Wonderful character development!

Very disappointed :(

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

This early Tarzan film, produced without the backing of a major studio, is primitive and crudely made, and the story (written by Edgar Rice Burroughs himself!) is formulaic, but it has plenty of action, some impressive animal performances, and, in Buster Crabbe, a Tarzan who is both sturdy and nimble. Lots of beefcake here. It would be welcome news if the entire serial (this movie is only the first 4 chapters) was discovered some day. **1/2 out of 4.

I don't know about the serial, but the movie version is terrible. It's just Tarzan running around in a thong, getting his naked butt cheeks kicked. The movie made him look like a complete idiot. Did the filmmakers hate Tarzan or something? I've seen a lot of Tarzan movies, and this is the only one I really didn't like. It smells worse than Cheetah's armpits.

Tarzan the Fearless (1933)** (out of 4)Mary Brooks (Julie Bishop) travels into the jungle with some men to search for her missing father. Thankfully she runs into Tarzan (Buster Crabbe) who helps on her search as well as helps fight some of the bad people in her group. TARZAN THE FEARLESS is a pretty bad movie that features all sorts of campy moments but I think it remains watchable because it does have a certain charm thanks to its badness. Originally this was meant to be a 12-part serial but sadly that version is now missing. The producer basically took the first four chapters and turned them into this movie so that will explain why things sometimes don't make sense or that the story is jumping all around the place. Without the serial to see exactly what they did, it's hard to say if they improved anything but most of the time these serial chapters to features don't work. There are quite a few campy moments with this film and most of them are Tarzan himself. He has a really silly and annoying howl here that will certainly make you laugh. As with the first MGM film, Tarzan can't speak here so instead of talking to Mary he always breaks into this weird laugh that makes him seem rather slow. It's clear Crabbe was going for a different type of performance because he makes the Tarzan character more of a mentally challenged person than anything else. Bishop is certainly easy on the eyes as the love interest. Philo McCullough was actually good as the main villain and we get Edward Woods playing the good guy. The film is full of stock footage, fights with lions and of course the eye-rolling moment of yet another beauty getting into their bathing suit and going swimming when of course a croc shows up. TARZAN THE FEARLESS is a real mess of a movie but fans of bad cinema should get a few kicks out of it.I will also say that Turner Classic Movies showed a 87-minute version, which I actually found much better than an earlier version running 71-minutes and included on one of those public domain packs. If you think the fuller version doesn't make much sense try watching that shorter one!

Landing far towards the bottom in many folks' ranking of the Tarzan films, this one has far more charms than it's usually given credit for. Produced separately (and far more cheaply) than the famed Weissmuller/MGM films of the era, this one stars former Olympic champion Crabbe as the ape man. He has befriended a gentleman explorer and researcher (Warren) whose daughter (Wells), along with her suitor (Woods), is en route to find him in the dense jungle. When the safari guides spot Crabbe, they decide to kill him in order to collect a 10,000 pound reward on his head from his enemies in England. Wells, however, is rescued from an alligator by Crabbe and she falls for him, determined to do whatever it takes to save him from slaughter. Meanwhile, a fanatic religious cult, a riled up band of natives and assorted lions add to all the troubles in the jungle. If it sounds like a crowded plot line, it's because the storyline was part of a 12 episode serial and this film is cobbled together from parts of the larger whole. As a result, the story is choppy, the editing is awkward at times and it lacks the coherence of a work intended to be a self-contained feature film and not a prolonged saga. However, especially for Tarzan enthusiasts, there are some pluses. Crabbe is stunning to look at. His adorable face and thick, curly hair compliment his impressive physique. His rather startling loincloth is brief, to say the least (except, oddly, in the swimming sequences when it is inexplicably replaced by a pair of leopard-print trunks!) He approaches the role with complete physical abandon, thrashing animal-like when excited, barely speaking at all and doing a significant amount of his own stunts. When Wells annoys him, he gives her a thump in the shoulder and when Tarzan says it's bedtime, it's BEDTIME! The rope swinging (and there is PLENTY of it!) is among the most realistic of all the films and there are some striking tussles with lions that certainly beat the one Victor Mature did in "Samson and Delilah". Some of the aspects of the film are laughably bad, such as the Eqyptianesque fanatics and crude editing which features people looking at things in the wrong direction or running the wrong way or not being able to see something that is in full view. Stay tuned for the scene near the end when a man in a gorilla suit enters the fracas when trying to get an elephant to rescue Crabbe from a pit!! There is also a lot of pausing before and after lines of dialogue, a symptom of the early days of sound film-making. Still, it's certainly worth a look and Crabbe will not be easy to forget, not only for his looks, but for his charm. The kooky finale has a chimp and an elephant dancing (!) along to music from a phonograph!!