Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
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Tarzan the Ape Man Movie Review
Tarzan the Ape Man is a 1932 adventure film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. It truly is an interesting experiment.
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“I don’t think you’d better look at me like that.
You’re awfully attractive.
I love saying things to a man who can’t understand.
You don’t even know what kisses are“
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By interesting, I mean that it’s unlike any other cinematic adaptation of this story. It basically strips away all of the themes and many of the characters from the original source material in favor of action-adventure elements. Obviously, whenever you make such a drastic change, it’s bound to make a flawed movie. It’s done for better and for worse.
On the one hand, I found the insistence on action tiresome at some points and the film definitely needed more sophistication. And for a Tarzan film, it surprisingly doesn’t have enough of that famous character in the actual film. And I definitely found the decision to introduce him so late in the game troublesome, but then again very interesting.
Yes, this film definitely made me question whether its decisions are good or bad. What is obviously good is the emphasis on Jane and more on that later in the character section, but the adventure elements are particularly strong and the film is so much better than W. S. Van Dyke’s previous effort ‘Trader Horn’. It’s honestly infinitely better that I deem his transition truly admirable.
The action is very well done and especially realistic for its time. I really liked the romance too and the emphasis on a more erotic tone definitely led to this Pre-Code film being rather provocative for its time and so memorable nowadays. But as an action-adventure film, it works splendidly as it’s spirited, exciting at times and definitely groundbreaking in how it was filmed, successfully influencing ‘King Kong’ the next year.
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Let’s finally talk about the characters. I liked Harry Holt quite a bit and Neil Hamilton is charming in the role. I guess he was meant to portray Clayton from the book and he’s overall quite solid. The same goes for Jane’s dad who’s as endearing as he usually is.
But this is Tarzan and Jane’s vehicle and I have to say that I really liked their budding romance and how sensual it was, but also rather playful. It’s animalistic, but still sweet. A great mix. Again, he is underutilized and way too much times he is not on the screen at all which troubled me, but I still really liked Johnny Weissmuller’s performance, even though I found his haircut ridiculously modern for this role.
As I have already said above, this movie focuses on Jane so much that it literally should have been called Jane instead of Tarzan. She’s basically the protagonist in the film and even though I wanted more of Tarzan, I have to say that I loved what they did with her character. Maureen O’Sullivan is so charming and likable in the role and the character herself is more competent, more endearing and thankfully modernized. She’s so much better than her book counterpart and the fact that this is her story and her journey led to one very interesting experiment.
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Tarzan the Ape Man features outstanding cinematography for its time, again influencing so many other movies in its wake. The African setting is beautifully brought to life thanks to many stellar shots and some beautiful imagery. I liked the animals in here, even though underutilized, they’re still highly realistic as is the action. The film works rather well as a half-silent documentary-like adventure. I liked the score too and Tarzan’s signature yell was here first imagined and it remains iconic to this day.
Tarzan the Ape Man is a very interesting experiment which strips away the themes and many of the characters from the original source material in favor of a cinematic, realistic action-adventure take on the story for better and for worse. Tarzan is ridiculously underused and the film has too many fights, but it’s gorgeously shot, influencing in its wake ‘King Kong’ quite obviously plus its focus on Jane as basically the main character was a unique choice that paid off significantly leading to a rather charming film.
