Some things I liked some I did not.

Charming and brutal

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Although the MGM Tarzan films with Johnny Weissmuller were usually of high quality I had some problems with Tarzan Escapes. This film which does have a bit of continuity in it to connect with the two previous Weissmuller outings, I had some trouble wrapping my mind around the plot.The story has Maureen O'Sullivan's cousins from Great Britain, William Henry and Benita Hume searching for Jane to resolve an inheritance issue back in the old country. They want her to go, but their guide John Buckler also would like to get the famous white ape man Tarzan back into civilization for exhibition.Try as I might I could not believe that Buckler was able to trick Tarzan as easily as he did. The Tarzan we know has a lot more jungle smarts than what is shown here. Of course he doesn't stay captive long, it helps to be on a first name basis with all the elephants in the jungle.Herbert Mundin is always good to have around as he plays Buckler's assistant and one with a conscience. Mundin played a variation on his role as the timid seaman in Mutiny On The Bounty in Tarzan Escapes. Mundin was always a favorite of mine and his death in a car crash in 1940 robbed the screen of a very funny character actor.But what was really freaky was reading about John Buckler who was killed right after making this film also in a car crash with his father, actor Hugh Buckler. Buckler drowns in a swamp in this one and in real life drove into a river and also drowned.Though the film has the usual MGM production values that a place like RKO couldn't bring to its later Tarzans, the story here was a bit much for me to swallow.

"Tarzan Escapes" is both a beautiful love story and great jungle adventure—I couldn't ask for nothing else since this movie even gives us the violence. This time we see Tarzan battling a crocodile, cutting it with his knife, the blood flowing in the river water. There are some recycled scenes that seem lifted from the first film such as a rescue consisting of a great elephant stampede, Cheetah the orangutan fleeing a lion, and Tarzan having to save Jane and her cousins from a savage native tribe.What is unique about this one is the unwavering affection between Tarzan and Jane, their devotion to each other is touching and sweet. What is super cool, if totally unrealistic, is the architectural dynamo that is Tarzan and Jane's treehouse! They even have an elevator (made out of wood) with a rope that is pulled by an elephant's nose which allows people to be lifted up to the treehouse, not to mention, Tarzan has developed a water system and bridge that connects two treehouses. Oh, and Jane now can swing from vines, and her costume is an amazing patchwork of fabrics which cover all the bits, showing off her stunning figure and legs. She also has these amazing curly locks as if Jane had her own cosmetologist on standby in the jungle somewhere. Tarzan still wears the loincloth, bellows the familiar iconic yell, and remains language-impaired (but is getting better the longer he spends with Jane).I think the best scene could be a POV shot as Tarzan draws closer to Jane (she looks adoringly right at us, to the camera, with director Thorpe also quickly showing Tarzan's face before he accepts her open arms), a flower in her hand released into the water next to her, obviously implying that the two are about to make love. There's this awesome scene where two elephants help Tarzan escape from a steel cage by bending the bars with their snouts! The villain of this particular Tarzan movie is "great white hunter" Captain Fry (John Buckler, who would die in a car accident drowning the same year), who sees a profit in exploiting Tarzan's gifts with animals in England, making a potential alliance with a heathen tribe, which goes awry.Maureen O'Sullivan, a sophisticated and gentle little beauty, has some marvelous scenes where she faces splitting from Tarzan, the very notion of such a separation anguishing, but important in her mind because to sign a "piece of paper" (she was willed a fortune but doesn't really have an interest in wealth because of her happiness in the uncivilized world with Tarzan) would provide her cousins Rita (Benita Hume) and Eric (William Henry) with a comfortable income and living. Herbert Mundin is Fry's bumbling, cowardly right hand man, Rawlins, completely utilized as a comic foil for not only Tarzan, but is the victim of monkey laughter as one orangutan gets the giggles when he attempts to swing on a vine. Tragic consequences for Rawlins when he discovers the sneaky, underhanded Fry's nefarious scheme; Fry, you just know, will get his comeuppance. There's this atmospheric swamp Tarzan will lead Jane and company through in order to escape the savage natives who fear the "ju-ju" of such a scary place with iguanas lurking about. I would LOVE to see the original film before "Tarzan Escapes" was reshot (the crew and some cast members replaced) which has gained a notoriety for having been too graphically violent. That said, I found much to enjoy with this Tarzan adventure. The kid in me just eats this up. Some might find this a bit campy (considering Cheetah's antics and Rawlins' goofy bumpkin) and its romance story a bit sappy, but I really adore the casting of Weissmuller and O'Sullivan as Tarzan and Jane; their genuine chemistry I find irresistible. I thought Buckler was very good as the treacherous Fry because he seems like a trustworthy gentleman (you do see glimpses of a dark side like when he whips some of his African slaves), only to show his true greedy self which backfires on him; his fate is particularly disturbing as Tarzan will not allow him to follow them to safety. Seeing Tarzan and Jane grappling with the idea of being apart is really kind of gut-wrenching!

TARZAN ESCAPES (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1936), directed by Richard Thorpe, based on the characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, reunites Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan in their third outing as Tarzan and Jane. While this ranks as one of the finer films in the series, it's best known today mostly for an intense scene that doesn't exist in the finished product. Following the controversial TARZAN AND HIS MATE (1934) with such notables as Jane's skimpy two-piece outfit along with her long shot skinny dipping alongside Tarzan, TARZAN ESCAPES does have its moments of controversy such as some graphic violence, with much of it trimmed, hence the Production Code that had recently gone into effect.The story starts off with plot development and character introduction involving Rita and Eric (Benita Hume and William Henry) who hire Captain Fry (John Buckler, whose physical appearance resembles that of Basil Rathbone) to lead them to the Mulia Escarpment and locate their cousin, Jane Parker, living somewhere in the jungles of Africa. During their expedition, which consists of Herbert Henry Rawlins, better known as Jiggs (Herbert Mundin), and Bomba, (Darby Jones), Fry's native boy, the Parkers do find Jane (O'Sullivan), taking residence in a tree house with Tarzan (Weissmuller), her mate. After a happy reunion, Rita informs Jane of a large inheritance and must return to England in order to claim it. Learning that they have financed the expedition with their last savings, and being torn between her loyalty to her family and Tarzan, Jane agrees to go on the condition that she's spend an entire day with Tarzan before departing, with the indication that Tarzan understands that she will be return after signing the documents to have the couple rightfully claim the money. In the meantime, Fry, who reveals himself as a conniving villain, convinces Tarzan that Jane is never coming back and succeeds into tricking Tarzan into a specialty built metal cage where he attempts to take the jungle man back to civilization where Fry attempts to make money by showcasing him as a circus attraction.TARZAN ESCAPES has Tarzan doing just as the title indicates. After he is caged, and desperate in reclaiming Jane, he manages to break out with the help of his elephant friends, and avenge himself on the evil Fry. As mentioned earlier, the most celebrated scene missing from the final print is the one where Tarzan fights off devil bats and hostile pygmies in a haze-shrouded swamp. According to one of the "Tarzan" documentaries featuring O'Sullivan reminiscing about how the terrifying devil bat scene took nearly a week to complete, only to be deleted following a preview by which audiences found too intense. Although much of the movie had been toned down through edits and revisions, which explains why it was in production for nearly two years, the finished product of TARZAN ESCAPES can still be considered graphic for its time anyway, especially in what results with certain characters, especially Captain Fry, making this possibly the last "adult oriented" Tarzan adventure. Herbert Mundin as Jiggs, along with Tarzan's pet chimp, Cheetah, set the tone in breaking away from the seriousness in obtaining moments of amusement, such as Jiggs attempting to swing from tree to tree on Tarzan's vine with not much success. This became the last in the series to provide Jane with her operatic distress call as well as her leaping from the tree into the arms of Tarzan like a professional acrobat.As much as Johnny Weissmuller can be criticized for his bad acting at times, and doing nothing more than being Tarzan of the movies, belting out his jungle yells for example, he's more articulate than in the previous two films, with his speech consisting of mono syllables that would remain through the duration of the Tarzan/Weissmuller series, he convincingly shows the emotional impact and tender side to his character, especially the thought of losing Jane. In a rare instance used in the series, Tarzan's fight in him is gone and at this point doesn't care what happens to him as he lets himself get captured by hunters. He shows his true love for Jane in allowing her return to England, especially through those sentimental moments as the couple spend their last day together at their own private Garden of Eden swimming and resting themselves alongside the lake. This tender scene usually got the ax whenever this 90 minute movie played on a 90 minute time shot on commercial television, which could be shown that way without spoiling the continuity so to have longer ad time. Regardless of difficulties in getting this movie completed, this third MGM installment is certainly no disappointment. TARZAN ESCAPES, along with other Tarzan adventures produced by MGM, were distributed on video cassette in the early 1990s, and presented, with the exception of TARZAN THE APE MAN (1932), to have a successful run on American Movie Classics from 1997 to 2000, before premiering on Turner Classic Movies in June 2004 along with its distribution on DVD about the same time.(***) Next chapter: TARZAN FINDS A SON (1939).

Third film in the Johnny Weissmuller--Maureen O'Sullivan Tarzan series. Two of Jane's cousins come to the jungle to persuade her to return to civilization. With them is safari hunter Captain Fry (John Buckler) who secretly has plans to capture Tarzan and bring him back to civilization as a sideshow attraction. And then there is the vicious native tribe near by...Not as good as the first two (which were great) but still very enjoyable. This film was a disaster--it took 2 years to make and went through multiple rewrites, reshoots, cutting, editing and was overhauled completely when a test audience hated it. The film is pretty violent (for 1936) but the original was even more so with a vampire bat sequence that got completely cut out! The sex has been toned down too--Jane is dressed VERY modestly this time around and she's fully clothed during the underwater swimming sequence (she was totally nude in "Tarzan and his Mate". Still, this film isn't really for kids. The violence IS pretty strong. Also Tarzan and Jane's tree house is quite elaborate this time around. And there are shots of Cheetah laughing that are hysterical.The acting varies--Weissmuller is very good as Tarzan--his emotions show clearly through his face (but he does look a little old in a few sequences); O'Hara is still bad as Jane and everybody else is TERRIBLE--especially Buckler and Herbert Munder (stuck with the thankless "comic" relief role).Still this is fast-moving with plenty of action. Worth catching.