Tarzan and His Mate (1934)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The Turner classic version is not the one I remember watching on Saturday mornings as a child but it's just as wonderful, even better! This one includes a nude scene of Tarzan and Jane swimming in the Amazon river! This movie is so ridiculous and so delightful with Tarzan being better than a superhero. Back in the days when women could be "fiercely independent" as well as completely dependent LOL Jand is wonderful and flirtatious. Tarzan is all man ;-). So silly but so great

Sequels don't generally come out better than the originals, but this was an early exception to that rule. I watched "Tarzan The Ape Man" several years ago, and I can't say that I was blown away by it. I wouldn't really say that I was blown away by Tarzan And His Mate, either, but I will say that in almost every way this was the superior movie. The title is a useful enough lead in to the movie, which does spend a great deal of time depicting the domestic bliss between Tarzan and Jane. They have a happy life in the African jungle, greeting each other at the start of every day with the words "Good morning. I love you." These five words do seem to be the most words that Tarzan is able to string together, mind you, so in some ways Jane is a more central character in driving the story forward because she can interact much more easily with the other characters, who are basically two Englishmen who appear in the desert with a dual purpose: to loot an elephant graveyard of ivory to make money and, for Harry (an old flame of Jane's from her days in London) to steal her back to civilization.The movie is dated in some ways. I found the racial stereotyping to be less offensive than in the original (although still present) and the special effects are primitive (but, hey, it was made in 1934, so that's understandable.) It does, however, contain a lot of film of animals (lions and leopards and rhinoceroses and gorillas and chimps and crocodiles, etc., etc.) and you can really never go wrong with animals. Generally speaking, although the movie was shot in California, I thought they did a pretty good job of making the sets look authentic, and they even introduced an original element in giving Jane her own version of the famous Tarzan yell.As far as the story was concerned, it had the two elements I mentioned earlier. The search for ivory in the elephant graveyard is the engine the propels this forward, although I really didn't find it all that interesting. There were some exciting moments, mind you, as the party encountered hostile natives, but to me it just wasn't the central part of the movie; it seemed extraneous. What really mattered was the relationship between Tarzan and Jane. The roles were played again by Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O'Sullivan respectively. The movie really does portray a delightful relationship between the two. They clearly love each other, and Weismuller and O'Sullivan have a very good chemistry with each other; their relationship is natural and believable. Like the first movie, there's a lot of skin shown. O'Sullivan is quite beautiful, and there's an extended underwater swimming scene where Jane is actually nude (although in this case the American swimmer Josephine McKim doubled for her - as I understand it not so much because O'Sullivan didn't want to swim in the nude but because she couldn't hold her breath underwater long enough to do the scene.) There's a lot of sexual innuendo between the two, and my understanding is that this film was one which caused the infamous Hays Code to start being strictly enforced. Neil Hamilton (who I know better as Commissioner Gordon from the 1960's Batman TV series) and Martin Arlington played the other main characters.I can't claim to be a big fan of any Tarzan movie that's ever been released. The whole concept just isn't really my cup of tea - but this one is pretty good. (6/10)

You have to wonder why Jane Parker (Maureen O'Sullivan) resists the temptation of returning to civilization when her hunter pals (Neil Hamilton and Paul Cavanaugh) come across her in the jungle. She speaks of the jungle as an idyllic place to live peacefully with Tarzan and Cheetah.But the plot of this second in the series has her needing Tarzan's help every five minutes, as she has to deal with savages, lions, rhinos and other such beasts wanting to get her and her adventurous companions before they can take a trek into the elephant's graveyard where the hunters want to get hold of the valuable ivory tusks. Danger seems to lurk at every turn with both Jane and Tarzan emitting their jungle "calls" for help until the fast-paced climactic battle with savages and beasts.MGM has used a lot of stock footage from their previous African film, "Trader Horn," so that most of the outdoor footage gives the illusion of looking as though the players are in a real jungle rather than the usual studio set.Weissmuller is in top form and eases his way through all the adventures with consummate athletic grace. Maureen O'Sullivan, never lovelier in her abbreviated costuming, has the proper chemistry with him to make their Tarzan/Jane relationship seem utterly credible.The famous nude swimming scene has been restored to the TCM print, but fans now know that it was not Maureen but a professional swimmer who did all of her stunts. When you think of it, it defies logic that a "civilized" young lady like Jane Parker would ever be so adept at all the underwater ballet movements unless she had been a professional swimmer all her life. But logic goes out the door in most of these Edgar Rice Burroughs stories.Good supporting performances from Neil Hamilton and Paul Cavanaugh help considerably in establishing interest at the outset before the trek into the jungle even begins.Summing up: Action fans will find plenty of it in this popular entry in the series.

It shouldn't be better than the original, "Tarzan the Ape Man." So few sequels are. But -- like "The Bride of Frankenstein," "The Godfather Part II", and a few others -- it's pretty close.The plot is similar to the original and just as silly. Two white men organize a safari to recover ivory from the elephant's graveyard. They run into Tarzan (Weismuller) and his mate (O'Sullivan) living in sin in their tree house. "Oh, it doesn't take Tarzan long to build a tree house. We have a mansion in every glade." They overcome countless dangers. There are attacks by gorillas, by lions, by a rhinoceros, by crocodile, and by superstitious hostile native tribes -- the Gowanus, the Weehawken, the Pacino, the Scorseses and the Deniro. The white folks all survive until the end. However, with each attack, half the native bearers are killed off screaming. But, as in one of Zeno's paradoxes, each time half is killed, there's still half of them left. It's a brutal movie. The lions really seem to be eating the men, and I'm certain that two or three of the lions were actually shot and killed for the movie.Still, it does have its redeeming qualities. Never before or after was Maureen O'Sullivan to wear such a skimpy bustier and loincloth. And when she goes swimming with Tarzan she wears nothing at all. I thought it was a very tasteful and artistic touch.Tarzan has learned more of the Tarmangani language for this production, just as Frankenstein's monster did over at Universal. He hasn't learned to smile yet but when he learns of the white men's goal -- the retrieval of all that ivory from the elephant graveyard -- he's adamant. "Malawi sleep!", he exclaims.The viewer isn't likely to sleep though. There's too much action, too much swinging through the trees and, if nothing else, too much loud yodeling from both Tarzan and his mate.