TARZAN AND HIS MATE (1934)
- 49 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Warner Archive Blu-Ray Review
by Roy Frumkes
Ever wonder what it would be like to see an unexpurgated Johnny Weissmuller/Maureen O’Sullivan Tarzan film from the golden days of Hollywood? Well, now’s your chance. There was such a gem, but it had barely snuck past the chomping jaws of the nascent censorship board when the alarms went off and TARZAN AND HIS MATE, the second of the MGM series, was disemboweled.
Three cuts of this loose-loinclothed version were released, then withdrawn, in 1934. Instantly realizing what they’d done, the studio censors first trimmed some male nudity of the lead villain (womanizer Paul Cavanagh) sinking into a ramshackle tub. We assume he’ll be blocked by native carriers who have deliberately, strategically set down some boxes directly in our field of vision. But no. His rear protrudes clearly into view, if only for a moment. This naked glimpse was clearly designed for shock and amusement. And it was meant to be a teaser, a hopeful foreboding of more raunchy surprises ahead. As a teenager, I remember seeing the shot on late-night TV and couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. Later I discovered that peripheral glimpses in a long tracking shot during this sequence also allowed viewers to see a number of native women with their breasts exposed.
Great fun in Act One. But there was a second, far more tragic deletion, as Tarzan and his mate go for a playful morning swim…stark raving nude! The original film, TARZAN THE APE MAN, had a protracted swimming scene featuring the two of them, only without the nudity, and I imagine they were trying to top it. Which they certainly did, only to lose it to the nitrate elephant burial ground.
Alright, so it wasn’t O’Sullivan doing the swimming for her character; it was Josephine McKim, one of Weissmuller’s Olympic swimming team buddies. So what?! It’s a mesmerizing underwater ballet, and wonderfully erotic. Discovered in the vaults during Ted Turner’s reign over the MGM film library, it was integrated back into the original in 1986, forty-plus years after its assumed eradication and twenty-six years after the death of its director, Cedric Gibbons. For me it’s not dissimilar to Carl Dreyer’s THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, long thought lost but suddenly rediscovered in a broom closet.
Apparently there was also some gratuitous lion footage, trimmed for violence rather than nudity. I’m not sure if we ever got to see any of those moments, or if they would have even been considered worthy of restoration by the powers that be. Weissmuller definitely qualified. Maureen/McKim, absolutely. Cavanagh, yes. The lion…eh. Maybe in respect for the MGM logo…
Today, two generations later, it stands as one of the great adventure films of the period, along with the likes of GUNGA DIN and KING KONG. And KING KONG had its share of confrontations with the post-production scalpel blade. Gone were the close-ups of natives screaming as they are chomped on by Kong in frame-filling shots. And later, in NYC, as the ape runs amok looking for the high ground, he pulls a woman out of a skyscraper window and, finding her not to be his blonde squeeze, Ann Darrow, blithely drops her to the cement far below. Those two trims transformed Kong from a vicious animal into an all-American ape, courtesy of the Hays Office.
With 1939’s GUNGA DIN, it was neither violence nor nudity that brought out the ‘Tinsel Town’ reaper, but an actor playing Rudyard Kipling who reads a passage from the author’s 1890 poem “Gunga Din,” apparently without total clearance, so that when the Kipling family protested, the image was technically blotted out (but has since been restored).
The April 1965 issue of ‘Films in Review’ features an in-depth career article about Cedric Gibbons, written by George Erengis. Gibbons’ advent into the art departments of Hollywood began in the silent era. In 1920, having already art directed over 100 films, he tackled THE RETURN OF TARZAN for Samuel Goldwyn, designing all the jungle accoutrements and prefiguring TARZAN AND HIS MATE, the masterpiece he was to helm in 1934 – and the only feature film he ever directed.
In discussing TARZAN AND HIS MATE, the FIR writer characterized Gibbons as “an artist who set a standard for Art Direction that raised the movies’ cultural level.” Gibbons’ art direction at MGM, he added, “…is sometimes aspersed on the ground that its opulence was all too evident too often. The charge is a superficial one. The art direction in MGM films under Gibbons set a standard which all other art direction, here and abroad, constantly strove to equal.” In his prolific career he created the look for such films as the silent BEN-HUR, THE BIG PARADE, THE MERRY WIDOW, DINNER AT EIGHT, THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE YEARLING, GASLIGHT, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, LUST FOR LIFE, SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, and FORBIDDEN PLANET. And let’s not forget GONE WITH THE WIND. He won eleven Academy Awards and, always the art director, designed the statuette as well!
As for the jungle sweethearts, Maureen found Weissmuller to be a friendly adolescent (although he was twenty-nine when the film was released, so it was a mixed compliment), but she thoroughly detested Cheetah, the chimpanzee. Interesting, since the monkey gets the second-best action sequence in the film as he tries to save Tarzan, racing through the jungle, avoiding danger at every turn, and even his screams hit genuine emotional peaks at the appropriate moments.
Staying with Cheetah for a moment, and the Herculean task he performs, brings to mind a 1933 film called DUCK SOUP starring the irrepressible Marx Bros. Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly, leader of the small, chaotic nation of Freedonia who goes to war and, when all seems lost, his call for help is answered.
Rufus: Carry on, men, help is on the way!
Fire engines race out of the firehouse in fast motion.
Runners come running.
Rowers are rowing.
Swimmers are madly swimming.
Baboons come screaming.
An elephant stampede comes trumpeting.
More baboons.
More elephants.
And they’re all converging from different directions, making their way to the beleaguered kingdom.
This was a year prior to TARZAN AND HIS MATE, mind you. And they all speed it up in the effects house. Very funny.
And there was a silent short, now lost in the nitrate swamp, called BABOONATICS. I wonder if they went for the fast motion too?
The differences between the Blu-ray and the DVD of TARZAN AND HIS MATE assert themselves even before the narrative begins, as Cedric Gibbons’ name in the opening credits is nearly impossible to read on the DVD, but looks as sharp as a bell on the Blu-ray.
Paul Cavanagh’s dipping-of-the-tush is harder to catch in both versions, possibly because it is such a clutter-filled studio set, which would be Gibbons’ fault. Even though he was directing, it was still him toying with the use of confined space.
The underwater ballet is a tricky one – the light and the grain shift so greatly from shot to shot that each rendering of the scene favors one shot over another. I’m pretty sure that I saw pubic hair in one of the shots, but it was not visible in the other.
And Jane running around during the action-packed ending often finds the camera looking up her loincloth. Absolutely a film for adults as well as kids.
A few words about racism, which existed everywhere in the formative American film industry, and even more offensively in films made in the 60s when they should have known better (BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961 – offender Mickey Rooney), EL DORADO (1967 – offender James Caan), were certainly highlighted in the three films discussed here: TARZAN AND HIS MATE, KING KONG, and GUNGA DIN. However, I find the casting and screenwriting less problematic today than the speeded-up camera moves of the Black characters running and screaming idiotically through the underbrush, or the demeaning musical cues that make fools of them. You, me, and everyone else have acknowledged the stereotypes of Hollywood’s past, but not the abundant post-production offenses. These less apparent travesties should pay their dues one of these days…
Six TARZAN flicks used to come in a boxed set, with a final disc of supplements. TARZAN AND HIS MATE is being released as a stand-alone Blu-ray disc, and you shouldn’t just see it…you should buy it!
A final amusing anecdote, if true: Weissmuller spent his last months in a nursing home facility where apparently all the other patients, much to their dismay, were constantly serenaded with that high-decibel jungle scream.
TARZAN AND HIS MATE can be purchased by clicking HERE:
Comments