good back-story, and good acting

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

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Tarzan vs. Nazis! Johnny Weissmuller is back as Tarzan, although no longer at MGM and instead produced at a more modest of budget at RKO, this time has the Lord of the Jungle fighting Nazis with the help of Frances Gifford, the princess of a lost city that's been invaded by Nazi paratroopers. This is more of a silly Hollywood WWII propaganda film than a genuine Tarzan story. Still, seeing Tarzan so out of place with this story is pretty entertaining both as a so-bad-it's-good type fo film due to the gonzo idea of Tarzan fighting Nazis, but also still kind of works as a straight adventure film. Overall, it's ridiculous, but it's also entertaining. Look for Sig Ruman as a Nazi, who'd later be better known as Sgt. Johann Sebastian Schulz on "Hogan's Heroes." FUN FACT! MGM would not let RKO use their iconic recording of Tarzan's jungle yell and RKO has to make their own new knockoff "Tarzan Yell."

'Now...Tarzan Make Propaganda!'A lot of people seem to have a bias against the RKO Tarzan films, but in truth, it was MGM which gradually morphed the Tarzan franchise from A-picture status to B-picture status, gradually reducing the budget and running time of each picture. And MGM had a bad habit of recycling footage from previous entries in the series...how many times did audiences have to watch the trapeze-vine and the crocodile-wrestling scenes? In fact, it was probably a good thing that the franchise migrated from MGM to RKO, because RKO made some of the best B-pictures of all time, including many classy ones like the Val Lewton horror series, whereas MGM treated their B-pictures like red-headed step-children. Here we get a brand-new plot and a good script, and we get to see Tarzan fighting a bunch of WW2 Jerries. Thanks to Indiana Jones, it turns out that Nazis are timeless villains, which likely would have surprised the creators of this film, who clearly were content to make a fun propaganda piece. Above all other considerations, we get Weissmuller and his distinctive portrayal of Tarzan. Maureen O'Sullivan, who was wonderful in her own right and who brought out the best in Weissmuller, is absent here, but we find that Our Hero delivers a good-to-excellent performance throughout, being strangely moving in the scene where Boy reads Jane's letter and his righteous fury is very effective when he utters this famous line: 'Now...Tarzan make war!' Frances Gifford was an excellent choice as the beautiful and brave princess Zandra, who besides being eye-candy for the adolescents and adults in the audience, has very good chemistry with Weissmuller. Perhaps the chemistry is a little too good...Zandra attempts to persuade Tarzan to help by engaging in some enjoyable flirtation...if Jane had seen the two swimming and sunbathing together, if she had seen Zandra leaning her head on Tarzan's bare chest in a moment of despair, she might not have come back from London in 'Tarzan and the Amazons.' The MGM Tarzan films were marred by blatantly racist depictions of African tribes. For some reason, the RKO Tarzans seem to have few dark- skinned African tribes, but numerous groups of hidden pale-skinned cities. I don't know why RKO's fictional Africa was populated this way, but I will speculate that it may be due to the fact that in WW2, the US govt. made certain efforts to squelch racism in the media, due to the fact that excessive racial oppression was deemed bad for the war effort. DC Comics, who published the Justice Society of America, did some anti-racism comics during the war, at the behest of the War Department. Whatever the reason, we are spared the usual bad African stereotypes, but at the same time, it is odd to think of an Africa inhabited mostly by pale-skinned people. The action and violence in this film are, by the standards of B-movies and Weissmuller Tarzans, very good and satisfying, particularly the sequence where Tarzan tracks and taunts the lead Nazi. Sig Ruman, who played Sgt. Shultz in my favorite Christmas movie, 'Stalag 17,' plays a comedy-relief Nazi here, to good effect. The Nazis go to Africa seeking oil and strategic mineral wealth, and they use military domination to secure their holdings...the Jerries' troops were called 'Africakorps.' Today, the USA and other military powers are still active in many African nations, perpetrating intrigue, fomenting violence, allying themselves with unsavory characters and regimes, so as to secure petroleum and strategic minerals, such as coltan, which is vital for cell phones and personal electronics. The USA has 'Africom.' Now more than ever, the world needs a Tarzan. Barring that possibility, at least we can watch and contemplate this fun adventure.

***SPOILERS*** Unintentionally hilarious WWII propaganda flick done in all seriousness, which makes it so funny, with the peace loving ani-gun and isolationist jungle man Tarzan, Johnny Weismuller, throwing away his pacifist ideas and taking the fight to the Nazis together with his jungle friends , lions elephants and chimpanzees, with all the fury of a summer monsoon.Like the famous Jimmy Durante quote "Everybody wants to get inta the Act" it was only a matter of time that Tarzan who was completely natural in the war between the allies and Nazi Germany would ends up joining the allies not because of anything what the Nazis were doing in Europe and North Africa but in his home ground darkest Africa! The evil Nazis lead by paratroop commander Col.Von Reichart, Stanley Ridges, had taken over the lost city of Palandrya and enslaved it's peace loving population to do the heavy lifting in mining and drilling the areas rich oil and mineral reserves. It's Tarzan's new girlfriend, with Jane now in London caring for her sick mom, Zandra, Frances Gifford, who gets the jungle man to take on the Nazis after they kidnapped his son Boy "The Boy Wonder", Johnny Sheffield.Tarzan as mad as a raging cape buffalo in that his private world, as well as son Boy, were being abused by the Nazis really goes bananas as he swings into action against them. In no time at all Tarzan has all the jungle animals as well as the now liberated and both now armed and non-passive Palandryans go on the warpath against the hated Nazi scum who thought that they could pull over them what they've been pulling over the occupied European population for the last three years. I noticed in the film that even though it was supposed to take place in darkest Africa there was not a single African or African/American actor in its entire cast?***SPOILERS***Memerable finale sequence with Tarzan chasing the now on the run, from the wild animals in the jungle, Col. Von Reichart taunting him by calling Col. Von Reichart "Nazi" which in Tarzan not being quite able to pronoun the world correctly sounded as if he was calling for ride by saying "Taxi". As things turned out it was one of Tarzan's jungle friends, a 500 pond lion, who ended up doing the colonel in by having him for lunch. We of course can't forget the real hero in the film, like he's in all Tarzan movies, Cheeta the friendly and mischievous chimpanzee who steals the show with both his crazy and monkey-like antics as well as his imitation of the Nazi German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler!

Two things elevate this Tarzan film above all the other latter Weismuller efforts. One, is the amusing tie-in to WWII flag-waving by pitting Tarzan against the Nazis. The other is Frances Gifford (who had excelled in as the star of the serial "Jungle Girl") as the breathtakingly beautiful Princess Zandra (wearing the first abbreviated costume since Maureen O'Sullivan in "Tarzan And His Mate"). You wonder in the end why Tarzan just didn't throw the absent Jane over and run off with her.