Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Great Film overall

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Johnny Weissmuller made a name for himself as Tarzan at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio. However, and I am not sure why, Weissmuller and 'Boy' (Johnny Sheffield) jumped from this prestige studio to the less than stellar RKO--where the budgets shrank considerably as did the quality. The scripts got a lot more weird and the films became chock full of poorly integrated stock footage and animals that often weren't even African. Additionally, 'Jane' (Maureen O'Sullivan) remained at MGM and a new leading lady needed to be found. After having the character be 'off on vacation in England' or 'helping with the war effort' in a couple films, RKO decided to re-cast this character with Brenda Joyce--who bore little similarity to O'Sullivan.Early in the film Tarzan happens upon an Amazon lady who is being chased by leopards. She's injured her leg and Tarzan insists on carrying her back to her Amazon city. However, apparently it's taboo to either leave the town or enter it if you are an outsider. Fortunately, the Amazon Priestess knows that Tarzan can be trusted and apparently he's the only outsider they ever let leave the city alive.A bit later, Jane arrives from one of her many trips and brings with her some friends. Unfortunately, these hunters turn out to be headed for disaster when they see a bracelet left by the Amazon who Tarzan rescued--and they decide to try to find this Amazon kingdom themselves! But, Tarzan wisely refuses to help them--especially since some of them (Ballister in particular) are real jerks! Oddly, Ballister is played by Barton MacLane--the same actor who re-appears in "Tarzan and the Huntress" but he plays a different character--even though he dies in "Tarzan and the Amazons"! Considering that these two films were only made a couple years apart, you do wonder why they chose him for both films. And, now that I think of it, Henry Stephenson (a wonderful character actor) was also in "Tarzan Finds a Son!"--and was killed in that film--yet appears in this one a few years later! Despite these odd casting problems, this film actually turns out to be a pretty good one--though they never explain how a group of very white women happened to be living in the heart of Africa! The film lacks the bad stock footage of some of the other RKO Tarzan films and at least the black natives are black--and not Mexicans like in the studio's last film in the series (well after it had 'jumped the shark'). In addition, the film is well written and quite entertaining--one of the last ones like this in the series.

I remember watching old Tarzan movies as a child, so I decided to check this movie out and see if they were as good as I remembered. What a mistake! This movie was boring beyond all belief. It was like watching Ozzie and Harriet in the jungle. The title is "Tarzan and the Amazons", not "An Intimate and Tedious Look at the Minutia of Tarzan's Family Life".On the plus side, the time that was spent in the Amazon's hidden city was good. The matte used to depict the craggy mountains in the distance was mysterious and nicely done. The sets that show Tarzan traveling through those mountains showed the harshness and isolation of the area. The city, with its strange god and creepy priestess, was interesting. The big problem was that these sections only added up to about a third of the movie, while the boring family scenes took up the rest. The producer really dropped the ball on this one. There was so much potential wasted here. It could've been an imaginative romp through a strange world, but they chose to constantly show Cheetah fishing and acting like an idiot, and Boy sweeping the tree-house, and... Plus, the big dramatic ending seems totally rushed, and happens in a flash. If you blink, you'll miss it. It's like they said to themselves, "Oops, we spent too much time on the family stuff, we're at 1:15, we better cut it off now. No one will notice." Well, I guess they were right seeing how many "10" votes this lame movie got. Do you people actually think this deserves to be up there with Citizen Kane, the Shawshank Redemption, and the Godfather?This is a lame movie with zealous and stupid fans. Don't waste your time with either...

SPOILER ALERT! Come on. When I watch a Tarzan movie, I expect some action and there's hardly any in this film. Johnny is near the end of his reign as Tarzan, getting flabby and more than a bit bored. Brenda Joyce is pretty yet bland as Jane. And there's just way to much walking around and talking. Would have killed the filmmakers to find a way to have an exciting finale? All we get is Tarzan yelling "Boy!" That's it! Tarzan even chases off a lion rather than fight it when it threatens Jane! There aren't even any serious rope swings in the film. What happened to the good old days when Tarzan swung through the jungle? Now he swings down from his tree house and spends the rest of the time running.

One of the very few Amazon films where the women warriors were both attractive and able to some butt. Right on (icon of raised clenched fist. Every other amazon film I have seen had the women warriors just parade around in ancient Greek military costumes and behave cutsey-wootsey when the men show up - they need a man after all. These Amazons were beautiful and well build but also willing and able to shoot those arrows and cast those spears when the enemy men showed up - though they still needed Tarzan to get them out of the scrap at the end, but hey, it is a Tarzan movie.