All language subtitles for Adventures of Tarzan (1921) (audio commentary)

(upbeat music)

- Hi, this is Ed Hulse again.

I'm a film historian
and a journalist,

and a big Tarzan fan,
and a big serial fan

which is why The Film Detective

has asked me to do the
commentaries for both this film

and the "New Adventures Of
Tarzan”, the complete serial.

I hope you're enjoying them.

I'm gonna assume that you've
seen this film already

and that you've decided

to listen to my
commentary afterwards.

So the first thing I have
to explain to you is that,

this is actually not
a true feature version

of the 1922 serial.

Itis really a
compilation of odd reels

that happened to include
the final chapter.

They were offered for
sale many years ago,

they were found,
copied and put together

with these new titles
that you're seeing now,

which are explaining the plot.

When we get to the
live action footage,

what you're gonna see
at first is really

about several chapters
into the serial,

probably five or six
chapters into the serial.

Now as I say, this is a
very elaborate production

at the time, it is a serial,

in 15 chapters, that production
began, I believe in 1921.

Now here you can see the
title sequence there,

you see the art
behind it, the forest.

I want you to remember
that because that proves

that this is from the original
1921 release of this serial.

Now, why do I say that,
why is that important?

Because this film,

"The Adventures Of Tarzan"
was re-released theatrically

in 1929, with the
original 15 chapters

cut down to 10 chapters.

And the design of the titles,

the dialogue titles and the
text titles are important

because in the 1929 version,

they were done in a
different type style

and they were done against
a plain black background.

See that photo of
the jungle there,

you wouldn't see that if
this footage had been taken

from the 1929 reissue.

Both versions of course,

were distributed by
the Weiss Brothers.

They were a group, a poverty
row group, very prolific,

and like many of the
people of their era,

they began in the business
in the early silent days.

So really it's three siblings,
Adolph, Max, and Louis Weiss.

They were born to
Hungarian immigrants

who arrived in America in 1883

and took up residence
in New York City.

Adolph, he was the oldest

and the most entrepreneurial
oriented of the siblings.

He began his career selling
lamps and light bulbs

and electrical
fixtures in a store

on 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.

In 1900, at the age of 21,

he kind of graduated
to selling phonographs

and other electrical
machines that were licensed

from both the Edison and
the Victor companies.

Now he had his own business
and he employed his brothers,

Max and Lewis, the latter
was still a school boy

when he started
working for Adolph.

Now, as a result of his
business relationship

with Thomas Edison and
The Edison Company,

Adolph became interested in
the motion picture business

and he opened up as
kind of a side business,

a storefront Nickelodeon
theater in 1907.

And it turned out to
be very profitable.

And within a few years,

he owned 16 theaters
scattered throughout

the greater New York area,
Long Island, New Jersey

and Connecticut.

So Max and Lewis
helped run the chain,

while the younger
brother also dealt

with independent exchanges.

Exchanges where these
distribution branches

that would give prints
to the, or rent prints

to local theaters.

And so he learned a great deal,

Lewis Weiss about
the distribution
end of the business.

Now like many of the other
exhibitors of that time,

the Weiss Brothers soon
realized that the big money

was in production.

Because if you produced
your own films,

you weren't paying a licensing
fee as a distributor.

So you were there for
keeping all the profits.

You didn't have to return money

to the people who
produced the movie.

Now, let me interrupt
for a second

to explain what
you're seeing here.

There's several chapters in
there's Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan.

There's his Jane, who
was Louise Lorraine.

Elmo and Louise, as
I'll tell you shortly,

had already worked
together several times.

They are the stars
of this production.

And this was by and large
produced in Southern California,

around Hollywood, with some
desert scenes that were shot

around Yuma, Arizona.

And there, of course is
one of the incredibly

phony looking ape suits.

And this film Tarzan
interacts with both

real chimpanzees and Orangutan,

and these guys in these
actors in ape costumes.

So anyway, getting back
to the Weiss Brothers.

In 1915, they incorporated
a company called

Clarion Photo Plays.

The intent of which was
not originally to produce,

but to acquire feature films
that had already been made

and market them
via what was known

as the state rights method.

Now, as I explain in the

“New Adventures Of
Tarzan" commentary.

State rights involved, these
independent sub distributors

who had specific territories,

usually they were
individual states,

but some territories bled
over into other states,

especially in the Western
half of the country,

where there were fewer
theaters to begin with.

So if you didn't have your
own network of exchanges

or branch offices
in the big cities,

which the major studios did,

you had to rely on the
state rights method

to get your film picked
up and distributed

on a national basis.

So their company Clarion's
their first and only real hit

was a movie called "It
May Be Your Daughter,”

which was made in 1916.

It was kind of a sensational
white slave melodrama

produced by a group called,

"The Moral Uplift
Society of America.”

How's that for a name?

And more importantly,

it was written by a guy
named George M Merrick,

with whom the Weiss Brothers
would be aligned for the next,

literally for the
next several decades,

three or four decades, going
into the early TV years.

Merrick was kind of
a jack-of-all-trades.

He did some writing,
he did some producing,

he was a production manager.

He was one of these guys
who knew the business

from the ground the up.

So anyway, with the profits
from "It May Be Your Daughter”,

Adolph and his
brothers organized

what was then called the Art
Class Pictures Corporation,

which was kind of
like a parent company,

an umbrella company under which
there were several offshoots

that were later formed
of different names.

Now this kind of
strategy by the way,

was not unique to
the Weiss Brothers.

Early motion picture history
is littered with entrepreneurs

who founded multiple
subsidiary companies

to handle in
individual projects.

Whether they were films
that were being made,

films that were acquired
for distribution,

films that had already gone
through distribution once

and were being re-released
several years later,

sometimes with the addition
of newly shot footage,

it was easy to establish all
these different companies

in those days and it was
a very practical reason

for doing so because
it then limited

the parent company's liability
if heavy losses were incurred

or if lawsuits were threatened.

Now, by the way, here's
Universal backlot.

This set here, this street
was likely constructed in 1920

for a big Universal movie
called "The Virgin of Stamboul.”

It might also have been
constructed slightly later

for another film called
"Under Two Flags”.

But it was clearly a
street of Arabian character

and it fits into this
part of the Tarzan story.

And getting back to
the Weiss Brothers,

they were inspired by
the success of the 1918

feature film,
"Tarzan of The Apes",

which was the very first
Motion Picture based

on one of Edgar Rice
Burroughs, Tarzan novels.

So in September of 1919,

they negotiated with Burroughs,
for the screen rights

to his second Tarzan book,
"The Return of Tarzan".

Now, they made a very
unusual deal with him,

and really the only
one of its kind

to which Burroughs ever agreed.

They paid a licensing fee
that gave them the option

of producing two films
adapted from the same novel.

And this made sense
for the reason

that "The Return of Tarzan"
was originally serialized

in Pulp magazines and different
installments of the novel

had very distinct subplots.

So it was possible to say,

shoot, two or three subplots
and leave another one,

or perhaps two for adaptation

in a subsequent motion picture,

and they would be completely
different storylines.

So that's what happened.

Adolph Weiss authorized
the creation after he got

the license from
Boroughs to introduce

one of those subsidiary
companies I was
just telling about,

called Numa Pictures
Corporation.

Now Numa is the word for lion
and the language of Tarzan

and his ape friends.

So they created Numa
Pictures Corporation

specifically for their
Tarzan venture, okay.

So Numa was headed by
Lewis and their attorney,

a guy named Harry Kash
was the secretary.

Now they produced a
feature film made from

“Return of Tarzan", that starred

a kind of a burly New
York based firefighter

named Gene Pollar as Tarzan.

And they made the movie and
they were gonna distribute it

as "The Return of Tarzan"
the same title as the novel,

but in canvasing the exhibitors
about this they said,

well, does this mean, is this
a rehash of the earlier film

with Elmo Lincoln
“Tarzan Of The Apes"?

No, it's a brand new production,

it's a different
Tarzan, et cetera.

Well, finally, they were
worried about the confusion

enough that they
rechristened the movie

"Revenge of Tarzan" and
not "Return of Tarzan”,

although the credits did
say that it was adapted

from the "Return of Tarzan"
by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

So the scenario for that film

was written by a guy
named Robert Saxmar,

and it left the biggest chunk

of the original novel untouched.

So that would be the second film

that the Weiss
Brothers would make

from "The Return of Tarzan".

So in preparing
this second version,

the contract had not stipulated

that the second film had to
be a feature length film.

So they said, you know what,

we can maximize our investment
if we make it a serial.

Because if we do like
a 15 chapter serials,

we're gonna get 15
weeks of film rentals,

as opposed to the
one week that we get,

if it's a feature film.

Now, they would've
gotten more money

for the feature
film than they would

for an individual
serial chapter.

But considering all the
revenue they would get

from say 15 episodes, it
was a much better policy

to go with a complete serial.

Now this would not make
Burroughs happy, obviously,

because he was bound
to feel as he did feel

that he was being
cheated out of more money

that he could have been making,

but he'd already made the deal.

So he saw all the
money he was gonna get

from the Weiss Brothers.

Now it turned out
by the way that

"Revenge of Tarzan", the feature
film, starring Gene Pollar

as the ape man, that ultimately,

the Weiss Brothers cleaned up,

they sold the
worldwide rights to it,

to the Goldwyn
distributing corporation

for hundred thousand
dollars advance,

and a percentage of the net
profits which was not reported,

but that was an extremely
good deal for them.

So they had working capital
to invest in the second movie

based on the "Return of Tarzan".

So what they did was they
decided to call their serial,

"The Adventures Of Tarzan",

and base it on the last
segment of the novel

which dealt with the Lost City
of Opar and its Queen, La.

Another one of these
fabled white Queens

that you only find in
African lost cities

don't ask me how that happens.

But that was the biggest
chunk of the novel.

And that would be the basis
for the Weiss Brothers serial.

Now, obviously they would
have to extend the plot

quite a bit because
getting 15 chapters

or about four hours of material

out of a hundred pages of a
novel was pretty tough to do.

So obviously they
had to expand things,

they had to create new
subplots and new incidents.

And of course they
had to emphasize

the chapter ending perils

that Tarzan and Jane
would find themselves in.

So that required it further
deviation from the novel.

Nonetheless, they were
very secure in their belief

that this would be a big hit.

They did incorporate yet
another subsidiary company

called The Adventures of
Tarzan Serial Sales Company,

for, "the purposes of
exploiting and marketing”

and "the upcoming production”.

So they placed
advertisements in the leading

Motion Picture
Industry Trade Papers,

proclaiming that
"Adventures of Tarzan"

would be available for
state rights licensing.

So in other words, rather than
sell off distribution rights

to somebody like
Goldyn as they had done

with "Revenge of Tarzan",

they intended to make
their own territorial sales

and thereby keep
all the profits.

So Gene Pollar had not
really impressed movie goers

with his portrayal of the ape
man in "Revenge of Tarzan".

So the Weiss Brothers said, "We
gotta get Elmo Lincoln back.

He's the guy who made
the initial impression

as Tarzan, he's the
guy we gotta have.”

So the Weiss Brothers said,

we're gonna find this
guy and hire him.

Now, they learned that
Lincoln was under contract

to a company called The Great
Western Production Company,

which was making all kinds
of films for Karl Lemily's

Universal Film
Manufacturing Company,

which was the early silent era
named for what later became

Universal Pictures.

Now, the president of the Great
Western Production Company

was Julia Stern and
his younger brother

Abe was the vice president.

They had partners named
Oscar and Louis Jacobs,

also brothers.

Now, the Sterns were related
to Karl Lemily by marriage,

which accounted for their
favored nation status

among the various fiefdoms
that were sprawled

across Universal City, which
at something like 260 acres

was the largest lot
than any studio owned.

So Elmo Lincoln had
just done the third

of three serials that
he made for Universal,

which were produced
by Great Western.

First was called
"Elmo The Mighty”,

second one was called
“Elmo The Fearless",

and the third was called
“The Flaming Disc".

Now in two of these, his leading
lady was Louise Lorraine,

who you can see here playing
Jane in the Tarzan serial.

So Lincoln was
temporarily at Liberty.

Universal was still distributing

“The Flaming Disc",
and Lincoln had also

made the aforementioned
"Under Two Flags”,

which promised to be a
big feature film hit.

And so he was a
fairly hot property.

So Great Western more
specifically Julia Stern

offered the Weiss
Brothers to produce

“New Adventures Of
Tarzan" for their new

Numa Pictures Corporation.

So the Weiss Brothers
wouldn't have to bother

with production at all.

They would naturally
approve the script

and arrange for the financing
and everything else,

but the actual
production of the serial

would go to Great Western.

So naturally the Weiss
Brothers agreed to this

because this
arrangement guaranteed

that they would
get Elmo Lincoln,

who otherwise they
would've had to try

and contract separately
from Great Western

and if great Western decided
to either hold them up

or not to give him
Lincoln services at all,

they'd have been screwed.

So they were happy
to make this deal,

and it was a deal for
Great Western too,

because being related to
Lemley gave the Stern brothers

complete access to
all of the facilities,

the technicians,
and all the sets,

the standing sets that were
available at Universal City,

including the street that
you're seeing right now,

which had already been used
in a number of productions.

So this was a way of getting
a lot of good production value

into the serial without spending
a lot of new money on sets.

By shooting it at Universal
and using standing sets,

Great Western would
be able to get

a much more elaborate
look to their serial.

So also from Universal, Great
Western got the cameramen,

Joe Mayer and Jerry Ash
who not only provided

the basic cinematography,
but they also did

what limited visual
effects were needed

to help maintain some
rather elaborate illusions.

They did have to
contract separately

for a player named Joe Martin.

Now, Joe Martin
was not an actor,

he was Orangutan
star of comedy shorts

that were produced by the Sterns

who had a separate label
called Century Comedies.

And Century Comedies naturally

also released its product
through Universal.

So Joe Martin's trainer
insisted on a separate deal

and so they had to cut
a separate contract,

but they were happy to do
that because Joe Martin

was actually had some
box office appeal

because of these two real
comedies that he was in.

Now, as it turns out
in the final serial,

he did not appear
all that often,

but he does appear and
you will see him later

in this footage here.

So the final piece
was of course,

getting Lillian Lorraine at
this time, just 19 years old,

and she was also by the way,

a regular in the
century comedies.

So she'd worked
plenty for the Sterns,

they were familiar with her.

Production got underway
in late January of 1921

and consumed more
than seven months,

which is a very
long time for serial

would not only including
time off for the usual

weather related delays, but
they had a lot of trouble

with animals when they
were trying to stage

the wild animal scenes.

There was a lot of
animal footage in this,

Universal by the way
maintained its own zoo.

They kind of took up from
where Colonel Williams Selig

left off, Selig had his own zoo

and his own production
facilities on the
other side of town.

But at Universal, they said,

"We ought really ought
to maintain our own zoo."

So they had monkeys,
they had gorillas,

they had a couple lions

and all of them were
pressed into service

for "Adventures of Tarzan".

So there were other delays
related to injuries,

several of the players
were injured doing action,

including Elmo Lincoln.

And at a couple times,

production had to be
shut down altogether.

The street scenes erected
for "Virgin of Stamboul”

you've already seen,

they were among many
scenes that were shot

on standing sets at
the Universal back lot.

There was limited
location shooting.

They were able to do some of
it on the Universal back lot,

which like I say, at 260
acres was a big chunk.

There's all kinds
of stuff there now,

including by the way, a highway,

which was not there when
this film was being made.

But they had scenes that
took place in a desert,

they had to get these
rolling sand dunes

that most people think of

when they think of
the Arabian desert.

So they went to Yuma, Arizona,

and they spent more
than a week there,

unfortunately based
on the schedule,

they had to spend a week
there in the summer.

So the temperatures got up
well over a hundred degrees,

there was sunburn, there was
sunstroke, people fainting,

problems with the film
melting in the cameras,

all kinds of things
related to filming

in that kind of a climate.

Now, Lincoln had a reputation
for doing all his own stunts

in his other serials,
but he had been putting

on a lot of weight over
the last couple years

and his prodigious bulk

and his lack of grace kept
him from being effective

when it came to a lot of
the scenes in the treetops,

which were of course Tarzan's
preferred travel lanes.

So in a lot of the
scenes that showed,

a lot of the long
shots especially

that showed the ape
man swinging on vines

and you know, climbing
up hand over hand,

Lincoln was doubled by a New
Jersey native named Otto Pole.

He was a national
gymnastics champion

and a bodybuilder who would
later play Tarzan himself,

and under the name
Frank Merrill.

While he wasn't
doubling Lincoln,

he also played several
Arab tribesman.

You've already seen him
now and I'll point him out

the next time he turns up.

You can tell, even
though Lincoln has a
pretty bulky outfit

there as Tarzan, well,
not so bulky in that shot.

You can easily see that Merrill
is while very well muscled,

he's not quite as
large as Lincoln

and especially his legs are
kind of on the spindly side.

But, Merrill was very convincing
in the vine swinging scenes

and he later made a very
good Tarzan himself.

So the principle photography
wrapped up in early August,

again, took a lot longer
than it should have.

And the national
release of chapter one

was scheduled for October 1st.

So that gave the Weiss Brothers
roughly six to seven weeks

to edit the serial,
to have print struck,

to ship them across the country,

to the various state
rights distributors

who then had a needed some time

to get them to the
first run theaters

that would play them.

Now it should be
noted that serials

at this time in the silent
era, they were really-

they had a national release
day for the first chapter,

but a lot of times the entire
things were not finished.

The entire serials had
not been totally edited

or printed up when the first
chapter went into release.

So that would happen later on.

And that also led to
some very interesting

commercial developments because

when you had more
time in production,

while the early chapters
were playing in theaters,

and you're still working on the
later chapters to edit them,

the early results from the
exhibitors might dictate

expanding a serial,
they might say,

hey, this thing is going
over like gangbusters.

We already wish we
had more chapters.

So Frank Merrill's
first Tarzan serial,

“Tarzan The Mighty" was
originally scheduled
for 12 chapters

because it was released
in the same way

with the early chapters
playing in theaters

before the later chapters
had been totally finished,

the exhibitor reaction
was so favorable

that Universal
said, you know what,

don't put the ending
on chapter 12,

let's shoot three more
chapters, add this material,

we're gonna get 15
chapters out of it.

Because as I explained

in "New Adventures
Of Tarzan" commentary

serials were rented
by the chapter.

So if you had a couple
thousand theaters

that were playing a
serial all at once,

and they all wanted it extended,

that was a lot more
revenue at stake

even though the
chapters themselves

usually only rented
for five bucks a piece,

it was a lot more
revenue at stake,

if you could get 3000 theaters
to pay that kind of money.

That did not happen with
"Adventures of Tarzan",

but the serial was very
successful, nonetheless.

Now, originally the Weiss
Brothers had planned

to delay marketing it until
the shooting was complete.

But Louis Weiss had mounted

a very elaborate and well
publicized sales campaign.

And so "Adventures,"
which was advertised

as the "Tarzan of Tarzans",
was very rapidly sold

to territories in the
United States and Canada.

As a matter of fact,

state writers in 14
different territories

covering part or all
of 26 states in total

bought the serial as soon
as it was made available.

And the first run
exhibitors in big cities

even supplied what they used
to call 24 sheet posters,

very large posters to
paste on billboards

and on the sides
of large buildings

to help advertise the thing.

And Tarzan being very popular,

the Tarzan books being
very popular in Europe,

the Weiss Brothers
did well there too.

Europe's Mundus film
company paid a record price

for distribution rights in
France, Holland, Belgium,

and Switzerland, more than
they'd paid for any movie,

feature film, or
serial up to that time.

So the Weiss Brothers
had a public relations

director named Bert Ennis

and he worked with the
domestic sub distributors,

on the creation of
very elaborate displays

for theater lobbies and coming
up with publicity stunts

that local theaters
could engineer

to catch the public's attention.

This kind of thing
had, you know,

was very rudimentary in
the early days of films

because Nickelodeons
usually only played films

for a day or two.

And even as late as 1910,

there were a lot of
theaters that were changing

the bill affair every
two or three days.

So it really didn't
pay to advertise

to come up with elaborate
advertising schemes

for these things because
in two or three days

they'd be gone and
they'd be replaced

by the time the word got out,

by the time a lot of
people saw the advertising,

the movies would
be gone already.

With a serial it was different

because you'd have
the same thing,

you'd have a different
chapter every week

in the same theater
for 15 weeks in a row.

So it paid to advertise serials
with things like billboards

and lobby displays that could
stay up for a couple weeks

at a time, it was a very
successful strategy.

So as I mentioned before,

the screenwriters expanded
quite a bit on the plot,

what was left of the plot
of "Return of Tarzan",

but they maintained the
same basic story structure.

Tarzan and Jane, her
father, professor Porter,

who we've already seen
kind of staggering

around the jungle
in tattered clothes.

They were all there as
were Tarzan's bitter enemy

Nikolas Rokoff played
by Frank Woodson

and one of Tarzan's
English relatives,

Cecil Clayton.

And then of course
there was another heavy,

this guy Gernot who was
one of Rokoff's heavys,

and they were the main players.

Later in the serial,

when things moved to
the Lost City of Opar,

you had Queen La who was played

by someone named Lillian Worth.

Gernot by the way, there's
Frank Whitsun there as Rokoff

Gernot was played
by George Monberg

and there's of course,

Charles Insleee playing
professor Porter, Jane's father.

(gentle music)

Now, this.

I'm not exactly sure
where this area is.

It looks like it
could have been shot

in Colonel Selig Zoo, but
it also could have been shot

somewhere on the
Universal back lot.

What I do know is that they
kept these outdoor locations

loaded with wild
animals running around,

and whenever the
plot slowed up a bit,

director Bob Hill would
stage a lion chase

and the lions would run around

and chase everybody up
into trees and whatnot.

And that was very effective.

You know, some of the Tarzan's
serials had very elaborate

wild animal sequences that
were used as stock footage

in movies for 20 and 30
years after they were made.

As a matter of fact,

the first Tarzan movie ever
made, "Tarzan of The Apes”

from 1918 was shot in Louisiana.

And there was a shot of a,

kind of a moss covered tree
with birds sitting on the limbs

that was being used as
a piece of stock footage

well into the 1940s.

So it's pretty amazing stuff.

Now, again, as I say,

they had to stretch
the plot quite a bit

before they got to Opar.

And in this particular
incarnation of the story

Jane's back or I
should say her shoulder

has been kind of
tattooed with a map

leading the miscreants to Opar.

Now see this title here is not
one of the original titles.

That title was made
by the distributor

who releases to the
home movie market.

But by and large, this is the
same footage that appeared

in the original
1921-1922 version.

It played well, even though
it was released nationally

in the fall of 1921, it
played well until 1922.

And actually some of
the later episodes

were actually
copyrighted in 1922

because they weren't yet
done at the end of 1921.

That is one big hog.

There's a lot of bacon
there, I wanna tell ya.

Actually, that's
probably a boar.

Probably a wild boar.

But again, there was a
great variety of animals.

And by the way, they weren't
all treated very humanely,

as you could see by this.

It was some years before

the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals

really started enforcing
rules on Hollywood filmmakers.

And that was mostly occasioned
as a result of the Westerns,

where there were some
rather cruel devices

that would be
hooked up to horses

to make them fall
at a certain spot

when they were at a full gallop.

So the SPCA was not happy
about that, but they extended

their jurisdiction to
include all kinds of movies

where animals were concerned,

anything from
rabbits to elephants

and everything in between.

So the reviews for
"Adventures of Tarzan"

were generally favorable.

And some of them,
even more than that,

I mean, some of them
were wildly enthusiastic.

Most of the reviews noted
to previous Tarzan films

had been so popular that
they were still being booked.

And so it was possible
in the early 1920s

to see different Tarzan films

playing at different
theaters in the same city.

So one of the trade papers
called the exhibitors Herald,

said in their review that,

"Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan is
too well known to theatergoers

to need further introduction.

His red blooded fights
staged in each episode

will evoke applause
from the audience.

A menagerie of wild
animals has been let loose

to dash through and put
thrills into many scenes.”

And it was also
possible in those days

to get feedback
from the exhibitors,

the theater owners themselves,

because some of the
trade papers had columns

where the exhibitor could
write in his reaction

to films that he was playing

and this presumably
would act as a guide

for exhibitors further
down the food chain,

you know, the third, fourth
or fifth-run theaters

to get an idea of what
they could expect,

whether they would wanna book
a film or stay away from it.

And they would rely
on the comments

of their fellow exhibitors
that were printed

in these trade publications.

So there was one
exhibitor named Ed Crew

from the Empress
Theaters in Oklahoma.

He slammed “Adventures”.

He said, "This is the poorest
serial I ever saw Elmo in,

and the ape man is very poor.

Lay off, it won't
get any money.”

But he clearly was an outlier

because the overwhelming
percentage of exhibitor reports

were far more favorable.

Now, there was a
guy named, AC Bets

who ran the Powers Theater
in Red Creek, New York.

Now, if you haven't
heard of Red Creek,

it was a very small village.

There were only 500
people in the town

and his theater
was at 350 seats,

but people in those
locations were generally

very fond of serials.

So AC Bets wrote, "Have
shown four episodes of this,

and it is pleasing all.

Holding up fine, have
increased my attendance

from 50 people to over 200.

Patrons, fairly eating it up,

making money where I
was losing, book it."

So that's pretty impressive
in a town of 500 people,

he had 200 in his theater

to watch "The
Adventures Of Tarzan".

There was even a more
laboratory response

from the manager of the Gaddy
theater in Amory, Mississippi.

And he said, "Made money on
every episode of this serial.

We are not strong for serials,

but advise exhibitors to
work this up for the kids

and play it and follow
it with "Son Of Tarzan".

Price is right"

that means the rental
price he was being charged,

"and they are money makers."

So "Son of Tarzan" was
the previous serial

involving the ape man
that had been made

and released in 1920.

But because of the
nature of these serials,

you know, when you've got
something that takes 15 weeks

to play off, and you've got
six or seven runs of theaters

and various sizes and
various sized towns,

it takes over a year to
fully extract all the revenue

that you're gonna get from
these smaller theaters.

So it was still possible to
play "Adventures of Tarzan"

in late '21 and early '22,

while "Son of Tarzan" from
1920 was still playing

in subsequent run theaters.

Now it's a shame that the
original 15 episode version

that was released in 1921
does not survive intact.

These reels that
you're seeing here

were found in
exceptionally nice shape,

and there have been others
that have turned up.

And in the early
80's an enterprising,

a distributor of VHS
videotapes managed to get

a bunch of the 1921 chapters
and the 1928 reissue chapters,

that the Weiss
Brothers released,

and he edited them together
and tried to make something

coherent out of this whole
mess, which wasn't easy

because as I said before,
the 1928 reissue was edited,

a third of the
footage was missing

because you originally
had 15 chapters

and the reissue version was 10.

So trying to get something
that would be coherent

was not easy, especially
because with all the material

this guy had, this
video distributor,

he still missed chapter one.

So we still didn't get to see
the beginning of the story.

But that version was around-

it was kind of bootleg,

it was not an official
commercial release.

But it was around for many years

and a lot of us who saw it
had got a much better idea

of what was in
"Adventures of Tarzan".

You know, there's fair amount
of thrills in this version

that we're watching here, but
it's really only a fraction

of what was
previously available.

Now, I mentioned earlier
that there was a guy

who began working for
the Weiss Brothers

with their first big
feature film success

named George W Merrick

who became kind of a
jack-of-all-trades.

He was the one who
supervised the reediting

of this 15 chapter version
into the 10 chapter version.

And I suspect he was
the one who rewrote

the titles that they used.

So now we're seeing Queen
La for the first time.

This is an actress
named Lillian Worth,

who was not a big star.

I'm not aware off the
top of my head really,

of any leading
roles that she had.

I think she usually
played society matrons

and things like that.

But she makes an appropriately
queenly La of Opar

and her name has been banded
about also by Tarzan fans

and so-called Tarzan
film historians.

For many years she was
mistakenly identified

as playing Queen La in
the 1929 Tarzan serial,

"Tarzan The Tiger”,

which is a very
faithful adaptation

of the fifth Tarzan novel,
"Tarzan And The Jewels of Opar".

Well, I don't know
who came up with that,

who got the idea,

I mean, I've seen it in
print as far back as 1966,

there was a book called
“Tarzan of The Movies"

written by a guy
named Gabe Esso.

Who's a very knowledgeable fan
and a real Tarzan enthusiast.

He listed Lillian Worth
as playing Queen La

in that 1929 serial.

As it happens, he was wrong,

the part of La in that
later film was played

by a actress of middle
Eastern descent,

whose name, well,
her name in film,

she build herself as
Madam Maisel Kisnu,

and she does have another name,

but I don't remember it offhand.

Anyway, Kisnu was I thought
a very sensual, very sexy La,

much more effective, I
think, than Lilian Worth

here in this film.

But the only reason that we
found out about the mistake

is that after many
years of being lost

a print of "Tarzan
The Tiger” surfaced

in the mid 1980s,

and a very enterprising, but
rather unscrupulous bootlegger

had the print transferred,
digitally transferred,

and he released it
first on VHS tape

to a very select group
of serial aficionados.

And then later people
copied it onto DVD

and it's now commercially
available from companies

like Alpha Video and
one or two others

that specialize in
that kind of product.

"Tarzan The Tiger", I think
is a very good serial.

Doesn't have as many wild
animals as this serial does,

but Frank Merrill
is very effective.

The actress who plays Jane,

Natalie Kingston
is very effective.

And as I mentioned,
Madam Maisel Kisnu

as La of Oparis
also quite good.

So I would recommend to
you "Tarzan The Tiger".

Again, that's a ridiculous
title for a character

who was raised by apes.

I don't know why they
ever came up with that.

I frankly don't know
why they didn't just use

the title of the novel

because they had legitimately
licensed the novel

from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Why not just call it "Tarzan
And The Jewels Of Opar,"

but I digress.

(upbeat music)

Based on the footage
that I've seen,

which includes this
milange of odd reels

and the earlier version I talked

about that was kind of
patched together from footage,

from both the 1921
and 28 versions.

It's pretty interesting serial.

I mean, it's nothing if
not frantically paced

with captures and
escapes taking place

in, you know, lightning
fast succession.

And like I said before,
whenever things slowed down

the director, Robert
F Hill would say,

send in the lions
and (chuckling)

you know, all of a
sudden there'd be lions

chasing everybody
around the forest.

But now we're getting
to the part of the story

that's set in Lopa.

This is where we've
had the desert scenes.

I don't know exactly where this
particular spot takes place.

It may be near, Yuma, Arizona.

I suspect it's actually
on the Universal back lot.

For those of you who don't know,

or have only visited
Universal in recent years

because they do tours
there all the time,

a lot of the back lot, which
was, you know, wild terrain,

they shot a lot
of Westerns there,

a lot of, you know,
horses chasing each other.

A lot of it was very hilly

and there were a
fair amount of rocks,

and there was a
little bit of forest,

although nothing as
dense as the jungle

that we see here, at
least not that I know of,

but, you know, that was likely

that spot right there was
likely on the back lot.

And it was pretty easy to find

some kind of topographical
elements as needed,

you know, whether you
were shooting in valleys

or ravines or, you know,
a top rolling hills,

or it was an area that was
quite adaptable for filmmaking.

And this could very
well be in the hills

and back of Universal.

I mean, now it's hard to picture

because these days you've got

what's known as highway
101 in Southern California,

it runs right
through this property

on the, what would it be on the,

Southern side of the lot.

There are also other
housing developments

and various things
taking up space there.

But it was pretty darn
handy to have access

to all the Universal
standing sets

and to the lot, because
without that access,

the Great Western
Production Company,

would've spent a whole lot more

on "Adventures of Tarzan"
then they actually did.

And quite frankly
there's a possibility

of film never would've
been made at all

because had it been a
really expensive production,

the Weiss Brothers
in all probability

would not have been able to
raise the amount of capital

that they needed.

So you're probably wondering

whatever happened to Joe Martin.

We talked about Joe Martin
before that Orangutan

with the human intelligence

that was so highly built
up in the publicity

for this serial.

He's really not in it that much.

I mean, he must have
been quite popular

with theater goers to
justify his prominence

in the advertising, but
you'll see him a little later,

but he really doesn't have much
to do in the serial proper,

at least not enough to
justify his prominence.

Well speak of the devil,
I think that's him now.

And now they're gonna
cut away from ‘em, so.

And that of course,
would've been one of the

indoor stages at Universal.

When Universal City first
opened up for business in 1915,

they didn't have indoor stages,

they had a very
long outdoor stage

that was sectioned off
for multiple companies.

So there could be six
movies shooting in one day

at the same time simultaneously
on this long stage.

I believe it was 200 feet
long or 300 feet long.

So we're rapidly
approaching the climax.

We're now into
what would've been

the final chapter of
the original serial.

So after 14 episodes,

Rokoff and Gernot have
finally penetrated

the Lost City of Opar and
they're determined to loot it,

get the treasure that's
there for the taking.

Now you can see some of these
natives look pretty shaggy

that's because Edgar Rice
Burroughs in the novels

described the
Queen La's subjects

as beastly or only half human,

or, you know, descended
from the missing link

or something like that.

The women aren't
quite as unattractive,

but these guys are supposed
to be real savages.

Now, again, the enduring
mystery of jungle movies

and jungle stories
like the Tarzan novels

is where are all these
white Queens popping up?

Where are they from?

They all pop up in these
African law cities.

How did they get there?

That's a question that nobody
seems to want to answer.

This clearly is
an artificial set.

You can see by the rocks there,

it looks like they've painted
some shadows on the rocks.

That's the kind of
stagecraft that was used

in the early silent era that
they never would've gotten

away with later on when
talking pictures came in.

And they would make these caves,

they'd be made out of
either plaster of paris,

or they might even
be paper mache.

That's kind of
plastered over plywood

and chicken wire structures.

Again, typically serials
were produced inexpensively,

especially relative to feature
length films at this time.

So they would try to achieve
the best possible effects

on as little money possible.

So elaborate things
like glass shots

and match shots and double
exposures, things like that.

Well, double exposures
weren't very expensive to do,

but a lot of the things were.

So the serials tried
to downplay them,

and that's also why the writers,

when they were
concocting the stories,

even if they were adapting
them from other sources,

they would constantly
have to keep in mind

what kind of sets were
available on the lot,

because if they could
utilize a big set

that was built for
an expensive picture,

especially an
expensive feature film

that made serial look
a whole lot better

without having to incur
the additional expense.

And now here's for
the umpteenth time,

Jane is being chased by a lion.

(gentle music)

Lorraine is, to
use a word that's

kind of out of favor today,
she's a very plucky heroine.

She has a lot of courage,

in real life she
faced a lot of danger,

in these serials, she was
injured a number of times,

she made quite a few serials
and I don't think she emerged

from one of them
completely unscathed.

Although I don't believe

she suffered any really
serious injuries.

Now, there is a story
that might be apocryphal

that takes place during
the making of this serial,

in which supposedly Elmo Lincoln

was very upset about being
asked to do something.

And for some reason, he got
on the bad side of director,

Robert F Hill.

And according to a story,

that's in a book on serials
called "Bound and Gagged"

by an author who
purported to talk to Hill

personally about this.

At some point during the
"Adventures of Tarzan" filming

while Lincoln and
Hill were squabbling,

it was some kind of thing
where Lincoln's costume there

came apart and they held it
together with safety pins,

and at some point he pricked
his finger on a safety pin

and he let out a yelp and
the crew laughed at him

and they stopped filming

and Lincoln stormed off the
set with his feelings hurt

and told somebody he
wasn't gonna come back.

So Hill, according to
this account in this book,

decided to talk loudly enough

so that Lincoln's double,
one of his doubles,

a guy named Monte Montague,

who I think frankly, he's
referred to as a double.

I think he was
probably a stand-in

because Frank Merrill
did a lot of the doubling

that Lincoln needed.

I think Hill said something
within earshot of Monte Montague

to the effect that they
were gonna change the story.

If Lincoln was
gonna be a problem,

they were gonna
change the story.

So the Tarzan would walk into
a magic river of some kind,

and they would have Monte
Montague as the stand-in

shot from behind
walking into this water,

and then they would
have a double exposure

and Tarzan would emerge from
the other side as a small boy.

And that somehow the
properties of the water

had turned him into a small boy,

which sounds like an
absolutely ridiculous idea.

And again, I'm skeptical
if this ever happened,

but according to the story
is printed in this book,

Monte Montague then went
back to Elmo Lincoln

and said, listen, you better
get your ass back on the set

because Hill is gonna change
the story in midstream

and he's gonna write
you out of the plot.

So supposedly at that point,
Lincoln came back and they kind

of ironed out their differences.

Again, it's a very colorful,
but a very unlikely yarn.

I'm not sure that I believe
it, but it is part of the lore

surrounding this
particular serial.

So now Rokoff, Gernot,
and their Arab henchman

are all choking on
this poison gas.

Good enough for 'em I say.

(gentle music)

Now after "Adventures of Tarzan"

Edgar Rice Burroughs took
a break from Hollywood.

He did not grant
any further licenses

at this particular time.

Now you have to
remember by 1922,

when this serial
finished its playoff,

in a period of four
years, beginning in 1918,

there had been three feature
films, "Tarzan of The Apes”,

"The Romance of Tarzan", both
of which starred Elmo Lincoln,

the aforementioned
"Revenge of Tarzan",

which starred the
fireman Gene Pollar,

and then two serials,
"The Son of Tarzan",

which starred P Dempsey
Tabler as Tarzan.

And this film,

"The Adventures Of Tarzan"
returning Lincoln to the role

that made him a star.

That was a lot of Tarzan
in a four year period.

Burroughs himself was
trying to get away

from the character, even
though the Tarzan novels

were the most popular
stories that he wrote,

he was tired of them and he
felt his own personal view

was that the character
was kind of written out

that he'd really done
everything he could do

with the character in the
first five novels or so.

And that everything after that,

he was just gonna
find himself repeating

the kinds of situations

and using the similar
types of characters

that he'd already gone through

in the first four
or five novels.

So he was looking to
get away from Tarzan.

So it was not until 1927

that the ape man would
return to the screen.

And we discussed this
some in the commentary

for "New Adventures at Tarzan".

He was played by a
guy named Jim Pierce,

who was a football star

and a football coach who did
occasional work in movies

and somehow met up with
Edgar Rice Burroughs

who reportedly said, that's
him, that's my Tarzan.

And he appeared in a
feature film called

“Tarzan and the Golden Lion",

which was based on the ninth
Tarzan novel of the same name.

After that of course, in 1928,

you had "Tarzan The Mighty",

followed by "Tarzan The
Tiger” the next year.

They both start Frank
Merrill, who as Otto pole was,

formerly a Newark police
officer, who was a bodybuilder

and a competitive
athlete, national champion

in certain gymnastic contests.

He was the final silent
movie Tarzan, and after that,

you had of course,
Johnny Weissmuller

in "Tarzan The Apeman”, 1932.

And that began that whole
string of Tarzan movies.

So for a guy who really was
sick of the ape man by 1922,

Burrows actually did
pretty well with him.

He saw new Tarzans and new
Tarzan movies being made

throughout his entire life.

He passed away in the
years after World War Il.

He'd been a war correspondent
during World War Il.

And he continued to license
the ape man to Hollywood,

even though he was
never really happy

or he claimed,
it's been claimed,

he was never really
happy with the way

Tarzan was treated on film.

He found, fought with
all of the films,

even the ones that he liked
from a production standpoint.

You know, for example,

he thought that the first
two Weissmuller films

were fantastic as movies
in terms of the thrills

and the atmosphere
and, you know,

the general overall production
value that they had.

And yet it bothered
him that they didn't

stick even remotely
close to the character

that he had written, the boy
who was raised in the jungle,

but who eventually
returned civilization

and became this
cultured English Lord.

So Shic Ben Ali,

is going to die as
he lived, violently,

according to this
newly made title

was made for this version.

Again, take it big
as the expression

that old time actors used
to describe overacting.

Once again, Lilian
Lorraine and her father

are cowering from lions.

So they're stretching
this out a little more

than it needs to be.

This is basically the
last sequence of the film.

But you know, the other
thing with doing a serial was

you had to have chapters that
were roughly the same length.

And if you know, were
five minutes short of that

20 minute length, you had
to have for a chapter,

then you had to vamp
until it was done.

Here's another ape suit scene.

I think we're gonna see
Joe Martin one more time,

if I'm not mistaken.

I don't know where
this footage is shot,

that scene there on that
beach or whatever it is.

Now Rokoff is apprehended
in "Return of Tarzan",

but he escapes and
he menaces Tarzan

again in both the third novel,

"The Beast of Tarzan"
and the fourth novel

"Son of Tarzan", which
finally kills him off.

And of course, "Son of Tarzan"

deals with Lord Greystoke's son,

who even though he's been raised

on the luxurious estates of
his father of his parents,

longs, he has the
jungle in his blood.

He doesn't really know why
cause he's never been there,

but he's got the
jungle in his blood

and he winds up in Africa

and he becomes kind
of a Tarzan light

who is known among the
animals as Corak the Killer,

another great white ape,
like his father Tarzan.

Well Rokoff after so many years

has hoped to get the
ultimate revenge on Tarzan

by killing his son.

And he's responsible for
Corak being shanghai'd

and taken to Africa.

So even though this looks
like he's been apprehended

and is gonna spend the rest
of his days behind bars,

I don't think,

that's certainly not what
Burroughs had in mind.

This stuff doesn't seem
all that thrilling,

but audiences in the silent era

were absolutely mesmerized by
all this wild animal stuff.

And I guess that in the
days before television,

if you didn't have a zoo
in a large city or near you

had no way of ever seeing
lions or tigers or elephants.

But there was no way of
seeing creatures like this,

unless you saw
them in the movies.

And so audiences really
ate up all this footage

and they were not yet jaded,
you know, in 1921 and "22,

when they were
seeing this movie,

they were not yet jaded
by guys in ape suits

or stuffed animals being
tossed around or whatever.

This is a Tarzan giving some
really protracted goodbyes

here to his jungle friends.

Elmo Lincoln and Louise
Lorraine made a good team.

I really wish that I could
see the other two serials

they did together.

“Elmo the Fearless"
and the "Flaming Disc".

But sadly, those are lost films.

Like 90% of all the
silent films ever made

deteriorated over the years

because the nitrate film
they were printed on

was unstable or their negatives,

which were very flammable,
have gone up in fires.

We have to be really grateful
that any of it survives.

And even though I'm
the first to admit

that this particular incarnation
of "Adventures of Tarzan"

is not the most coherent,

the fact that we
have any of it at all

is a reason for celebration.

And I wanna thank
The Film Detective

for reviving this film,

for making it look
as good as it can,

and for getting me
to do the commentary.