Thursday, February 18, 2016

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (1955)

Gordon Scott takes over and the series begins to break away farther from the past and move more into the modern world. Tarzan's pigeon English is less pronounced and Jane is nowhere to be found.

The plot has Tarzan helping a pair of doctors (Peter van Eyck and Scott's future wife Vera Miles) in the jungle who get mixed up with a group of poachers. The poachers are running afoul of a hidden kingdom where animals are sacred by driving the animals across a river and killing them.  Since the medicos had vouched for the poachers (they didn't know their evil intentions) the King holds them responsible. Its up to Tarzan to sort it all out.

While in it's way a throw back to some of the earlier films with it's frequent use of studio and backlot sets the film does score over some other in the series by moving along at a good clip. Things happen and and the plot moves. There isn't really any wasted time on cuteness or unnecessary nonsense.

If there is any real problem it's that Scott looks a bit uncomfortable running around in a loin cloth. Actually he looks uncomfortable just being before a camera. Its understandable since this was Scott's first film and unless he's doing something he is very self aware. That would of course disappear since he had five more Tarzan's head of him plus he would become a staple of the Swords and Sandals genre making 14 appearances in muscle man movies..

Worth a look

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