The Best Tarzan?

[semperfi71]

I was amazed at the video of Jane swimming. I positively cannot believe that the scenes were actually shown in theaters back then. I can only imagine the "hurrah" in places like the Bible Belt of Texas in the 1930s.

Not sayin' it wasn't shown but amazed that it was.

For years I saw "Cheyenne Social Club" on T.V. Then I watched it for the first time on VHS (uncut). I was bowled over by the one scene with Jimmy Stewart and the "hostess" alone in the bedroom. Could not believe that scene was shown in theaters and drive-ins when the movie was released.

 

[Onomea]

Jim Thorpe.

Surely the best athlete among the many Tarzan acors, and I say that knowing Weissmuller was an Olympic swimmer. Heck. Buster Crabbe was one helluva an athlete in his own right...

Thorpe was incredible.

 

[26Ford]

I'm only 54 years old and was never a Tarzan guy. I called my mother and step dad, they said they both vote for Johnny Weismuller. Mom is 77 and my step father, who by the way is one of the last living original Navy Sea-Bees is 88.

 

[sheepdawg]

You're kidding aren't you? Johnny Weissmuller was the only Tarzan that wasn't "juju".


Tarzan's New York Adventure is my favorite, when he gets in the cab with Jane in the middle of New York City and asks Jane about the cab driver............."Man know trail?"

Or when Cheetah picks up the phone and talks to the guy at Club Moonbeam. Not very politically correct.

 

[Walter Rego]

I read the unabridged ER Burroughs Tarzan and agree that it should be remade as a movie that is true to the book. But just as Connery was the only Bond, Weissmuller was the only Tarzan. Christopher Lambert is cross eyed or something, he was terrible in my opinion.
I have two Weismuller Tarzan DVD box sets and just love them ! The later movies were kind of cheesy, but that was part of the fun.

 

[cowart]

I was amazed at the video of Jane swimming. I positively cannot believe that the scenes were actually shown in theaters back then.

In many places, they weren't shown.

Maureen O'Sullivan does not appear as Jane during the film's famous nude swimming sequence. O'Sullivan is instead doubled by Josephine McKim, a member of the 1924 and 1928 U.S. Womens' Olympic Swim Teams and one of the four U.S. swimmers on that team to win the 1928 gold medal in the 400-Meter Freestyle Relay.

The infamous nude swimming scene was originally filmed in three different versions: with Jane wearing her traditional costume, with Jane topless and with Jane fully nude. US states were empowered at that time to enact individual censorship laws, and three different versions of the scene were filmed in order to allow individual states to select the version of the scene which best conformed to its laws. All three versions were eventually removed from the film due to protests from conservative religious groups, particularly the powerful Catholic Legion of Decency. The nude version of the scene was discovered in the vaults of Turner Entertainment during the late 1990s following its purchase of the MGM film library, and was restored to most subsequent versions of the film on the direct orders of Turner Entertainment chairman Ted Turner. In the restored version of the scene, Tarzan is depicted wearing his traditional loincloth while Jane appears fully nude, her costume having been torn off when Tarzan playfully tosses her from a tree to the water below. The scene as it exists today is approximately four minutes in duration.

 

[Texas Star]

In many places, they weren't shown.

Maureen O'Sullivan does not appear as Jane during the film's famous nude swimming sequence. O'Sullivan is instead doubled by Josephine McKim, a member of the 1924 and 1928 U.S. Womens' Olympic Swim Teams and one of the four U.S. swimmers on that team to win the 1928 gold medal in the 400-Meter Freestyle Relay.

The infamous nude swimming scene was originally filmed in three different versions: with Jane wearing her traditional costume, with Jane topless and with Jane fully nude. US states were empowered at that time to enact individual censorship laws, and three different versions of the scene were filmed in order to allow individual states to select the version of the scene which best conformed to its laws. All three versions were eventually removed from the film due to protests from conservative religious groups, particularly the powerful Catholic Legion of Decency. The nude version of the scene was discovered in the vaults of Turner Entertainment during the late 1990s following its purchase of the MGM film library, and was restored to most subsequent versions of the film on the direct orders of Turner Entertainment chairman Ted Turner. In the restored version of the scene, Tarzan is depicted wearing his traditional loincloth while Jane appears fully nude, her costume having been torn off when Tarzan playfully tosses her from a tree to the water below. The scene as it exists today is approximately four minutes in duration.

Thanks for posting. I thought a double must have been used for the swimming scene.

 

[semperfi71]

Wow. Great info Cowart. Thanks for that.

 

[Rule 303]

I loved it when Johnny W. grabed a vine and crossed the creek swinging on it and the Nazis tried to wade across with the creek chock full of Piranhas. Johnny W. was da man.

Didn't know they had Piranhas in Africa.

Rule 303

 

[Texas Star]

I loved it when Johnny W. grabed a vine and crossed the creek swinging on it and the Nazis tried to wade across with the creek chock full of Piranhas. Johnny W. was da man.

Didn't know they had Piranhas in Africa.

Rule 303

They DON'T have piranhas in Africa. Artistic licence, I guess.

They do have "tiger fish", but they are very different, although you wouldn't like to be bitten by one. Google them and look for pics of them with open mouths. And I think they can reach 100 pounds in large lakes. They resemble striped bass with teeth from a nightmare.

But crocs and hippos are the real threats to human life in African waterways, although there are such things as water cobras, too.

The Tarzan books even had Tarzan killing deer instead of antelope! Really sloppy research! And the friendly Waziri tribe was silly. The actual Waziri are really Pathans, from around the Khyber Pass near Pakistan/ Afghanistan.

Burroughs did, though, know that a .45 was better for protection than smaller guns. His books mentioned that a few times.