. Her performance was flat, wooden and miserable; the terrible script did nothing to help her and because she was in about 99% of the scenes, she was effectively the worst thing about any particular moment. Her only strength was her ability to drop her drawers and appear in the nude whenever the story demanded it (which was often). This was the reason for the film's R rating, but I can't say it was worth it; I mean, surely everyone who wanted to see her in the buff was already buying Playboy?

Richard Harris played James Parker, Jane's father. Harris threw so much loud, booming emotion into every single line delivery that he almost managed to overpower the terrible dialogue. Unfortunately, having begun his performance dialed up to eleven, he had nowhere to go with it. He provided the best laughs and it seemed like he was the only man on the production who knew he was making a turkey and felt he might as well kick back and enjoy himself. Like Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon, Harris brought his best "large ham" delivery... pity that unlike the former, Harris was the only actor worth his salt.

John Phillip Law held the enviable role of "Man there so Richard Harris has someone to talk to," otherwise known as Harry Holt. Although he was present for roughly 70% of the film he managed to have zero screen presence. I suppose it's an achievement.

Finally, the fourth-billed Miles O'Keeffe portrayed Tarzan. Having heard he was supposedly a terrible Tarzan, I'm here to say: he had the best performance in the picture. Obviously, this isn't saying much. He had no dialogue (even the "Tarzan yell" was recycled from Johnny Weissmuller's films) so had to carry himself with body language, like a silent film actor. Consequently, O'Keeffe was spared having to mouth any lines from the script and maintained his dignity, which ain't too shabby when you're playing a glorified boy toy in a loincloth being groped by Bo Derek. There were moments when O'Keeffe's eyes would project sensations of fear and confusion and at such times, I could completely relate to his character.

To leave this on an upbeat note... the filming locations in Sri Lanka and Seychelles were absolutely beautiful. Also, the Frank Frazetta artwork on the production company's title card was very good.