Just Imagine!

The movie Just Imagine from 1930 is one of those movies that has to be seen to be believed. Let me try to offer a nutshell description. Just Imagine is a science fiction musical set in the year 1980 which follows the romantic woes of two young lovers separated by the arcane marriage laws of the time. The hero and his friend take up with a man frozen since 1930 who must adapt to the wild future world as well as outer space when the three guys head to Mars. On Mars they find a strange culture of bizarre good and evil twins, but as we suspected at the beginning by the end all is well. 

I don't know if I want to say if Just Imagine is a good movie or not. I know I have to be in a right mood to delve into its strange world of flying cars and amateur spaceships. The society is intentionally weird and intended to upset the expectations of a typical 1930's movie goer. It upset mine and I lived through 1980. (It's difficult to know that we almost as far away from that future time now as the 1930 audience was from their target time. Yikes!) Maureen O'Sullivan is lovely as ever as the love interest named LN-18 and John Garrick is perfectly okay as the main hero J-21. His mate RT-42 is played by Frank Albertson. My favorite name is MT-3, the villain of the piece played by Kenneth Thomson. 

El Brendel plays the hapless chap who wakes up in 1980 having been asleep since 1930. Brendel is the comedy in this movie, and uses his Swedish accent material from Vaudeville to liven up the proceedings. The truly wacky stuff happens on Mars where the we find the strangest aliens on film to that point. I find these Martians more terrifying in their own way than the classic critters from War of the Worlds. It's ultra strange! 

This is an oddball movie and I don't really recommend it unless you are totally into this kind of weird cinema or can find it for little or no money. To that end let me offer this link to Youtube. Enjoy at your own peril. 

Rip Off

Tarzan's New York Adventure -1942!

Tarzan's New York Adventure is the final MGM Tarzan movie. After a decade with the character, the studio and the cast seem to have wearied of the project. This last movie starring Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane was something of an appeasement to her since it allowed her to dress in civilized up town fashion for much of the movie. The formula for the stories was well established by this time and can be seen here despite the abrupt changes of setting. 

The Tarzan clan (Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Johnny Sheffield) is again living happily on the little Eden hidden atop the mysterious Mutia Escarpment when a plane load of lion hunters arrives. The crew is made up of Manchester Montford (Chill Wills), a well-meaning circus man who is kindly to the Tarzan family by and large, Jimmy Shields (Paul Kelly) the pilot of the expediton, also a man of seeming integrity, and Buck Rand (Charles Bickford) the obligatory villain of this story. The trio soon encounter Tarzan who tells them to get out immediately. They ignore him and go about gathering up lions and such for the circus back in America. Boy meanwhile ignores Tarzan's warnings and goes to see the plane which fascinates him. The men see what magnificent control over elephants Boy has and want him for their show, at least Rand does, but Shields says no. Boy saves Montford from a deadly lion and then the Jacuni tribe appears to kill the expedition. Running for their lives the men make for the plane and Boy yells for Tarzan. Tarzan and Jane swing to his rescue but are seemingly killed when they fall together from the trees into a field which is set afire. Boy and the men leave the escarpment for civilization. 

Tarzan and Jane recover and soon enough head off for civilization to get Boy back. They find that thanks to gold they can maneuver quite well in society and led by Jane the duo head off to New York to get their son back. After a confrontation with Rand and his partner Colonel Ralph Sergeant (Cy Kendall) the two are forced to go to court to try and establish their right to Boy. The hearing goes well until Jane admits Boy was found and is not their natural son and a frustrated Tarzan violently puts an end to the proceedings. Jane admits that her civilized way has failed and Tarzan then leaves police custody and leads them on a wild jaunt across the face of New York City, eventually diving off the Brooklyn Bridge. He heads to the circus to find and Boy and confront the villains. Meanwhile Jane assisted by Jimmy Shields and his girl Connie Beach head to the circus too. Montford tries to keep the villains from making off with Boy but is killed for his trouble. Tarzan arrives and after a furious battle in which he enlists the aid of the circus elephants the villains are seemingly killed in a car crash. The story ends quickly as the court ignores Tarzan's escapades for the most part and the movie closes with the happy Tarzan family again swimming in their jungle paradise one more time.

This is one of the better Tarzan movies as putting the Ape Man into a new environment adds some variety and better establishes his unusual nature. Weissmuller also seems to play Tarzan a tad more sophisticated in this one, though sadly he stills speaks in that miserable broken English. Weissmuller's Tarzan is different in the MGM movies. In the first two he's quite the raw native, a man full of passion and energy, but in the later ones he becomes more childlike. In all of them though, he demonstrates a keen understanding of human nature and is able to size up the people he meets quickly. This movie alas has quite a bit of Cheetah who mugs for the camera in typical style. There is an extended scene where Cheetah plays with make-up and whatnot. It's perhaps good for the kiddies, but I weary of this stuff quite quickly. This movie also has some more racial stereotypes as Mantan Moreland has a few scenes playing up the black man as naive idiot. Tarzan also calls a porter a "Jacuni", making it seem that he sees all black men as the same. Given his acute understanding of people, this is a distressing slip. Chill Wills as Montford is a great character who doesn't get enough to do. As with all the characters who seem to show sympathy for the Tarzan family, he gets killed, so justifying the demise of the villains. It's a predictable part of the show, but I hoped this time it might be altered a bit.

 

The definite highlight of this movie is Tarzan's rampage across New York. Climbing buildings is fun and I especially liked when he threw the lawyer (Charles Lane) into the jury box. There is a ferocious quality in Weissmuller's portrayal here that is effective. But sadly too, Weissmuller is at the limit of his physical skills. He looks great in his tailored suit, but in the just the loin cloth he is beginning to lose his youthful trim. This is a very entertaining final MGM effort. RKO studios will take over the franchise and keep Weissmuller and Sheffield aboard, but O'Sullivan says good-bye in this one. It's been a wild and interesting decade of jungle adventures indeed.

Rip Off

Tarzan's Secret Treasure - 1941!

Tarzan's Secret Treasure is the fifth of the MGM Tarzan movies. With the addition of Boy in the last movie, the cast was established...almost. This movie sees the addition of Tumbo, a native boy, a "pickaninny" as one of the cast unfortunately refers to him later in the flick who gives the Mutia Escarpment family a little ethnic diversity as well as giving Boy someone to talk to besides himself and Cheeta. 

The story begins naively enough atop the escarpment when the Tarzan clan (Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Hara, and Johnny Sheffield) are frolicking and Boy picks up some gold nuggets from the river bed. Jane tells him what evil gold can do, but says also that it can bring things like airplanes and such. Boy wanting some of that experience, takes a few gold nuggets and leaves home and drops off the escarpment to find his way to a nearby Ubanda village where sadly a plague is underway. He saves a boy named Tumbo (Cordell Hickman) from a rhino and they arrive in time for Tumbo to see his mother die from the plague. The natives blame Boy for the disease and seek to burn him at the stake but he is saved when a safari arrives and they drive off the natives. A hectic battle ensues and the safari is under severe threat when Tarzan shows up and saves the day. To repay the men for saving his son, Tarzan agrees to take the safari, who are seeking only to research a remote tribe over the escarpment and to a shortcut to their destination. But along the way Boy tells two of the men Medford (John Conway) and Vandemeer (Phillip Dorn) about the gold and they get new ideas. The leader of the safari Professor Elliot (Reginald Owen) wishes only to honor his agreement with Tarzan and when Tarzan helps cure the comedy relief member O'Doul(Barry Fitzgerald), Elliot is even more convinced. But he contracts the disease and is allowed to die by Medford and Vandemeer who trick Tarzan away from the escarpment long enough for them to kidnap Jane and Boy. When Tarzan returns Medford blackmails him into showing him where the gold vein is located then seemingly shoots Tarzan in the back. The safari heads out but soon enough is captured by a hostile tribe who torture and murder the bearers. They take the rest of the safari down river. Meanwhile O'Doul has tricked his greedy comrades and gone back with Tumbo to rescue Tarzan and they race to save the safari. But despite a furious river battle, only Boy and Jane are saved. Medford and Vandemeer are killed by crocodiles as are many of the ferocious natives. The Tarzan clan plus Tumbo see O'Doul off atop an elephant as the story closes.

This one is pretty exciting actually. The formula is pretty fixed at this point and there are enough variations in this one to keep it fresh. The interaction between Boy and Tumbo gets somewhat tedious and the desire to give Boy a playmate is understandable, but frankly a little rewriting and poor Tumbo becomes totally unnecessary to the plot. It is refreshing though to see a black character with some attempt at depth. Cheetah does some dandy tricks this time, this particular Cheetah looking a bit younger and very nimble. The idea of Tarzan and his family sharing the escarpment with giant apes has been missing for several movies now, and all the "apes" are chimps. The use of the elephants as cavalry is even given a twist when instead of storming yet another native village, this time the elephants block boats on the river causing all sorts of death and mayhem. The crocodiles are retreads though as the croc battle with Tarzan from at least two previous movies is dusted off and shown again, at least in an abbreviated form. On the upside, the swimming looks great and there is a great scene where the Tarzan clan dives into the river one after another. It's spectacular and must've been a hoot in the theater. The villains in this one are reasonably dastardly, especially Tom Conway who sneers wit the worst of them. Reginald Owen is pretty naive and Barry Fitzgerald is pretty funny here and there, though his ability to keep up with Tarzan as he races through the jungle is extremely far fetched. But then this is a Tarzan movie and far fetched is the order of the day. 

One nice thing in this one was a scene with just Jane and Tarzan which intentionally attempted to evoke the classic romance scenes they shared in the first two great movies. They cuddle on the river bank in and look again like two lovers and not just a jungle Ozzie and Harriet. It adds some spice to think that there is still some bungling going on in the jungle after all. 

Rip Off

Tarzan Finds A Son - 1939!

With this fourth entry the series seeks to rekindle some of the energy drained after the confusion of the last movie. But Maureen O'Sullivan's problems with the role of Jane creates an oddly effective climax for the movie. 

Here's the summary. A plane carrying the Lord and Lady Greystoke (named Lancing oddly) crashes on the remote Mutia Escarpment and all the adults aboard are killed by the crash or by natives who discover the crash. The lone survivor is the young baby son of the Greystokes. He is found by Cheetah and his mates who take him (rather roughly actually) to Tarzan and Jane who end up adopting him naming him "Boy". A few years pass and more Lancings come looking. The old Gaboni attack footage is dusted off again but the safari gets atop the escarpment this time with little trouble. Soon we meet the obligatory white hunter named Sande (Henry Wilcoxin) and the greedy husband and wife Lancings (Morton Lowry and Freida Inescort) as well as the noble Sir Thomas Lancing (Henry Stephenson). They meet the Tarzan clan and pretty quickly figure out that the "son" of the Jane and Tarzan is the heir they need to get hold of a fortune. The greedy couple with Sande plot to trick Jane into getting Boy to them and Sir Thomas is tied up. Jane does but has to betray Tarzan by trapping him in a deep ravine. She and Boy are quickly tipped off by Sir Thomas that evil is afoot but he is killed for his trouble. Almost as quickly another murderous tribe captures the safari and begin the torture deaths of the whole party beginning as usual with the unfortunate bearers. Jane plots to have Boy run through a gap in the wall of their prison but is speared in the back. Boy rescues Tarzan after a dangerous jaunt through the jungle. The evil Lancing is killed just as Tarzan and his elephant shock troops arrive to destroy the village and rescue Sande and the Lancing woman. He quickly sends them away and Jane assumes she must go too, but then swoons as if dead. Tarzan embraces her, but she recovers and the trio rides off into the sunset yet again, a happy family once more.

  Apparently O'Sullivan wanted out of the role and the original script had her killed off. But executive pressure changed that situation and so she is suddenly all better. But oddly the shift does add an actual moment of tension in a story which by this time was becoming loaded down with predictability. Boy (Johnny Sheffield) is not a bad addition to the cast as he takes up a lot of the screen time that was once overwhelmed by a mugging Cheetah. I prefer seeing Boy to seeing Cheetah larking through the jungle so it works for me here. But it does make Tarzan and Jane even more domestic than before. This time Jane seems to have added shoes to her clothing, making her less and less the daughter of Eden and more and more a product of civilization once again. The first two movies seemed to be about getting her clothes off and the last two about getting them back on again. Johnny Weissmuller is still physically able to do the part, his age not showing too much. His swimming scenes are especially nice in this one and most the swinging in the trees is repeated from earlier films. Tarzan does behave less like a child in this one, a real problem in the previous movie. 

Sadly though the movies are getting more than a bit dull as the patterns begin to repeat. The savagery of ERB's Ape Man is getting more and more difficult to discern among all the calm home life that dominates the Mutia Escarpment.

 Rip Off

Tarzan Escapes - 1936!

This third entry in the MGM Tarzan series is a real whopper. As it turns out, by 1936 the censor's axe had fallen and our scantily-clad heroine was much less au-naturale in this flick. Jane went from near-naked vixen to prim domestic in one movie. It's a shame really. Another thing knocked out of this movie was any real sense of danger or adventure. That's even more a shame. 

The story gets underway when two civilized types (Benita Hume and William Henry) drop off the boat in Africa and announce they are Jane's cousins and if they don't find her everyone will miss out on a big inheritance. A great white hunter type named Captain Fry (John Buckler who was tragically killed before the movie even came out) takes them out on safari to the dangerous Mutia Escarpment but seems to have plans all his own and takes a giant metal cage to make them happen. The way to the Mutia Escarpment seems different this time as they go by boat most of the way, but they hit land just in time to make good use of some stock footage of the Gaboni attack from last movie. A quick climb (with the obligatory fall-to-their-doom deaths of a few no-name bearers) and they are on top and soon enough encounter Tarzan and his bride (Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan). They are taken to the pair's new digs, an outstanding tree house which Gilligan himself would find comfortable powered by a gang of animals in a pre-Flinstonian manner. 

The tone shifts when Jane plans to leave with her relatives and Tarzan goes off in a snit. The safari makes for home, but Fry plots to trap the Ape Man and show him off at a profit in some way. He kills Rawlins (Herbert Mundin), a colleague who has come to respect Tarzan and soon enough captures the Ape Man who is still glum that Jane is leaving. But Fry's plans go awry when the local native chief double-crosses him and all of the safari are captured and soon to be killed by being split in twain on two giant trees. Tarzan though has managed with the help of two elephants to escape the cage (hence the name of the movie) and he saves the lot of them by leading the whole safari into a cave which is bubbling with sulferous intensity. Fry is forced by Tarzan to stay there and soon enough dies and the cousins say that Jane really didn't need to come after all, so she and Tarzan are happily reunited as the movie comes to an end.

 

It's a pretty tired plot with lots of comedy relief from Cheeta and the doomed henchman Rawlins. There is quite a bit of footage reused from the last movie including some of Cheetah's romp through the jungle. I find these things tiresome, but I guess the kiddie audience of the time was intrigued. And the kiddie audience was of most importance as this movie was largely gutted to spare the little darlings from a scare. 

Famously, the original story here was smashed and put backed together many times because the original tale was deemed too scary, since it had some awesome cave bats which attacked the party. A lot of money was apparently spent on this sequence and then it was cut out, and so far the footage has remained lost. There are stills and the original story can be read in a Big Little Book which came out in connection with the movie. Here's a link to read the text of the original. All in all, I'd have to give Tarzan Escapes a good grade for acting, but alas it falls well short on story and cohesiveness. More's the pity. 

 Rip Off

Tarzan And His Mate -1934!

Tarzan and his Mate is the sequel to the quite successful MGM Tarzan the Ape Man from two years before. There is a distinct change in the level of action in this one, as the spectacle (and the budget) have been greatly increased. 

The story picks up one year after the events of the last flick and Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) is still running the trading store operated in partnership with Jane Parker's late father. He though still has plans to return to the Mutia Escarpment with a large safari and gather up much of the ivory from the "Elephants' Graveyard" discovered in the previous movie. He calls in a school chum named Martin Arlington (Paul Cavanaugh) who is a bit of a cad with the ladies. These two are thwarted when Harry's map is stolen by two white hunters named Pierce and Van Ness. A quick safari finds the two thieves dead, the map gone, and the whole group is then attacked by the murderous Gaboni tribe and driven to the foot of the Mutia Escarpment. The survivors head up the cliff but are attacked by ferocious apes but are saved when Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) and Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) arrive. The two hunters are met with kindness, but Martin quickly begins to eye the lovely Jane. Tarzan agrees to take them to the graveyard but reneges when he learns they want to take the ivory. Martin then critically wounds an elephant, and the safari follows it to the site, but they are stopped when Tarzan and vast herd of elephants appear. Jane stops the battle when Martin and Harry agree to leave empty handed. They spend the night at the graveyard, but the next morning Martin shoots an unsuspecting Tarzan and tells Jane he was killed by a crocodile. The safari loads up with ivory again and heads out only to stopped by the native tribe named "The Men Who Eat Lions". These ferocious tribesmen kill the bearers and trap the rest in a cave and call upon a great herd of lions to kill them. Harry sacrifices himself to save his top bearer and Martin is killed by a lion. But Tarzan who has been nursed by the apes shows up and saves Jane and calls down a great herd of elephants to rout the ferocious lions. The two ride off into the sunset, rejoined in their jungle Eden.

The first thing you notice about this movie is the greater sense of scale. The battles are huge, much larger than before and the safari is made up of very large groups of men. There is a real sense of the scope of a Burroughs novel in this one, despite of course this story having little to do with the details of any of the novels themselves. Jane and Tarzan are living an idyllic life in the trees, making love and catering to one another surrounded by wild animals of all types. Tarzan's job seems mostly to feed his wife, make love to her, and save her from all sorts of critters. He saves her in this movie from a lion, a rhino, and a crocodile. All the battles are real showstoppers with great energy and by and large convincing effects (if you don't look too closely). Cheeta again shows up to ramble around the jungle, but this time we are specifically told that this is the scion of the original Cheeta from the last movie who has gotten quite large. The original sacrifices himself to save Jane from the rhino. As in the first movie, Cheeta stops the narrative when the director feels the need to follow the chimp's migration through the jungle. I get the need to feed the young audience, but I find Cheeta to be a pain by and large. 

This movie contains the notorious nude swimming scenes which are quite lovely. Jane and Tarzan are both wearing very little through most of this movie, a fact heightened by Jane changing into civilized wear off and on through the tale. Their nakedness is part of the allure I'm sure, and this scene, removed from later prints of the movie is an elegant water ballet. There is a great deal of charm in this movie, and I appreciate how it picks up the story so directly from the one a few years earlier. It limits the need for exposition. Harry Holt is changed only in that for some reason he and Jane are now old friends from England, whereas in the first one they met for the first time. It's clearly a change meant to focus on Jane's choice to stay in the jungle or return to her former life, something Harry wants desperately since he loves her. His death closes that door. You have to feel sorry for the native bearers in these movies. In both films so far all of them have been killed in some very unsettling ways. In this movie scores of men are killed in the search for ivory, for riches, and the movie seems to suggest this quest motivated by greed is inherently dangerous. 

This is considered by some to be the best of the MGM Tarzan movies, and I don't disagree.

 Rip Off

Tarzan The Ape Man - 1932!

Johnny Weissmuller replaced Herman Brix (the most ideal-looking Tarzan -- more about him later) in MGM's epic telling Edgar Rice Burroughs' story about a noble white wild man named "Tarzan". What did the screenwriters keep from the original story by ERB? Africa as a setting, a free-spirited girl named Jane, and a budding romance between her and a lost young man who lives among apes. That's pretty much it. The rest of the classic story is jettisoned. The reason is that all MGM bought from ERB is the trademarked name "Tarzan" and not the rights to the novel. What replaces it? Here's a summary for those benighted souls who might not have seen this historic flicker. 

Jane Parker (not "Porter") (played by a ravishing Maureen O'Sullivan) joins her crusty ivory-seeking white hunter father James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) and his debonair partner Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) to seek riches beyond the mythical Mutia Escarpment. Once there they encounter a mysterious white man who seems to have live most if not all his life among primitive apes (a blend of men and suits and chimps) and who seems to be the relative master of his isolated domain. Tarzan (as Jane will learn he is called) kidnaps Jane and then later she is rescued but Tarzan's "mother" is killed. He seeks vengeance killing porters in the safari, and eventually kidnaps Jane again but is wounded. Jane tends Tarzan's head wound, they fall in love, consummate their romance and then they once again encounter her forlorn father and his partner and their diminished party. But just as soon as Jane rejoins them, they are captured by "dwarves" and killed off one by one by being thrown into a pit with a giant gorilla (the great Ray Corrigan). But Tarzan arrives with elephant forces to destroy the village and rescue the injured Parker, Holt and Jane. Parker then follows a wounded elephant to the legendary ivory-strewn graveyard only to immediately die himself. Jane stays with her love and Holt returns to civilization. ERB never wrote this story, but he well could have. Tarzan's origins are never much discussed in this tale, he just is, a fully-grown forest god. Since the story is largely told from Jane's perspective this makes sense, since there is no practical way for her to know. There are no tell-tale cabins full of clues to reveal his true identity in this one. The focus is on romance.

And the romance is a fairly lustful one for this pre-Code saga. Jane arrives in Africa with trunk after trunk of necessary things, but steadily as the movie develops, she is stripped of one thing after another, her civilized patina disappearing with her clothes. Eventually she falls for this Forest God, and is unapologetic for it. Radical stuff indeed for any time. Running over ninety minutes the movie does drag a bit, especially during the climax when the filmmakers seem to think long minutes watching chimps and such ramble through the jungle is interesting. Likewise a news reel like intro to African natives at the beginning of the movie is clumsy and seems to be mere padding. One of the reasons to make Tarzan the Ape Man was in fact to use up more footage shot for the very successful jungle movie Trader Horn. 

The special effects are pretty uneven. The ears on the Indian elephants are a disaster, and the trapeze set ups in the trees are too easy to spot. But by and large the battles Tarzan has with water buffaloes, lions, and apes are pretty convincing. The ape suits are sometimes effective and sometimes not. The movie succeeds brilliantly in the area of tone. The quiet of the film is impressive. No score undermines the moments, but only a somber quiet which is likely not itself accurate of the jungle, but is surely suggestive of a natural idyllic setting. There's a leisurely nature to this movie which complements its theme. The jungle sets work best when Tarzan and Jane are lounging around showing off their handsome shapes and promoting the devil-may-care lifestyle of the jungle. They are a handsome couple and sizzle despite Weissmuller's limited acting ability. He's still able to shoot a smokey look at his soft captive which speaks volumes.

Tarzan The Ape Man was produced by the same team which had created Trader Horn, the very successful movie from the year previous. This is a long movie which deserves to be sampled when one has proper time to enjoy it. A fine wine of movies, uneven but ultimately satisfying.

 Rip Off