Tarzan and the Huntress (1947)

Memorable, crazy movie

Excellent but underrated film

Admirable film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Penultimate Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film and the last to feature Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy in eight Tarzan films before getting his own series as Bomba, the Jungle Boy. Patricia Morison heads an expedition to Tarzan's neck of the woods to nab some animals for zoos back in the States. Helping her is vicious big game hunter Barton MacLane. By now, if you've seen even a few Tarzan movies, you should know where this is going. The bad guys take the animals but Tarzan steals them back and, with help from Boy and his animal friends, runs the villains out of Africa. There's also a subplot about political intrigue with local royalty.Johnny Weissmuller is good but he's basically going through the motions at this point. There's nothing in this he hasn't done before. Johnny Sheffield, who's almost as big as Weissmuller at this point, does well in his final outing as Boy. There's a thread running throughout the movie about Boy learning responsibility ("Boy man now. Do man's work."). Brenda Joyce has little to do as Jane but her few scenes are nice. Lovely Patricia Morison is interesting as the title character (who is not really a huntress). She's written sympathetically most of the way through but it ultimately amounts to nothing as she never switches sides like you are expecting. A major misstep is that the film doesn't give us a catfight between Morison and Brenda Joyce. There aren't a lot of action scenes in this one. Tarzan has a brief fight scene with another man but no tussles with crocs or anything. The climactic animal stampede is exciting, though. The drama is solid and the cute family stuff between Tarzan, Jane, Boy, and Cheeta is always fun to watch. A highlight of the movie for me is the scene where Cheeta flies a bamboo airplane Boy made. Not among the best of the Tarzan films but still worthwhile. Fans will like it, I think. A couple of final notes: in one scene, Tarzan is freeing the various animals that were captured by the hunters and he is shown releasing two bear cubs from their cages. Why are there bears in an African jungle? In another scene, Morison's character tells the King that "In our civilization, we believe in keeping an open mind." To which the King replies "In your civilization, open mind means that one must agree with what you yourself say." Brother, tell me that isn't as true now as it was 70 years ago!

Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) ** (out of 4) Eleventh film in the original Tarzan series once again features Johnny Weissmuller in the role of the Ape Man. This time out a group of people (led by Patricia Morison) come to Africa where they want to take the wildlife back and fill up various zoos across the world. The lost city ruler agrees to let them take two of each kind of animal but this isn't good enough so they kill him. Soon the group are trying to take as many animals as possible so it's up to Tarzan and Boy (Johnny Sheffield) to stop them. This film certainly isn't as silly as the previous effort but there's no question that the series was running out of steam due to its budget that looks to have been cut yet again and the fact that the story itself just isn't that interesting. The 72-minute running time almost seems triple because there's just not any form of entertainment be it adventure, comedy or drama. As with several of the previous films, this one here wants to get the majority of its comic relief from Cheetah who is constantly stealing things or just causing trouble. The problem is that his antics were cute for a while but the more you see them the more annoying they become. It also doesn't help that the screenplay contains one boring sequence after another and you can tell the budget cuts because of how fake the jungle looks. Another problem is that there's just way too much stock footage being used and it seems like RKO couldn't afford anything good looking as most of the footage just appears cheap and out of focus. Weissmuller, it's fair to say, looks completely bored in the role as Tarzan and you can't help but think he wishes he was somewhere else. Brenda Joyce is back as Jane but the screenplay doesn't offer her much to do. Morison isn't too bad in her part but again the screenplay isn't giving her much to work with. I mentioned in my TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN review that I was shocked to see how much Sheffield had grown between it and the previous film and that continues here. It's also rather obvious that he's going through puberty due to how badly his voice sounds in terms of how deep it is and often times you can hear it breaking. As with the rest of the characters, Boy isn't given much to do and the end result is a poor way for the actor to leave the series. TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS is pure "C" entertainment that is way too boring to be worth watching.

TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS suffers from a low budget and a ho-hum plot, although it is far less silly than the previous feature, TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN; entrepreneur Tanya Rawlins (Patricia Morison), and her milquetoast lover (John Warburton), mount an expedition to capture animals to restock war-depleted zoos, a not unworthy goal...except they are primarily interested in making big money, which means depleting an area of a large part of it's wild animal population! The local 'lost city' ruler, King Farrod (Charles Trowbridge), showing remarkable farsightedness for the 1940s, limits them to one male and female of each species, which, although showing wise animal management, would not serve the money-hungry Rawlins, at all. Fortunately, she has a ruthless expedition 'boss' (Barton MacLane, making his second 'villainous' appearance in a Tarzan feature), and Farrod has a greedy nephew (Ted Hecht), so a scheme is hatched, to kill Farrod and his heir (Maurice Tauzin), and pay the new King a healthy kickback, in exchange for 'unlimited' hunting (an oft-used scheme of 'bad guys', which would continue to be popular, as recently as George Clooney's SYRIANA).Of course, this being a Tarzan movie, our aging hero is friends with Farrod, and when the ruler is murdered, and the young prince disappears, Tarzan gets involved, which is BAD NEWS for Rawlins and her crew! The film utilizes more 'stock' animal footage than any of the other RKO/Weissmuller features, and unfortunately, it doesn't 'match up' well with the other footage, making the studio scenes look even cheesier; adding to this is a general listlessness in most of the performances, which hurts the overall movie. Even Cheeta seems bored!The most interesting aspect of the film is Johnny Sheffield, who looks startlingly 'adult' in this, his last appearance as 'Boy'. That fact is not lost on screenwriters Jerry Gruskin and Rowland Leigh, who have Tarzan remark, on several occasions, how Boy is becoming "a man". After this feature, Boy would be off to "school in England" (and Sheffield would move on to his own series, as "Bomba, the Jungle Boy").Weissmuller appears tired and a bit out-of-shape, although Brenda Joyce, as Jane, is as fetching as ever! The Tarzan series was obviously "winding down"; the next feature, the surreal TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS, would mark the end of Weissmuller's reign as "King of the Jungle"...

By the time "Tarzan and the Huntress" was produced by Sol Lesser with Kurt Neumann, one of my favorite Hollywood talents, the jungle man series was fifteen years old. By saddling the jungle man from the outset with Jane, the MGM executives committed the same error Edgar Rice Burroughs had made in his original creation. There being few excuses to take Tarzan far enough from home to find movie-length adventures, it became necessary to bring those making his actions necessary to him. These included Nazis, strange tribes, but most often unscrupulous hunters of one variety or another. In this unusually-well-directed and attractive entry to the series, the chief of invaders is a far-from-evil but uncaring female, played by gorgeous Patricia Morison. It is this aspect of the film that was copied so often later on; until then, virtually every illicit jungle hunter hand been male, and the only females in the jungle had been lost white goddesses. Fashionable Tanya Rollins is therefore a very important figure in film history. Her hired guide, Barton MacLane, is the real villain of this piece. As a champion of the wild heritage against a flawed pseudo-Christian civilization, Tarzan refuses to let anyone trap animals on his side of the river (never identified). On the other side of the river, the expedition's leaders have struck a bargain with a prince, son of the king (Charles Trowbridge). The bargain is broken, when MacLane has the prince killed, in order to deal with his more amenable brother. Instead of taking two of every animal, the expedition can then take unlimited animals to captivity for remunerative sale. When Tarzan learns that Cheetah has been captured and smells out what is going on, he decides to intervene, at great risk because the bad guys have rifles. This is champion swimmer Johnny Weissmuller's eleventh turn as the King of the Jungle; he is still stolid and sometimes impressive, especially when he has Brenda Joyce as a blonde Jane or raven-haired Morison to play off. And Johnny Sheffield as Tarzan's adopted son, Boy, has become by then an attractive and grown-up young man, on the verge of his own series as the sourceless but likable "Bomba" the Jungle Boy. Others appearing in the cast include John Warburton as Carl Morley, Wallace Scott as Smithers, and Mickey Simpson as Monak. And Cheetah the chimpanzee is given a very large role in the film, almost as an agent of Nature allegorically playing the nemesis to Ms. Rollins' nefarious hopes. The fact that Morison never wanted her men to kill Tarzan, or anyone else, excuses her complicity in what they do to gain unearned wealth; there are exciting scenes as Tarzan bedevils, is nearly killed by and then finally overcomes the true villains. But the highlight of the film, as anyone not suffering myopic of the value-system, should be able to know is the loveliness and performance by Patricia Morison. She has several scenes in a ten;t and when she undresses as a silhouetted figure lighted by a lamp within, or when she argues with Tarzan, or when she visits his home and is bedeviled by Cheetah who steals her lipstick and other implements, she steals the film completely. Like brilliant and vivacious Greer Garson before her, she seems to be beloved by U.S. moviegoers only if they are educated to ignore her British accent; compared for instance to brassy and passable actress Susan Hayward who came along at the same time, she is a gem, classically trained and brilliant either at acting or underplaying, as here. This is a often-imitated film, a milestone of adventure-level fun and adroit characterization; it is very popular with fans, thanks to brilliant director Kurt Neumann, who also co-produced. The authors get lots of fun out of an only-passable story line in every scene; Bbt to this film we owe "Tarzan the Magnificent", "Tarzan and the Lost Safari", "Jivaro" and a number of other films that finally saw a female in a jungle as something other than a danger or a distraction. The music by talented Paul Sawtell and the luminous cinematography by Archie Stout are rich assets here, by my lights. Art direction by McClure Capps and the costumes, especially Ms. Morison's by Harold Clandenning, add to the film's values. The script by Jerry Gruskin and Rowland Leigh is serviceable and some of the dialogue I find to be above-average. Wallace Scott and Ted Hecht were also featured; look for a well-done elephant stampede and Ms. Morison; they are for me the highlights of a seminal and enjoyable exotic-locale adventure.