1 00:00:00,601 --> 00:00:03,093 (upbeat music) 2 00:00:04,471 --> 00:00:06,030 - Hi, this is Ed Hulse again. 3 00:00:07,474 --> 00:00:09,966 I'm a film historian and a journalist, 4 00:00:11,411 --> 00:00:14,642 and a big Tarzan fan, and a big serial fan 5 00:00:14,715 --> 00:00:16,979 which is why The Film Detective 6 00:00:17,050 --> 00:00:21,351 has asked me to do the commentaries for both this film 7 00:00:21,421 --> 00:00:25,119 and the "New Adventures Of Tarzan”, the complete serial. 8 00:00:26,260 --> 00:00:28,024 I hope you're enjoying them. 9 00:00:28,095 --> 00:00:30,496 I'm gonna assume that you've seen this film already 10 00:00:32,032 --> 00:00:33,329 and that you've decided 11 00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:36,028 to listen to my commentary afterwards. 12 00:00:36,103 --> 00:00:39,095 So the first thing I have to explain to you is that, 13 00:00:39,172 --> 00:00:43,040 this is actually not a true feature version 14 00:00:43,110 --> 00:00:46,080 of the 1922 serial. 15 00:00:47,714 --> 00:00:52,652 Itis really a compilation of odd reels 16 00:00:52,719 --> 00:00:56,451 that happened to include the final chapter. 17 00:00:58,091 --> 00:00:59,684 They were offered for sale many years ago, 18 00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:02,525 they were found, copied and put together 19 00:01:02,596 --> 00:01:05,395 with these new titles that you're seeing now, 20 00:01:05,465 --> 00:01:08,162 which are explaining the plot. 21 00:01:08,235 --> 00:01:10,431 When we get to the live action footage, 22 00:01:10,504 --> 00:01:12,495 what you're gonna see at first is really 23 00:01:14,074 --> 00:01:16,406 about several chapters into the serial, 24 00:01:16,476 --> 00:01:18,706 probably five or six chapters into the serial. 25 00:01:21,214 --> 00:01:25,447 Now as I say, this is a very elaborate production 26 00:01:25,519 --> 00:01:27,419 at the time, it is a serial, 27 00:01:29,256 --> 00:01:33,693 in 15 chapters, that production began, I believe in 1921. 28 00:01:36,830 --> 00:01:39,424 Now here you can see the title sequence there, 29 00:01:39,499 --> 00:01:42,400 you see the art behind it, the forest. 30 00:01:42,469 --> 00:01:46,030 I want you to remember that because that proves 31 00:01:46,106 --> 00:01:50,805 that this is from the original 1921 release of this serial. 32 00:01:50,877 --> 00:01:53,437 Now, why do I say that, why is that important? 33 00:01:53,513 --> 00:01:55,345 Because this film, 34 00:01:55,415 --> 00:01:58,680 "The Adventures Of Tarzan" was re-released theatrically 35 00:01:58,752 --> 00:02:03,690 in 1929, with the original 15 chapters 36 00:02:04,691 --> 00:02:07,092 cut down to 10 chapters. 37 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:09,595 And the design of the titles, 38 00:02:09,663 --> 00:02:13,156 the dialogue titles and the text titles are important 39 00:02:13,233 --> 00:02:16,567 because in the 1929 version, 40 00:02:16,637 --> 00:02:19,572 they were done in a different type style 41 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:23,474 and they were done against a plain black background. 42 00:02:23,543 --> 00:02:27,502 See that photo of the jungle there, 43 00:02:27,581 --> 00:02:30,482 you wouldn't see that if this footage had been taken 44 00:02:30,550 --> 00:02:32,575 from the 1929 reissue. 45 00:02:34,855 --> 00:02:36,448 Both versions of course, 46 00:02:36,523 --> 00:02:38,491 were distributed by the Weiss Brothers. 47 00:02:40,394 --> 00:02:44,388 They were a group, a poverty row group, very prolific, 48 00:02:45,866 --> 00:02:48,358 and like many of the people of their era, 49 00:02:48,435 --> 00:02:53,373 they began in the business in the early silent days. 50 00:02:56,243 --> 00:03:01,147 So really it's three siblings, Adolph, Max, and Louis Weiss. 51 00:03:02,916 --> 00:03:05,180 They were born to Hungarian immigrants 52 00:03:05,252 --> 00:03:07,880 who arrived in America in 1883 53 00:03:07,954 --> 00:03:11,219 and took up residence in New York City. 54 00:03:11,291 --> 00:03:13,555 Adolph, he was the oldest 55 00:03:13,627 --> 00:03:17,586 and the most entrepreneurial oriented of the siblings. 56 00:03:17,664 --> 00:03:21,692 He began his career selling lamps and light bulbs 57 00:03:21,768 --> 00:03:24,362 and electrical fixtures in a store 58 00:03:24,438 --> 00:03:26,338 on 3rd Avenue in Manhattan. 59 00:03:27,474 --> 00:03:31,707 In 1900, at the age of 21, 60 00:03:31,778 --> 00:03:34,440 he kind of graduated to selling phonographs 61 00:03:34,514 --> 00:03:37,449 and other electrical machines that were licensed 62 00:03:37,517 --> 00:03:41,385 from both the Edison and the Victor companies. 63 00:03:43,290 --> 00:03:46,453 Now he had his own business and he employed his brothers, 64 00:03:46,526 --> 00:03:51,225 Max and Lewis, the latter was still a school boy 65 00:03:51,298 --> 00:03:53,767 when he started working for Adolph. 66 00:03:53,834 --> 00:03:56,565 Now, as a result of his business relationship 67 00:03:56,636 --> 00:03:59,435 with Thomas Edison and The Edison Company, 68 00:03:59,506 --> 00:04:02,737 Adolph became interested in the motion picture business 69 00:04:02,809 --> 00:04:05,676 and he opened up as kind of a side business, 70 00:04:05,746 --> 00:04:10,206 a storefront Nickelodeon theater in 1907. 71 00:04:11,685 --> 00:04:13,619 And it turned out to be very profitable. 72 00:04:14,721 --> 00:04:17,691 And within a few years, 73 00:04:17,758 --> 00:04:19,749 he owned 16 theaters scattered throughout 74 00:04:19,826 --> 00:04:22,796 the greater New York area, Long Island, New Jersey 75 00:04:22,863 --> 00:04:23,659 and Connecticut. 76 00:04:25,031 --> 00:04:27,625 So Max and Lewis helped run the chain, 77 00:04:27,701 --> 00:04:30,966 while the younger brother also dealt 78 00:04:31,037 --> 00:04:33,301 with independent exchanges. 79 00:04:33,373 --> 00:04:37,435 Exchanges where these distribution branches 80 00:04:37,511 --> 00:04:41,448 that would give prints to the, or rent prints 81 00:04:41,515 --> 00:04:43,506 to local theaters. 82 00:04:43,583 --> 00:04:45,574 And so he learned a great deal, 83 00:04:45,652 --> 00:04:48,747 Lewis Weiss about the distribution end of the business. 84 00:04:50,657 --> 00:04:52,557 Now like many of the other exhibitors of that time, 85 00:04:52,626 --> 00:04:55,493 the Weiss Brothers soon realized that the big money 86 00:04:55,562 --> 00:04:57,257 was in production. 87 00:04:57,330 --> 00:05:00,300 Because if you produced your own films, 88 00:05:00,367 --> 00:05:03,428 you weren't paying a licensing fee as a distributor. 89 00:05:04,871 --> 00:05:06,498 So you were there for keeping all the profits. 90 00:05:06,573 --> 00:05:08,735 You didn't have to return money 91 00:05:08,809 --> 00:05:10,903 to the people who produced the movie. 92 00:05:13,046 --> 00:05:14,571 Now, let me interrupt for a second 93 00:05:14,648 --> 00:05:16,514 to explain what you're seeing here. 94 00:05:16,583 --> 00:05:20,315 There's several chapters in there's Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan. 95 00:05:20,387 --> 00:05:22,913 There's his Jane, who was Louise Lorraine. 96 00:05:24,558 --> 00:05:27,357 Elmo and Louise, as I'll tell you shortly, 97 00:05:27,427 --> 00:05:29,953 had already worked together several times. 98 00:05:30,030 --> 00:05:31,896 They are the stars of this production. 99 00:05:36,436 --> 00:05:39,997 And this was by and large produced in Southern California, 100 00:05:40,073 --> 00:05:44,476 around Hollywood, with some desert scenes that were shot 101 00:05:44,544 --> 00:05:46,308 around Yuma, Arizona. 102 00:05:47,747 --> 00:05:48,908 And there, of course is one of the incredibly 103 00:05:48,982 --> 00:05:51,644 phony looking ape suits. 104 00:05:55,689 --> 00:05:58,351 And this film Tarzan interacts with both 105 00:05:58,425 --> 00:06:00,951 real chimpanzees and Orangutan, 106 00:06:01,027 --> 00:06:05,965 and these guys in these actors in ape costumes. 107 00:06:06,032 --> 00:06:08,501 So anyway, getting back to the Weiss Brothers. 108 00:06:08,568 --> 00:06:11,469 In 1915, they incorporated a company called 109 00:06:11,538 --> 00:06:13,404 Clarion Photo Plays. 110 00:06:15,108 --> 00:06:17,543 The intent of which was not originally to produce, 111 00:06:17,611 --> 00:06:20,080 but to acquire feature films that had already been made 112 00:06:20,146 --> 00:06:22,046 and market them via what was known 113 00:06:22,115 --> 00:06:24,812 as the state rights method. 114 00:06:24,885 --> 00:06:26,478 Now, as I explain in the 115 00:06:26,553 --> 00:06:29,318 “New Adventures Of Tarzan" commentary. 116 00:06:29,389 --> 00:06:33,485 State rights involved, these independent sub distributors 117 00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:35,790 who had specific territories, 118 00:06:35,862 --> 00:06:38,058 usually they were individual states, 119 00:06:38,131 --> 00:06:41,863 but some territories bled over into other states, 120 00:06:41,935 --> 00:06:44,495 especially in the Western half of the country, 121 00:06:44,571 --> 00:06:47,438 where there were fewer theaters to begin with. 122 00:06:47,507 --> 00:06:52,343 So if you didn't have your own network of exchanges 123 00:06:52,412 --> 00:06:54,813 or branch offices in the big cities, 124 00:06:54,881 --> 00:06:57,111 which the major studios did, 125 00:06:57,183 --> 00:07:00,414 you had to rely on the state rights method 126 00:07:00,487 --> 00:07:02,615 to get your film picked up and distributed 127 00:07:02,689 --> 00:07:03,952 on a national basis. 128 00:07:05,825 --> 00:07:08,692 So their company Clarion's their first and only real hit 129 00:07:08,762 --> 00:07:12,096 was a movie called "It May Be Your Daughter,” 130 00:07:12,165 --> 00:07:14,031 which was made in 1916. 131 00:07:14,100 --> 00:07:19,004 It was kind of a sensational white slave melodrama 132 00:07:20,140 --> 00:07:21,699 produced by a group called, 133 00:07:21,775 --> 00:07:23,903 "The Moral Uplift Society of America.” 134 00:07:23,977 --> 00:07:25,069 How's that for a name? 135 00:07:26,079 --> 00:07:27,672 And more importantly, 136 00:07:27,747 --> 00:07:29,613 it was written by a guy named George M Merrick, 137 00:07:31,518 --> 00:07:34,954 with whom the Weiss Brothers would be aligned for the next, 138 00:07:35,021 --> 00:07:37,046 literally for the next several decades, 139 00:07:37,123 --> 00:07:40,991 three or four decades, going into the early TV years. 140 00:07:41,061 --> 00:07:43,928 Merrick was kind of a jack-of-all-trades. 141 00:07:43,997 --> 00:07:46,022 He did some writing, he did some producing, 142 00:07:46,099 --> 00:07:47,965 he was a production manager. 143 00:07:49,836 --> 00:07:52,168 He was one of these guys who knew the business 144 00:07:52,238 --> 00:07:53,637 from the ground the up. 145 00:07:55,508 --> 00:07:59,001 So anyway, with the profits from "It May Be Your Daughter”, 146 00:07:59,079 --> 00:08:01,810 Adolph and his brothers organized 147 00:08:01,881 --> 00:08:06,443 what was then called the Art Class Pictures Corporation, 148 00:08:06,519 --> 00:08:09,580 which was kind of like a parent company, 149 00:08:09,656 --> 00:08:13,183 an umbrella company under which there were several offshoots 150 00:08:13,259 --> 00:08:15,728 that were later formed of different names. 151 00:08:15,795 --> 00:08:17,786 Now this kind of strategy by the way, 152 00:08:17,864 --> 00:08:20,026 was not unique to the Weiss Brothers. 153 00:08:20,100 --> 00:08:23,195 Early motion picture history is littered with entrepreneurs 154 00:08:23,269 --> 00:08:26,466 who founded multiple subsidiary companies 155 00:08:26,539 --> 00:08:29,440 to handle in individual projects. 156 00:08:29,509 --> 00:08:31,477 Whether they were films that were being made, 157 00:08:31,544 --> 00:08:35,503 films that were acquired for distribution, 158 00:08:35,582 --> 00:08:39,519 films that had already gone through distribution once 159 00:08:39,586 --> 00:08:41,850 and were being re-released several years later, 160 00:08:41,921 --> 00:08:45,016 sometimes with the addition of newly shot footage, 161 00:08:46,926 --> 00:08:50,829 it was easy to establish all these different companies 162 00:08:50,897 --> 00:08:53,867 in those days and it was a very practical reason 163 00:08:53,933 --> 00:08:55,799 for doing so because it then limited 164 00:08:55,869 --> 00:09:00,067 the parent company's liability if heavy losses were incurred 165 00:09:00,140 --> 00:09:02,131 or if lawsuits were threatened. 166 00:09:02,208 --> 00:09:07,146 Now, by the way, here's Universal backlot. 167 00:09:09,749 --> 00:09:14,687 This set here, this street was likely constructed in 1920 168 00:09:16,956 --> 00:09:21,894 for a big Universal movie called "The Virgin of Stamboul.” 169 00:09:23,797 --> 00:09:25,856 It might also have been constructed slightly later 170 00:09:25,932 --> 00:09:28,867 for another film called "Under Two Flags”. 171 00:09:28,935 --> 00:09:32,667 But it was clearly a street of Arabian character 172 00:09:32,739 --> 00:09:35,071 and it fits into this part of the Tarzan story. 173 00:09:39,045 --> 00:09:40,877 And getting back to the Weiss Brothers, 174 00:09:40,947 --> 00:09:45,714 they were inspired by the success of the 1918 175 00:09:45,785 --> 00:09:48,254 feature film, "Tarzan of The Apes", 176 00:09:48,321 --> 00:09:51,086 which was the very first Motion Picture based 177 00:09:51,157 --> 00:09:53,922 on one of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan novels. 178 00:09:53,993 --> 00:09:57,987 So in September of 1919, 179 00:09:58,064 --> 00:10:01,591 they negotiated with Burroughs, for the screen rights 180 00:10:01,668 --> 00:10:05,298 to his second Tarzan book, "The Return of Tarzan". 181 00:10:06,973 --> 00:10:11,308 Now, they made a very unusual deal with him, 182 00:10:12,912 --> 00:10:14,175 and really the only one of its kind 183 00:10:14,247 --> 00:10:16,011 to which Burroughs ever agreed. 184 00:10:18,318 --> 00:10:20,980 They paid a licensing fee that gave them the option 185 00:10:21,054 --> 00:10:25,321 of producing two films adapted from the same novel. 186 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:29,088 And this made sense for the reason 187 00:10:29,162 --> 00:10:32,962 that "The Return of Tarzan" was originally serialized 188 00:10:33,032 --> 00:10:36,900 in Pulp magazines and different installments of the novel 189 00:10:36,970 --> 00:10:40,031 had very distinct subplots. 190 00:10:40,106 --> 00:10:42,598 So it was possible to say, 191 00:10:42,675 --> 00:10:46,168 shoot, two or three subplots and leave another one, 192 00:10:46,246 --> 00:10:49,113 or perhaps two for adaptation 193 00:10:49,182 --> 00:10:51,241 in a subsequent motion picture, 194 00:10:51,317 --> 00:10:53,843 and they would be completely different storylines. 195 00:10:55,188 --> 00:10:56,314 So that's what happened. 196 00:10:58,224 --> 00:11:01,785 Adolph Weiss authorized the creation after he got 197 00:11:01,861 --> 00:11:06,628 the license from Boroughs to introduce 198 00:11:06,699 --> 00:11:10,158 one of those subsidiary companies I was just telling about, 199 00:11:10,236 --> 00:11:13,137 called Numa Pictures Corporation. 200 00:11:13,206 --> 00:11:17,165 Now Numa is the word for lion and the language of Tarzan 201 00:11:17,243 --> 00:11:19,075 and his ape friends. 202 00:11:19,145 --> 00:11:22,672 So they created Numa Pictures Corporation 203 00:11:22,749 --> 00:11:27,311 specifically for their Tarzan venture, okay. 204 00:11:27,387 --> 00:11:31,381 So Numa was headed by Lewis and their attorney, 205 00:11:31,457 --> 00:11:35,985 a guy named Harry Kash was the secretary. 206 00:11:37,430 --> 00:11:41,264 Now they produced a feature film made from 207 00:11:41,334 --> 00:11:44,326 “Return of Tarzan", that starred 208 00:11:44,404 --> 00:11:47,863 a kind of a burly New York based firefighter 209 00:11:47,941 --> 00:11:50,808 named Gene Pollar as Tarzan. 210 00:11:52,712 --> 00:11:54,942 And they made the movie and they were gonna distribute it 211 00:11:55,014 --> 00:11:58,143 as "The Return of Tarzan" the same title as the novel, 212 00:11:58,218 --> 00:12:02,382 but in canvasing the exhibitors about this they said, 213 00:12:02,455 --> 00:12:05,755 well, does this mean, is this a rehash of the earlier film 214 00:12:05,825 --> 00:12:08,192 with Elmo Lincoln “Tarzan Of The Apes"? 215 00:12:08,261 --> 00:12:09,820 No, it's a brand new production, 216 00:12:09,896 --> 00:12:11,694 it's a different Tarzan, et cetera. 217 00:12:11,764 --> 00:12:14,028 Well, finally, they were worried about the confusion 218 00:12:14,100 --> 00:12:16,432 enough that they rechristened the movie 219 00:12:16,502 --> 00:12:20,666 "Revenge of Tarzan" and not "Return of Tarzan”, 220 00:12:20,740 --> 00:12:23,732 although the credits did say that it was adapted 221 00:12:23,810 --> 00:12:26,745 from the "Return of Tarzan" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. 222 00:12:28,047 --> 00:12:30,880 So the scenario for that film 223 00:12:30,950 --> 00:12:33,419 was written by a guy named Robert Saxmar, 224 00:12:33,486 --> 00:12:35,386 and it left the biggest chunk 225 00:12:35,455 --> 00:12:38,322 of the original novel untouched. 226 00:12:38,391 --> 00:12:40,325 So that would be the second film 227 00:12:40,393 --> 00:12:41,918 that the Weiss Brothers would make 228 00:12:41,995 --> 00:12:44,191 from "The Return of Tarzan". 229 00:12:44,264 --> 00:12:47,757 So in preparing this second version, 230 00:12:47,834 --> 00:12:50,394 the contract had not stipulated 231 00:12:50,470 --> 00:12:54,304 that the second film had to be a feature length film. 232 00:12:54,374 --> 00:12:56,138 So they said, you know what, 233 00:12:56,209 --> 00:13:00,305 we can maximize our investment if we make it a serial. 234 00:13:00,380 --> 00:13:03,247 Because if we do like a 15 chapter serials, 235 00:13:03,316 --> 00:13:06,217 we're gonna get 15 weeks of film rentals, 236 00:13:06,286 --> 00:13:08,380 as opposed to the one week that we get, 237 00:13:08,454 --> 00:13:10,047 if it's a feature film. 238 00:13:10,123 --> 00:13:11,454 Now, they would've gotten more money 239 00:13:11,524 --> 00:13:13,083 for the feature film than they would 240 00:13:13,159 --> 00:13:15,491 for an individual serial chapter. 241 00:13:15,561 --> 00:13:18,826 But considering all the revenue they would get 242 00:13:18,898 --> 00:13:22,857 from say 15 episodes, it was a much better policy 243 00:13:22,935 --> 00:13:24,835 to go with a complete serial. 244 00:13:24,904 --> 00:13:28,169 Now this would not make Burroughs happy, obviously, 245 00:13:28,241 --> 00:13:31,438 because he was bound to feel as he did feel 246 00:13:31,511 --> 00:13:34,003 that he was being cheated out of more money 247 00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:35,445 that he could have been making, 248 00:13:35,515 --> 00:13:38,007 but he'd already made the deal. 249 00:13:38,084 --> 00:13:41,315 So he saw all the money he was gonna get 250 00:13:41,387 --> 00:13:42,946 from the Weiss Brothers. 251 00:13:43,022 --> 00:13:44,786 Now it turned out by the way that 252 00:13:44,857 --> 00:13:48,384 "Revenge of Tarzan", the feature film, starring Gene Pollar 253 00:13:48,461 --> 00:13:51,260 as the ape man, that ultimately, 254 00:13:52,398 --> 00:13:53,832 the Weiss Brothers cleaned up, 255 00:13:53,900 --> 00:13:56,028 they sold the worldwide rights to it, 256 00:13:56,102 --> 00:13:58,503 to the Goldwyn distributing corporation 257 00:14:00,340 --> 00:14:03,537 for hundred thousand dollars advance, 258 00:14:03,609 --> 00:14:07,443 and a percentage of the net profits which was not reported, 259 00:14:07,513 --> 00:14:10,210 but that was an extremely good deal for them. 260 00:14:10,283 --> 00:14:14,379 So they had working capital to invest in the second movie 261 00:14:14,454 --> 00:14:17,048 based on the "Return of Tarzan". 262 00:14:17,123 --> 00:14:21,822 So what they did was they decided to call their serial, 263 00:14:21,894 --> 00:14:23,862 "The Adventures Of Tarzan", 264 00:14:26,132 --> 00:14:31,070 and base it on the last segment of the novel 265 00:14:32,939 --> 00:14:36,898 which dealt with the Lost City of Opar and its Queen, La. 266 00:14:38,378 --> 00:14:40,312 Another one of these fabled white Queens 267 00:14:40,380 --> 00:14:42,508 that you only find in African lost cities 268 00:14:42,582 --> 00:14:45,051 don't ask me how that happens. 269 00:14:45,118 --> 00:14:49,055 But that was the biggest chunk of the novel. 270 00:14:49,122 --> 00:14:53,184 And that would be the basis for the Weiss Brothers serial. 271 00:14:53,259 --> 00:14:56,058 Now, obviously they would have to extend the plot 272 00:14:56,129 --> 00:14:59,224 quite a bit because getting 15 chapters 273 00:14:59,298 --> 00:15:01,995 or about four hours of material 274 00:15:02,068 --> 00:15:06,904 out of a hundred pages of a novel was pretty tough to do. 275 00:15:06,973 --> 00:15:08,873 So obviously they had to expand things, 276 00:15:08,941 --> 00:15:13,879 they had to create new subplots and new incidents. 277 00:15:15,314 --> 00:15:16,372 And of course they had to emphasize 278 00:15:16,449 --> 00:15:18,281 the chapter ending perils 279 00:15:18,351 --> 00:15:21,321 that Tarzan and Jane would find themselves in. 280 00:15:21,387 --> 00:15:24,357 So that required it further deviation from the novel. 281 00:15:26,192 --> 00:15:29,457 Nonetheless, they were very secure in their belief 282 00:15:29,529 --> 00:15:31,054 that this would be a big hit. 283 00:15:33,599 --> 00:15:38,400 They did incorporate yet another subsidiary company 284 00:15:38,471 --> 00:15:43,204 called The Adventures of Tarzan Serial Sales Company, 285 00:15:45,077 --> 00:15:47,569 for, "the purposes of exploiting and marketing” 286 00:15:47,647 --> 00:15:50,173 and "the upcoming production”. 287 00:15:50,249 --> 00:15:52,274 So they placed advertisements in the leading 288 00:15:52,351 --> 00:15:54,217 Motion Picture Industry Trade Papers, 289 00:15:54,287 --> 00:15:56,278 proclaiming that "Adventures of Tarzan" 290 00:15:56,355 --> 00:16:00,383 would be available for state rights licensing. 291 00:16:00,460 --> 00:16:03,589 So in other words, rather than sell off distribution rights 292 00:16:03,663 --> 00:16:05,461 to somebody like Goldyn as they had done 293 00:16:05,531 --> 00:16:07,898 with "Revenge of Tarzan", 294 00:16:07,967 --> 00:16:10,493 they intended to make their own territorial sales 295 00:16:10,570 --> 00:16:12,595 and thereby keep all the profits. 296 00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:17,899 So Gene Pollar had not really impressed movie goers 297 00:16:19,612 --> 00:16:22,309 with his portrayal of the ape man in "Revenge of Tarzan". 298 00:16:22,381 --> 00:16:25,544 So the Weiss Brothers said, "We gotta get Elmo Lincoln back. 299 00:16:25,618 --> 00:16:27,484 He's the guy who made the initial impression 300 00:16:27,553 --> 00:16:30,523 as Tarzan, he's the guy we gotta have.” 301 00:16:30,590 --> 00:16:32,115 So the Weiss Brothers said, 302 00:16:32,191 --> 00:16:34,091 we're gonna find this guy and hire him. 303 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:37,425 Now, they learned that Lincoln was under contract 304 00:16:37,497 --> 00:16:41,559 to a company called The Great Western Production Company, 305 00:16:41,634 --> 00:16:45,229 which was making all kinds of films for Karl Lemily's 306 00:16:45,304 --> 00:16:48,638 Universal Film Manufacturing Company, 307 00:16:48,708 --> 00:16:52,372 which was the early silent era named for what later became 308 00:16:52,445 --> 00:16:53,469 Universal Pictures. 309 00:16:55,314 --> 00:16:59,512 Now, the president of the Great Western Production Company 310 00:17:01,187 --> 00:17:03,349 was Julia Stern and his younger brother 311 00:17:03,422 --> 00:17:06,119 Abe was the vice president. 312 00:17:06,192 --> 00:17:10,254 They had partners named Oscar and Louis Jacobs, 313 00:17:10,329 --> 00:17:12,195 also brothers. 314 00:17:12,265 --> 00:17:15,257 Now, the Sterns were related to Karl Lemily by marriage, 315 00:17:15,334 --> 00:17:19,168 which accounted for their favored nation status 316 00:17:19,238 --> 00:17:22,731 among the various fiefdoms that were sprawled 317 00:17:22,808 --> 00:17:27,746 across Universal City, which at something like 260 acres 318 00:17:29,382 --> 00:17:31,407 was the largest lot than any studio owned. 319 00:17:33,085 --> 00:17:36,419 So Elmo Lincoln had just done the third 320 00:17:36,489 --> 00:17:39,322 of three serials that he made for Universal, 321 00:17:39,392 --> 00:17:42,259 which were produced by Great Western. 322 00:17:42,328 --> 00:17:45,161 First was called "Elmo The Mighty”, 323 00:17:45,231 --> 00:17:48,132 second one was called “Elmo The Fearless", 324 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:50,726 and the third was called “The Flaming Disc". 325 00:17:52,572 --> 00:17:56,736 Now in two of these, his leading lady was Louise Lorraine, 326 00:17:58,644 --> 00:18:03,047 who you can see here playing Jane in the Tarzan serial. 327 00:18:04,350 --> 00:18:06,751 So Lincoln was temporarily at Liberty. 328 00:18:08,087 --> 00:18:10,215 Universal was still distributing 329 00:18:10,289 --> 00:18:15,022 “The Flaming Disc", and Lincoln had also 330 00:18:15,094 --> 00:18:17,461 made the aforementioned "Under Two Flags”, 331 00:18:17,530 --> 00:18:21,125 which promised to be a big feature film hit. 332 00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:23,100 And so he was a fairly hot property. 333 00:18:24,537 --> 00:18:29,236 So Great Western more specifically Julia Stern 334 00:18:30,710 --> 00:18:33,042 offered the Weiss Brothers to produce 335 00:18:33,112 --> 00:18:35,547 “New Adventures Of Tarzan" for their new 336 00:18:35,615 --> 00:18:37,515 Numa Pictures Corporation. 337 00:18:37,583 --> 00:18:39,176 So the Weiss Brothers wouldn't have to bother 338 00:18:39,251 --> 00:18:40,616 with production at all. 339 00:18:40,686 --> 00:18:42,677 They would naturally approve the script 340 00:18:42,755 --> 00:18:44,655 and arrange for the financing and everything else, 341 00:18:44,724 --> 00:18:47,591 but the actual production of the serial 342 00:18:47,660 --> 00:18:50,061 would go to Great Western. 343 00:18:52,498 --> 00:18:54,557 So naturally the Weiss Brothers agreed to this 344 00:18:54,634 --> 00:18:56,796 because this arrangement guaranteed 345 00:18:56,869 --> 00:18:58,496 that they would get Elmo Lincoln, 346 00:18:58,571 --> 00:19:00,403 who otherwise they would've had to try 347 00:19:00,473 --> 00:19:04,376 and contract separately from Great Western 348 00:19:04,443 --> 00:19:07,413 and if great Western decided to either hold them up 349 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,381 or not to give him Lincoln services at all, 350 00:19:10,449 --> 00:19:11,848 they'd have been screwed. 351 00:19:11,917 --> 00:19:14,352 So they were happy to make this deal, 352 00:19:14,420 --> 00:19:17,151 and it was a deal for Great Western too, 353 00:19:17,223 --> 00:19:21,785 because being related to Lemley gave the Stern brothers 354 00:19:21,861 --> 00:19:25,320 complete access to all of the facilities, 355 00:19:25,398 --> 00:19:28,368 the technicians, and all the sets, 356 00:19:28,434 --> 00:19:32,530 the standing sets that were available at Universal City, 357 00:19:32,605 --> 00:19:37,133 including the street that you're seeing right now, 358 00:19:37,209 --> 00:19:39,701 which had already been used in a number of productions. 359 00:19:39,779 --> 00:19:42,373 So this was a way of getting a lot of good production value 360 00:19:42,448 --> 00:19:46,442 into the serial without spending a lot of new money on sets. 361 00:19:46,519 --> 00:19:49,614 By shooting it at Universal and using standing sets, 362 00:19:49,689 --> 00:19:51,384 Great Western would be able to get 363 00:19:52,858 --> 00:19:56,817 a much more elaborate look to their serial. 364 00:19:56,896 --> 00:20:01,458 So also from Universal, Great Western got the cameramen, 365 00:20:01,534 --> 00:20:05,596 Joe Mayer and Jerry Ash who not only provided 366 00:20:05,671 --> 00:20:08,163 the basic cinematography, but they also did 367 00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:10,538 what limited visual effects were needed 368 00:20:10,609 --> 00:20:15,547 to help maintain some rather elaborate illusions. 369 00:20:16,949 --> 00:20:19,145 They did have to contract separately 370 00:20:19,218 --> 00:20:22,779 for a player named Joe Martin. 371 00:20:22,855 --> 00:20:26,519 Now, Joe Martin was not an actor, 372 00:20:26,592 --> 00:20:29,721 he was Orangutan star of comedy shorts 373 00:20:29,795 --> 00:20:32,230 that were produced by the Sterns 374 00:20:32,298 --> 00:20:35,757 who had a separate label called Century Comedies. 375 00:20:35,835 --> 00:20:37,564 And Century Comedies naturally 376 00:20:37,636 --> 00:20:40,264 also released its product through Universal. 377 00:20:41,941 --> 00:20:46,879 So Joe Martin's trainer insisted on a separate deal 378 00:20:48,514 --> 00:20:50,346 and so they had to cut a separate contract, 379 00:20:50,416 --> 00:20:51,747 but they were happy to do that because Joe Martin 380 00:20:51,817 --> 00:20:56,414 was actually had some box office appeal 381 00:20:56,489 --> 00:20:58,924 because of these two real comedies that he was in. 382 00:20:58,991 --> 00:21:01,187 Now, as it turns out in the final serial, 383 00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:03,752 he did not appear all that often, 384 00:21:03,829 --> 00:21:07,493 but he does appear and you will see him later 385 00:21:07,566 --> 00:21:08,761 in this footage here. 386 00:21:10,369 --> 00:21:12,269 So the final piece was of course, 387 00:21:12,338 --> 00:21:17,276 getting Lillian Lorraine at this time, just 19 years old, 388 00:21:18,711 --> 00:21:20,270 and she was also by the way, 389 00:21:20,346 --> 00:21:21,814 a regular in the century comedies. 390 00:21:21,881 --> 00:21:23,940 So she'd worked plenty for the Sterns, 391 00:21:24,016 --> 00:21:25,780 they were familiar with her. 392 00:21:25,851 --> 00:21:30,516 Production got underway in late January of 1921 393 00:21:30,589 --> 00:21:32,956 and consumed more than seven months, 394 00:21:33,025 --> 00:21:35,687 which is a very long time for serial 395 00:21:35,761 --> 00:21:37,957 would not only including time off for the usual 396 00:21:38,030 --> 00:21:41,432 weather related delays, but they had a lot of trouble 397 00:21:41,500 --> 00:21:43,594 with animals when they were trying to stage 398 00:21:43,669 --> 00:21:44,966 the wild animal scenes. 399 00:21:45,037 --> 00:21:47,005 There was a lot of animal footage in this, 400 00:21:47,072 --> 00:21:49,700 Universal by the way maintained its own zoo. 401 00:21:51,610 --> 00:21:54,773 They kind of took up from where Colonel Williams Selig 402 00:21:54,847 --> 00:21:57,646 left off, Selig had his own zoo 403 00:21:57,716 --> 00:22:01,414 and his own production facilities on the other side of town. 404 00:22:01,487 --> 00:22:03,285 But at Universal, they said, 405 00:22:03,355 --> 00:22:05,346 "We ought really ought to maintain our own zoo." 406 00:22:05,424 --> 00:22:07,449 So they had monkeys, they had gorillas, 407 00:22:07,526 --> 00:22:09,551 they had a couple lions 408 00:22:09,628 --> 00:22:11,824 and all of them were pressed into service 409 00:22:11,897 --> 00:22:13,558 for "Adventures of Tarzan". 410 00:22:15,401 --> 00:22:19,531 So there were other delays related to injuries, 411 00:22:21,407 --> 00:22:22,738 several of the players were injured doing action, 412 00:22:22,808 --> 00:22:24,298 including Elmo Lincoln. 413 00:22:25,878 --> 00:22:27,505 And at a couple times, 414 00:22:27,580 --> 00:22:29,674 production had to be shut down altogether. 415 00:22:31,784 --> 00:22:34,754 The street scenes erected for "Virgin of Stamboul” 416 00:22:34,820 --> 00:22:36,515 you've already seen, 417 00:22:36,589 --> 00:22:39,752 they were among many scenes that were shot 418 00:22:39,825 --> 00:22:42,487 on standing sets at the Universal back lot. 419 00:22:43,963 --> 00:22:45,795 There was limited location shooting. 420 00:22:45,865 --> 00:22:48,698 They were able to do some of it on the Universal back lot, 421 00:22:48,767 --> 00:22:53,034 which like I say, at 260 acres was a big chunk. 422 00:22:53,105 --> 00:22:55,597 There's all kinds of stuff there now, 423 00:22:55,674 --> 00:22:57,506 including by the way, a highway, 424 00:22:57,576 --> 00:23:01,979 which was not there when this film was being made. 425 00:23:02,047 --> 00:23:05,677 But they had scenes that took place in a desert, 426 00:23:05,751 --> 00:23:08,015 they had to get these rolling sand dunes 427 00:23:08,087 --> 00:23:11,614 that most people think of 428 00:23:11,690 --> 00:23:13,556 when they think of the Arabian desert. 429 00:23:13,626 --> 00:23:16,857 So they went to Yuma, Arizona, 430 00:23:16,929 --> 00:23:19,626 and they spent more than a week there, 431 00:23:19,698 --> 00:23:21,860 unfortunately based on the schedule, 432 00:23:21,934 --> 00:23:25,427 they had to spend a week there in the summer. 433 00:23:25,504 --> 00:23:29,065 So the temperatures got up well over a hundred degrees, 434 00:23:29,141 --> 00:23:32,771 there was sunburn, there was sunstroke, people fainting, 435 00:23:32,845 --> 00:23:34,973 problems with the film melting in the cameras, 436 00:23:35,047 --> 00:23:37,914 all kinds of things related to filming 437 00:23:37,983 --> 00:23:39,815 in that kind of a climate. 438 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,451 Now, Lincoln had a reputation for doing all his own stunts 439 00:23:44,523 --> 00:23:48,050 in his other serials, but he had been putting 440 00:23:48,127 --> 00:23:50,391 on a lot of weight over the last couple years 441 00:23:50,462 --> 00:23:53,955 and his prodigious bulk 442 00:23:55,868 --> 00:23:58,496 and his lack of grace kept him from being effective 443 00:23:58,570 --> 00:24:03,064 when it came to a lot of the scenes in the treetops, 444 00:24:03,142 --> 00:24:06,772 which were of course Tarzan's preferred travel lanes. 445 00:24:06,845 --> 00:24:09,815 So in a lot of the scenes that showed, 446 00:24:09,882 --> 00:24:11,475 a lot of the long shots especially 447 00:24:11,550 --> 00:24:15,817 that showed the ape man swinging on vines 448 00:24:15,888 --> 00:24:19,051 and you know, climbing up hand over hand, 449 00:24:19,124 --> 00:24:24,062 Lincoln was doubled by a New Jersey native named Otto Pole. 450 00:24:25,731 --> 00:24:28,063 He was a national gymnastics champion 451 00:24:28,133 --> 00:24:31,728 and a bodybuilder who would later play Tarzan himself, 452 00:24:33,138 --> 00:24:35,106 and under the name Frank Merrill. 453 00:24:36,742 --> 00:24:38,039 While he wasn't doubling Lincoln, 454 00:24:38,110 --> 00:24:42,013 he also played several Arab tribesman. 455 00:24:42,081 --> 00:24:45,142 You've already seen him now and I'll point him out 456 00:24:45,217 --> 00:24:47,652 the next time he turns up. 457 00:24:49,755 --> 00:24:53,020 You can tell, even though Lincoln has a pretty bulky outfit 458 00:24:53,092 --> 00:24:57,029 there as Tarzan, well, not so bulky in that shot. 459 00:24:58,897 --> 00:25:02,993 You can easily see that Merrill is while very well muscled, 460 00:25:04,636 --> 00:25:06,832 he's not quite as large as Lincoln 461 00:25:06,905 --> 00:25:10,603 and especially his legs are kind of on the spindly side. 462 00:25:12,277 --> 00:25:16,874 But, Merrill was very convincing in the vine swinging scenes 463 00:25:18,283 --> 00:25:21,048 and he later made a very good Tarzan himself. 464 00:25:21,120 --> 00:25:26,058 So the principle photography wrapped up in early August, 465 00:25:27,659 --> 00:25:29,127 again, took a lot longer than it should have. 466 00:25:30,696 --> 00:25:33,688 And the national release of chapter one 467 00:25:33,766 --> 00:25:35,996 was scheduled for October 1st. 468 00:25:36,068 --> 00:25:40,869 So that gave the Weiss Brothers roughly six to seven weeks 469 00:25:40,939 --> 00:25:44,807 to edit the serial, to have print struck, 470 00:25:44,877 --> 00:25:46,470 to ship them across the country, 471 00:25:46,545 --> 00:25:49,173 to the various state rights distributors 472 00:25:49,248 --> 00:25:51,182 who then had a needed some time 473 00:25:51,250 --> 00:25:54,550 to get them to the first run theaters 474 00:25:54,620 --> 00:25:56,748 that would play them. 475 00:25:56,822 --> 00:25:59,917 Now it should be noted that serials 476 00:25:59,992 --> 00:26:04,828 at this time in the silent era, they were really- 477 00:26:04,897 --> 00:26:07,730 they had a national release day for the first chapter, 478 00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:12,533 but a lot of times the entire things were not finished. 479 00:26:12,604 --> 00:26:15,164 The entire serials had not been totally edited 480 00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,734 or printed up when the first chapter went into release. 481 00:26:19,812 --> 00:26:22,110 So that would happen later on. 482 00:26:22,181 --> 00:26:25,048 And that also led to some very interesting 483 00:26:26,819 --> 00:26:28,548 commercial developments because 484 00:26:29,988 --> 00:26:32,958 when you had more time in production, 485 00:26:33,025 --> 00:26:35,619 while the early chapters were playing in theaters, 486 00:26:35,694 --> 00:26:38,891 and you're still working on the later chapters to edit them, 487 00:26:40,799 --> 00:26:43,291 the early results from the exhibitors might dictate 488 00:26:43,368 --> 00:26:45,063 expanding a serial, they might say, 489 00:26:45,137 --> 00:26:47,936 hey, this thing is going over like gangbusters. 490 00:26:48,006 --> 00:26:51,032 We already wish we had more chapters. 491 00:26:51,110 --> 00:26:53,169 So Frank Merrill's first Tarzan serial, 492 00:26:53,245 --> 00:26:57,614 “Tarzan The Mighty" was originally scheduled for 12 chapters 493 00:26:57,683 --> 00:27:00,243 because it was released in the same way 494 00:27:00,319 --> 00:27:02,651 with the early chapters playing in theaters 495 00:27:02,721 --> 00:27:05,190 before the later chapters had been totally finished, 496 00:27:06,758 --> 00:27:09,557 the exhibitor reaction was so favorable 497 00:27:09,628 --> 00:27:11,187 that Universal said, you know what, 498 00:27:11,263 --> 00:27:13,322 don't put the ending on chapter 12, 499 00:27:13,398 --> 00:27:16,800 let's shoot three more chapters, add this material, 500 00:27:16,869 --> 00:27:19,634 we're gonna get 15 chapters out of it. 501 00:27:19,705 --> 00:27:21,036 Because as I explained 502 00:27:21,106 --> 00:27:23,097 in "New Adventures Of Tarzan" commentary 503 00:27:23,175 --> 00:27:25,701 serials were rented by the chapter. 504 00:27:25,777 --> 00:27:27,245 So if you had a couple thousand theaters 505 00:27:27,312 --> 00:27:30,976 that were playing a serial all at once, 506 00:27:31,049 --> 00:27:33,916 and they all wanted it extended, 507 00:27:33,986 --> 00:27:35,977 that was a lot more revenue at stake 508 00:27:38,357 --> 00:27:40,655 even though the chapters themselves 509 00:27:40,726 --> 00:27:42,125 usually only rented for five bucks a piece, 510 00:27:42,194 --> 00:27:43,992 it was a lot more revenue at stake, 511 00:27:44,062 --> 00:27:47,157 if you could get 3000 theaters to pay that kind of money. 512 00:27:48,834 --> 00:27:52,964 That did not happen with "Adventures of Tarzan", 513 00:27:53,038 --> 00:27:57,305 but the serial was very successful, nonetheless. 514 00:27:57,376 --> 00:28:00,038 Now, originally the Weiss Brothers had planned 515 00:28:00,112 --> 00:28:04,208 to delay marketing it until the shooting was complete. 516 00:28:04,283 --> 00:28:06,149 But Louis Weiss had mounted 517 00:28:06,218 --> 00:28:10,815 a very elaborate and well publicized sales campaign. 518 00:28:10,889 --> 00:28:14,348 And so "Adventures," which was advertised 519 00:28:14,426 --> 00:28:18,829 as the "Tarzan of Tarzans", was very rapidly sold 520 00:28:18,897 --> 00:28:23,061 to territories in the United States and Canada. 521 00:28:23,135 --> 00:28:24,694 As a matter of fact, 522 00:28:24,770 --> 00:28:27,933 state writers in 14 different territories 523 00:28:28,006 --> 00:28:32,739 covering part or all of 26 states in total 524 00:28:32,811 --> 00:28:35,872 bought the serial as soon as it was made available. 525 00:28:35,948 --> 00:28:38,883 And the first run exhibitors in big cities 526 00:28:40,786 --> 00:28:44,120 even supplied what they used to call 24 sheet posters, 527 00:28:44,189 --> 00:28:47,750 very large posters to paste on billboards 528 00:28:47,826 --> 00:28:50,090 and on the sides of large buildings 529 00:28:50,162 --> 00:28:51,721 to help advertise the thing. 530 00:28:52,864 --> 00:28:55,424 And Tarzan being very popular, 531 00:28:55,500 --> 00:28:58,731 the Tarzan books being very popular in Europe, 532 00:28:58,804 --> 00:29:01,102 the Weiss Brothers did well there too. 533 00:29:01,173 --> 00:29:05,235 Europe's Mundus film company paid a record price 534 00:29:05,310 --> 00:29:09,747 for distribution rights in France, Holland, Belgium, 535 00:29:09,815 --> 00:29:13,376 and Switzerland, more than they'd paid for any movie, 536 00:29:13,452 --> 00:29:16,012 feature film, or serial up to that time. 537 00:29:17,489 --> 00:29:18,979 So the Weiss Brothers had a public relations 538 00:29:19,057 --> 00:29:21,151 director named Bert Ennis 539 00:29:21,226 --> 00:29:24,196 and he worked with the domestic sub distributors, 540 00:29:25,931 --> 00:29:28,957 on the creation of very elaborate displays 541 00:29:29,034 --> 00:29:33,938 for theater lobbies and coming up with publicity stunts 542 00:29:34,006 --> 00:29:35,474 that local theaters could engineer 543 00:29:35,540 --> 00:29:37,838 to catch the public's attention. 544 00:29:37,909 --> 00:29:41,243 This kind of thing had, you know, 545 00:29:41,313 --> 00:29:44,772 was very rudimentary in the early days of films 546 00:29:44,850 --> 00:29:48,013 because Nickelodeons usually only played films 547 00:29:48,086 --> 00:29:49,884 for a day or two. 548 00:29:49,955 --> 00:29:52,151 And even as late as 1910, 549 00:29:52,224 --> 00:29:54,420 there were a lot of theaters that were changing 550 00:29:56,128 --> 00:29:59,496 the bill affair every two or three days. 551 00:29:59,564 --> 00:30:03,467 So it really didn't pay to advertise 552 00:30:03,535 --> 00:30:05,867 to come up with elaborate advertising schemes 553 00:30:05,937 --> 00:30:07,837 for these things because in two or three days 554 00:30:07,906 --> 00:30:09,203 they'd be gone and they'd be replaced 555 00:30:09,274 --> 00:30:11,242 by the time the word got out, 556 00:30:11,310 --> 00:30:14,041 by the time a lot of people saw the advertising, 557 00:30:14,112 --> 00:30:15,739 the movies would be gone already. 558 00:30:15,814 --> 00:30:17,339 With a serial it was different 559 00:30:17,416 --> 00:30:19,783 because you'd have the same thing, 560 00:30:19,851 --> 00:30:22,320 you'd have a different chapter every week 561 00:30:22,387 --> 00:30:25,914 in the same theater for 15 weeks in a row. 562 00:30:25,991 --> 00:30:30,929 So it paid to advertise serials with things like billboards 563 00:30:32,597 --> 00:30:34,122 and lobby displays that could stay up for a couple weeks 564 00:30:34,199 --> 00:30:38,534 at a time, it was a very successful strategy. 565 00:30:40,005 --> 00:30:42,201 So as I mentioned before, 566 00:30:42,274 --> 00:30:47,212 the screenwriters expanded quite a bit on the plot, 567 00:30:49,081 --> 00:30:51,072 what was left of the plot of "Return of Tarzan", 568 00:30:51,149 --> 00:30:54,983 but they maintained the same basic story structure. 569 00:30:55,053 --> 00:30:58,023 Tarzan and Jane, her father, professor Porter, 570 00:30:58,090 --> 00:31:00,457 who we've already seen kind of staggering 571 00:31:00,525 --> 00:31:03,256 around the jungle in tattered clothes. 572 00:31:03,328 --> 00:31:06,821 They were all there as were Tarzan's bitter enemy 573 00:31:06,898 --> 00:31:11,096 Nikolas Rokoff played by Frank Woodson 574 00:31:11,169 --> 00:31:14,070 and one of Tarzan's English relatives, 575 00:31:17,275 --> 00:31:18,333 Cecil Clayton. 576 00:31:21,079 --> 00:31:23,446 And then of course there was another heavy, 577 00:31:23,515 --> 00:31:27,145 this guy Gernot who was one of Rokoff's heavys, 578 00:31:27,219 --> 00:31:28,846 and they were the main players. 579 00:31:29,654 --> 00:31:31,213 Later in the serial, 580 00:31:31,289 --> 00:31:34,190 when things moved to the Lost City of Opar, 581 00:31:34,259 --> 00:31:36,557 you had Queen La who was played 582 00:31:36,628 --> 00:31:39,325 by someone named Lillian Worth. 583 00:31:41,333 --> 00:31:45,031 Gernot by the way, there's Frank Whitsun there as Rokoff 584 00:31:46,505 --> 00:31:49,372 Gernot was played by George Monberg 585 00:31:51,510 --> 00:31:54,445 and there's of course, 586 00:31:56,248 --> 00:32:00,481 Charles Insleee playing professor Porter, Jane's father. 587 00:32:00,552 --> 00:32:03,214 (gentle music) 588 00:32:09,327 --> 00:32:12,126 Now, this. 589 00:32:15,033 --> 00:32:18,059 I'm not exactly sure where this area is. 590 00:32:19,571 --> 00:32:21,369 It looks like it could have been shot 591 00:32:23,275 --> 00:32:26,643 in Colonel Selig Zoo, but it also could have been shot 592 00:32:26,711 --> 00:32:28,975 somewhere on the Universal back lot. 593 00:32:30,715 --> 00:32:34,879 What I do know is that they kept these outdoor locations 594 00:32:36,221 --> 00:32:38,622 loaded with wild animals running around, 595 00:32:38,690 --> 00:32:41,057 and whenever the plot slowed up a bit, 596 00:32:41,126 --> 00:32:45,290 director Bob Hill would stage a lion chase 597 00:32:45,363 --> 00:32:46,922 and the lions would run around 598 00:32:46,998 --> 00:32:49,933 and chase everybody up into trees and whatnot. 599 00:32:50,001 --> 00:32:51,298 And that was very effective. 600 00:32:53,171 --> 00:32:56,197 You know, some of the Tarzan's serials had very elaborate 601 00:32:56,274 --> 00:32:59,505 wild animal sequences that were used as stock footage 602 00:32:59,578 --> 00:33:04,448 in movies for 20 and 30 years after they were made. 603 00:33:07,552 --> 00:33:09,384 As a matter of fact, 604 00:33:09,454 --> 00:33:11,388 the first Tarzan movie ever made, "Tarzan of The Apes” 605 00:33:11,456 --> 00:33:15,518 from 1918 was shot in Louisiana. 606 00:33:15,594 --> 00:33:17,392 And there was a shot of a, 607 00:33:17,462 --> 00:33:22,229 kind of a moss covered tree with birds sitting on the limbs 608 00:33:23,668 --> 00:33:26,137 that was being used as a piece of stock footage 609 00:33:26,204 --> 00:33:28,138 well into the 1940s. 610 00:33:29,274 --> 00:33:31,208 So it's pretty amazing stuff. 611 00:33:35,714 --> 00:33:37,113 Now, again, as I say, 612 00:33:38,583 --> 00:33:39,709 they had to stretch the plot quite a bit 613 00:33:39,784 --> 00:33:41,718 before they got to Opar. 614 00:33:43,355 --> 00:33:48,088 And in this particular incarnation of the story 615 00:33:50,061 --> 00:33:54,123 Jane's back or I should say her shoulder 616 00:33:54,199 --> 00:33:58,067 has been kind of tattooed with a map 617 00:33:58,136 --> 00:34:01,162 leading the miscreants to Opar. 618 00:34:01,239 --> 00:34:04,174 Now see this title here is not one of the original titles. 619 00:34:06,311 --> 00:34:08,746 That title was made by the distributor 620 00:34:08,813 --> 00:34:10,679 who releases to the home movie market. 621 00:34:14,219 --> 00:34:16,449 But by and large, this is the same footage that appeared 622 00:34:16,521 --> 00:34:21,049 in the original 1921-1922 version. 623 00:34:21,126 --> 00:34:23,754 It played well, even though it was released nationally 624 00:34:23,828 --> 00:34:28,129 in the fall of 1921, it played well until 1922. 625 00:34:28,199 --> 00:34:30,293 And actually some of the later episodes 626 00:34:30,368 --> 00:34:32,769 were actually copyrighted in 1922 627 00:34:32,837 --> 00:34:36,535 because they weren't yet done at the end of 1921. 628 00:34:42,647 --> 00:34:46,208 That is one big hog. 629 00:34:46,284 --> 00:34:48,446 There's a lot of bacon there, I wanna tell ya. 630 00:34:53,658 --> 00:34:55,353 Actually, that's probably a boar. 631 00:34:57,295 --> 00:34:59,423 Probably a wild boar. 632 00:34:59,497 --> 00:35:02,159 But again, there was a great variety of animals. 633 00:35:02,233 --> 00:35:04,668 And by the way, they weren't all treated very humanely, 634 00:35:04,736 --> 00:35:06,261 as you could see by this. 635 00:35:07,572 --> 00:35:10,098 It was some years before 636 00:35:10,175 --> 00:35:13,611 the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 637 00:35:13,678 --> 00:35:16,648 really started enforcing rules on Hollywood filmmakers. 638 00:35:18,550 --> 00:35:21,281 And that was mostly occasioned as a result of the Westerns, 639 00:35:21,353 --> 00:35:24,323 where there were some rather cruel devices 640 00:35:24,389 --> 00:35:26,323 that would be hooked up to horses 641 00:35:26,391 --> 00:35:28,723 to make them fall at a certain spot 642 00:35:28,793 --> 00:35:30,625 when they were at a full gallop. 643 00:35:30,695 --> 00:35:34,791 So the SPCA was not happy about that, but they extended 644 00:35:37,435 --> 00:35:40,166 their jurisdiction to include all kinds of movies 645 00:35:40,238 --> 00:35:42,138 where animals were concerned, 646 00:35:42,207 --> 00:35:44,437 anything from rabbits to elephants 647 00:35:44,509 --> 00:35:45,704 and everything in between. 648 00:35:48,613 --> 00:35:51,514 So the reviews for "Adventures of Tarzan" 649 00:35:51,583 --> 00:35:53,142 were generally favorable. 650 00:35:53,218 --> 00:35:54,777 And some of them, even more than that, 651 00:35:54,853 --> 00:35:58,153 I mean, some of them were wildly enthusiastic. 652 00:35:58,223 --> 00:36:00,692 Most of the reviews noted to previous Tarzan films 653 00:36:02,527 --> 00:36:05,394 had been so popular that they were still being booked. 654 00:36:05,463 --> 00:36:09,263 And so it was possible in the early 1920s 655 00:36:09,334 --> 00:36:11,302 to see different Tarzan films 656 00:36:11,369 --> 00:36:13,565 playing at different theaters in the same city. 657 00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,842 So one of the trade papers called the exhibitors Herald, 658 00:36:18,910 --> 00:36:21,140 said in their review that, 659 00:36:21,212 --> 00:36:25,149 "Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan is too well known to theatergoers 660 00:36:25,216 --> 00:36:27,310 to need further introduction. 661 00:36:27,385 --> 00:36:30,844 His red blooded fights staged in each episode 662 00:36:30,922 --> 00:36:33,687 will evoke applause from the audience. 663 00:36:33,758 --> 00:36:36,693 A menagerie of wild animals has been let loose 664 00:36:36,761 --> 00:36:40,493 to dash through and put thrills into many scenes.” 665 00:36:43,401 --> 00:36:46,200 And it was also possible in those days 666 00:36:46,271 --> 00:36:48,365 to get feedback from the exhibitors, 667 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,499 the theater owners themselves, 668 00:36:50,575 --> 00:36:53,636 because some of the trade papers had columns 669 00:36:53,712 --> 00:36:57,546 where the exhibitor could write in his reaction 670 00:36:57,615 --> 00:36:59,481 to films that he was playing 671 00:36:59,551 --> 00:37:02,384 and this presumably would act as a guide 672 00:37:02,454 --> 00:37:05,549 for exhibitors further down the food chain, 673 00:37:05,623 --> 00:37:08,752 you know, the third, fourth or fifth-run theaters 674 00:37:08,827 --> 00:37:11,353 to get an idea of what they could expect, 675 00:37:11,429 --> 00:37:14,421 whether they would wanna book a film or stay away from it. 676 00:37:14,499 --> 00:37:16,263 And they would rely on the comments 677 00:37:16,334 --> 00:37:19,304 of their fellow exhibitors that were printed 678 00:37:19,370 --> 00:37:21,702 in these trade publications. 679 00:37:21,773 --> 00:37:24,902 So there was one exhibitor named Ed Crew 680 00:37:24,976 --> 00:37:29,413 from the Empress Theaters in Oklahoma. 681 00:37:29,481 --> 00:37:31,472 He slammed “Adventures”. 682 00:37:31,549 --> 00:37:35,816 He said, "This is the poorest serial I ever saw Elmo in, 683 00:37:35,887 --> 00:37:37,912 and the ape man is very poor. 684 00:37:37,989 --> 00:37:40,515 Lay off, it won't get any money.” 685 00:37:41,860 --> 00:37:43,885 But he clearly was an outlier 686 00:37:43,962 --> 00:37:48,195 because the overwhelming percentage of exhibitor reports 687 00:37:48,266 --> 00:37:50,701 were far more favorable. 688 00:37:50,769 --> 00:37:54,535 Now, there was a guy named, AC Bets 689 00:37:54,606 --> 00:37:58,873 who ran the Powers Theater in Red Creek, New York. 690 00:37:58,943 --> 00:38:00,843 Now, if you haven't heard of Red Creek, 691 00:38:00,912 --> 00:38:02,846 it was a very small village. 692 00:38:02,914 --> 00:38:05,611 There were only 500 people in the town 693 00:38:05,683 --> 00:38:09,313 and his theater was at 350 seats, 694 00:38:10,722 --> 00:38:14,283 but people in those locations were generally 695 00:38:14,359 --> 00:38:16,384 very fond of serials. 696 00:38:16,461 --> 00:38:20,557 So AC Bets wrote, "Have shown four episodes of this, 697 00:38:20,632 --> 00:38:22,464 and it is pleasing all. 698 00:38:22,534 --> 00:38:25,970 Holding up fine, have increased my attendance 699 00:38:26,037 --> 00:38:29,735 from 50 people to over 200. 700 00:38:29,808 --> 00:38:31,799 Patrons, fairly eating it up, 701 00:38:31,876 --> 00:38:34,868 making money where I was losing, book it." 702 00:38:36,748 --> 00:38:38,341 So that's pretty impressive in a town of 500 people, 703 00:38:38,416 --> 00:38:40,510 he had 200 in his theater 704 00:38:40,585 --> 00:38:42,986 to watch "The Adventures Of Tarzan". 705 00:38:44,989 --> 00:38:47,515 There was even a more laboratory response 706 00:38:47,592 --> 00:38:52,325 from the manager of the Gaddy theater in Amory, Mississippi. 707 00:38:54,032 --> 00:38:58,367 And he said, "Made money on every episode of this serial. 708 00:38:59,504 --> 00:39:01,336 We are not strong for serials, 709 00:39:01,406 --> 00:39:04,774 but advise exhibitors to work this up for the kids 710 00:39:04,843 --> 00:39:08,643 and play it and follow it with "Son Of Tarzan". 711 00:39:08,713 --> 00:39:10,477 Price is right" 712 00:39:10,548 --> 00:39:12,539 that means the rental price he was being charged, 713 00:39:12,617 --> 00:39:15,348 "and they are money makers." 714 00:39:15,420 --> 00:39:18,515 So "Son of Tarzan" was the previous serial 715 00:39:18,590 --> 00:39:20,490 involving the ape man that had been made 716 00:39:20,558 --> 00:39:21,992 and released in 1920. 717 00:39:23,561 --> 00:39:25,495 But because of the nature of these serials, 718 00:39:25,563 --> 00:39:29,397 you know, when you've got something that takes 15 weeks 719 00:39:29,467 --> 00:39:34,405 to play off, and you've got six or seven runs of theaters 720 00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,003 and various sizes and various sized towns, 721 00:39:39,077 --> 00:39:42,945 it takes over a year to fully extract all the revenue 722 00:39:43,014 --> 00:39:45,881 that you're gonna get from these smaller theaters. 723 00:39:45,950 --> 00:39:50,854 So it was still possible to play "Adventures of Tarzan" 724 00:39:50,922 --> 00:39:54,984 in late '21 and early '22, 725 00:39:55,059 --> 00:39:59,860 while "Son of Tarzan" from 1920 was still playing 726 00:39:59,931 --> 00:40:01,626 in subsequent run theaters. 727 00:40:03,568 --> 00:40:08,369 Now it's a shame that the original 15 episode version 728 00:40:08,439 --> 00:40:13,377 that was released in 1921 does not survive intact. 729 00:40:14,812 --> 00:40:16,473 These reels that you're seeing here 730 00:40:16,547 --> 00:40:18,106 were found in exceptionally nice shape, 731 00:40:18,182 --> 00:40:21,379 and there have been others that have turned up. 732 00:40:21,452 --> 00:40:26,390 And in the early 80's an enterprising, 733 00:40:28,026 --> 00:40:31,656 a distributor of VHS videotapes managed to get 734 00:40:33,564 --> 00:40:37,467 a bunch of the 1921 chapters and the 1928 reissue chapters, 735 00:40:41,139 --> 00:40:43,039 that the Weiss Brothers released, 736 00:40:43,107 --> 00:40:46,634 and he edited them together and tried to make something 737 00:40:46,711 --> 00:40:51,649 coherent out of this whole mess, which wasn't easy 738 00:40:53,551 --> 00:40:55,986 because as I said before, the 1928 reissue was edited, 739 00:40:56,054 --> 00:40:58,580 a third of the footage was missing 740 00:40:58,656 --> 00:41:00,715 because you originally had 15 chapters 741 00:41:00,792 --> 00:41:03,022 and the reissue version was 10. 742 00:41:03,094 --> 00:41:06,086 So trying to get something that would be coherent 743 00:41:06,164 --> 00:41:10,101 was not easy, especially because with all the material 744 00:41:10,168 --> 00:41:12,569 this guy had, this video distributor, 745 00:41:12,637 --> 00:41:14,628 he still missed chapter one. 746 00:41:14,706 --> 00:41:16,936 So we still didn't get to see the beginning of the story. 747 00:41:17,008 --> 00:41:18,442 But that version was around- 748 00:41:18,509 --> 00:41:19,874 it was kind of bootleg, 749 00:41:19,944 --> 00:41:22,914 it was not an official commercial release. 750 00:41:22,981 --> 00:41:24,847 But it was around for many years 751 00:41:24,916 --> 00:41:28,614 and a lot of us who saw it had got a much better idea 752 00:41:28,686 --> 00:41:31,587 of what was in "Adventures of Tarzan". 753 00:41:31,656 --> 00:41:34,990 You know, there's fair amount of thrills in this version 754 00:41:35,059 --> 00:41:39,724 that we're watching here, but it's really only a fraction 755 00:41:41,032 --> 00:41:43,467 of what was previously available. 756 00:41:45,069 --> 00:41:47,800 Now, I mentioned earlier that there was a guy 757 00:41:47,872 --> 00:41:49,840 who began working for the Weiss Brothers 758 00:41:49,907 --> 00:41:52,535 with their first big feature film success 759 00:41:52,610 --> 00:41:54,874 named George W Merrick 760 00:41:54,946 --> 00:41:57,608 who became kind of a jack-of-all-trades. 761 00:41:57,682 --> 00:42:01,050 He was the one who supervised the reediting 762 00:42:01,119 --> 00:42:06,057 of this 15 chapter version into the 10 chapter version. 763 00:42:07,725 --> 00:42:09,056 And I suspect he was the one who rewrote 764 00:42:09,127 --> 00:42:10,788 the titles that they used. 765 00:42:12,663 --> 00:42:14,825 So now we're seeing Queen La for the first time. 766 00:42:17,035 --> 00:42:19,003 This is an actress named Lillian Worth, 767 00:42:19,070 --> 00:42:22,597 who was not a big star. 768 00:42:22,673 --> 00:42:24,971 I'm not aware off the top of my head really, 769 00:42:25,043 --> 00:42:27,034 of any leading roles that she had. 770 00:42:27,111 --> 00:42:30,775 I think she usually played society matrons 771 00:42:30,848 --> 00:42:32,714 and things like that. 772 00:42:32,784 --> 00:42:37,221 But she makes an appropriately queenly La of Opar 773 00:42:39,123 --> 00:42:42,855 and her name has been banded about also by Tarzan fans 774 00:42:42,927 --> 00:42:46,727 and so-called Tarzan film historians. 775 00:42:46,798 --> 00:42:50,792 For many years she was mistakenly identified 776 00:42:50,868 --> 00:42:55,567 as playing Queen La in the 1929 Tarzan serial, 777 00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:57,199 "Tarzan The Tiger”, 778 00:42:57,275 --> 00:43:00,609 which is a very faithful adaptation 779 00:43:00,678 --> 00:43:05,616 of the fifth Tarzan novel, "Tarzan And The Jewels of Opar". 780 00:43:07,018 --> 00:43:08,952 Well, I don't know who came up with that, 781 00:43:09,020 --> 00:43:10,852 who got the idea, 782 00:43:10,922 --> 00:43:12,947 I mean, I've seen it in print as far back as 1966, 783 00:43:14,692 --> 00:43:17,093 there was a book called “Tarzan of The Movies" 784 00:43:17,161 --> 00:43:19,528 written by a guy named Gabe Esso. 785 00:43:19,597 --> 00:43:23,124 Who's a very knowledgeable fan and a real Tarzan enthusiast. 786 00:43:23,201 --> 00:43:26,933 He listed Lillian Worth as playing Queen La 787 00:43:27,004 --> 00:43:29,234 in that 1929 serial. 788 00:43:29,307 --> 00:43:31,537 As it happens, he was wrong, 789 00:43:31,609 --> 00:43:34,738 the part of La in that later film was played 790 00:43:34,812 --> 00:43:39,750 by a actress of middle Eastern descent, 791 00:43:41,652 --> 00:43:43,950 whose name, well, her name in film, 792 00:43:44,021 --> 00:43:45,955 she build herself as Madam Maisel Kisnu, 793 00:43:50,261 --> 00:43:51,319 and she does have another name, 794 00:43:51,395 --> 00:43:53,955 but I don't remember it offhand. 795 00:43:54,031 --> 00:43:58,969 Anyway, Kisnu was I thought a very sensual, very sexy La, 796 00:44:02,006 --> 00:44:04,100 much more effective, I think, than Lilian Worth 797 00:44:04,175 --> 00:44:05,165 here in this film. 798 00:44:07,111 --> 00:44:09,842 But the only reason that we found out about the mistake 799 00:44:09,914 --> 00:44:13,316 is that after many years of being lost 800 00:44:13,384 --> 00:44:16,752 a print of "Tarzan The Tiger” surfaced 801 00:44:16,821 --> 00:44:20,086 in the mid 1980s, 802 00:44:20,158 --> 00:44:25,096 and a very enterprising, but rather unscrupulous bootlegger 803 00:44:26,964 --> 00:44:29,831 had the print transferred, digitally transferred, 804 00:44:29,901 --> 00:44:33,838 and he released it first on VHS tape 805 00:44:33,905 --> 00:44:37,307 to a very select group of serial aficionados. 806 00:44:37,375 --> 00:44:42,176 And then later people copied it onto DVD 807 00:44:42,246 --> 00:44:44,772 and it's now commercially available from companies 808 00:44:44,849 --> 00:44:48,877 like Alpha Video and one or two others 809 00:44:48,953 --> 00:44:50,944 that specialize in that kind of product. 810 00:44:52,790 --> 00:44:55,782 "Tarzan The Tiger", I think is a very good serial. 811 00:44:55,860 --> 00:45:00,161 Doesn't have as many wild animals as this serial does, 812 00:45:00,231 --> 00:45:02,393 but Frank Merrill is very effective. 813 00:45:02,466 --> 00:45:04,332 The actress who plays Jane, 814 00:45:04,402 --> 00:45:06,700 Natalie Kingston is very effective. 815 00:45:06,771 --> 00:45:09,001 And as I mentioned, Madam Maisel Kisnu 816 00:45:09,073 --> 00:45:12,668 as La of Oparis also quite good. 817 00:45:14,145 --> 00:45:17,979 So I would recommend to you "Tarzan The Tiger". 818 00:45:18,049 --> 00:45:20,814 Again, that's a ridiculous title for a character 819 00:45:20,885 --> 00:45:22,250 who was raised by apes. 820 00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:24,345 I don't know why they ever came up with that. 821 00:45:24,422 --> 00:45:26,948 I frankly don't know why they didn't just use 822 00:45:27,024 --> 00:45:28,685 the title of the novel 823 00:45:28,759 --> 00:45:30,955 because they had legitimately licensed the novel 824 00:45:31,028 --> 00:45:32,826 from Edgar Rice Burroughs. 825 00:45:32,897 --> 00:45:35,423 Why not just call it "Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar," 826 00:45:35,499 --> 00:45:37,297 but I digress. 827 00:45:37,368 --> 00:45:40,030 (upbeat music) 828 00:45:41,839 --> 00:45:45,002 Based on the footage that I've seen, 829 00:45:46,477 --> 00:45:50,107 which includes this milange of odd reels 830 00:45:50,181 --> 00:45:51,910 and the earlier version I talked 831 00:45:51,983 --> 00:45:55,385 about that was kind of patched together from footage, 832 00:45:55,453 --> 00:45:58,423 from both the 1921 and 28 versions. 833 00:46:00,091 --> 00:46:02,219 It's pretty interesting serial. 834 00:46:02,293 --> 00:46:04,887 I mean, it's nothing if not frantically paced 835 00:46:06,330 --> 00:46:08,924 with captures and escapes taking place 836 00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,994 in, you know, lightning fast succession. 837 00:46:13,070 --> 00:46:17,200 And like I said before, whenever things slowed down 838 00:46:17,275 --> 00:46:20,336 the director, Robert F Hill would say, 839 00:46:20,411 --> 00:46:22,812 send in the lions and (chuckling) 840 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:24,905 you know, all of a sudden there'd be lions 841 00:46:24,982 --> 00:46:26,450 chasing everybody around the forest. 842 00:46:26,517 --> 00:46:29,043 But now we're getting to the part of the story 843 00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:30,815 that's set in Lopa. 844 00:46:30,888 --> 00:46:33,414 This is where we've had the desert scenes. 845 00:46:35,293 --> 00:46:38,388 I don't know exactly where this particular spot takes place. 846 00:46:38,462 --> 00:46:42,899 It may be near, Yuma, Arizona. 847 00:46:42,967 --> 00:46:45,937 I suspect it's actually on the Universal back lot. 848 00:46:47,571 --> 00:46:49,335 For those of you who don't know, 849 00:46:49,407 --> 00:46:53,173 or have only visited Universal in recent years 850 00:46:53,244 --> 00:46:56,077 because they do tours there all the time, 851 00:46:56,147 --> 00:47:00,914 a lot of the back lot, which was, you know, wild terrain, 852 00:47:03,287 --> 00:47:05,051 they shot a lot of Westerns there, 853 00:47:05,122 --> 00:47:06,783 a lot of, you know, horses chasing each other. 854 00:47:06,857 --> 00:47:09,417 A lot of it was very hilly 855 00:47:09,493 --> 00:47:11,018 and there were a fair amount of rocks, 856 00:47:11,095 --> 00:47:13,063 and there was a little bit of forest, 857 00:47:13,130 --> 00:47:15,462 although nothing as dense as the jungle 858 00:47:15,533 --> 00:47:18,025 that we see here, at least not that I know of, 859 00:47:19,303 --> 00:47:21,135 but, you know, that was likely 860 00:47:21,205 --> 00:47:22,900 that spot right there was likely on the back lot. 861 00:47:24,575 --> 00:47:28,375 And it was pretty easy to find 862 00:47:28,446 --> 00:47:32,883 some kind of topographical elements as needed, 863 00:47:32,950 --> 00:47:35,351 you know, whether you were shooting in valleys 864 00:47:35,419 --> 00:47:39,788 or ravines or, you know, a top rolling hills, 865 00:47:41,926 --> 00:47:45,362 or it was an area that was quite adaptable for filmmaking. 866 00:47:48,332 --> 00:47:50,130 And this could very well be in the hills 867 00:47:50,201 --> 00:47:51,191 and back of Universal. 868 00:47:52,536 --> 00:47:54,561 I mean, now it's hard to picture 869 00:47:54,638 --> 00:47:56,902 because these days you've got 870 00:47:58,976 --> 00:48:02,469 what's known as highway 101 in Southern California, 871 00:48:02,546 --> 00:48:05,572 it runs right through this property 872 00:48:05,649 --> 00:48:07,981 on the, what would it be on the, 873 00:48:10,154 --> 00:48:11,815 Southern side of the lot. 874 00:48:16,293 --> 00:48:18,921 There are also other housing developments 875 00:48:18,996 --> 00:48:21,590 and various things taking up space there. 876 00:48:24,635 --> 00:48:27,570 But it was pretty darn handy to have access 877 00:48:27,638 --> 00:48:30,903 to all the Universal standing sets 878 00:48:30,975 --> 00:48:35,913 and to the lot, because without that access, 879 00:48:38,048 --> 00:48:39,413 the Great Western Production Company, 880 00:48:39,483 --> 00:48:41,417 would've spent a whole lot more 881 00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,449 on "Adventures of Tarzan" then they actually did. 882 00:48:46,524 --> 00:48:48,014 And quite frankly there's a possibility 883 00:48:48,092 --> 00:48:49,856 of film never would've been made at all 884 00:48:49,927 --> 00:48:53,420 because had it been a really expensive production, 885 00:48:53,497 --> 00:48:56,364 the Weiss Brothers in all probability 886 00:48:56,434 --> 00:48:59,893 would not have been able to raise the amount of capital 887 00:48:59,970 --> 00:49:00,937 that they needed. 888 00:49:07,411 --> 00:49:08,469 So you're probably wondering 889 00:49:08,546 --> 00:49:10,344 whatever happened to Joe Martin. 890 00:49:10,414 --> 00:49:13,873 We talked about Joe Martin before that Orangutan 891 00:49:13,951 --> 00:49:15,385 with the human intelligence 892 00:49:15,453 --> 00:49:18,252 that was so highly built up in the publicity 893 00:49:18,322 --> 00:49:19,380 for this serial. 894 00:49:19,457 --> 00:49:21,653 He's really not in it that much. 895 00:49:21,725 --> 00:49:26,162 I mean, he must have been quite popular 896 00:49:26,230 --> 00:49:28,460 with theater goers to justify his prominence 897 00:49:28,532 --> 00:49:31,524 in the advertising, but you'll see him a little later, 898 00:49:31,602 --> 00:49:36,199 but he really doesn't have much to do in the serial proper, 899 00:49:36,273 --> 00:49:39,538 at least not enough to justify his prominence. 900 00:49:48,986 --> 00:49:51,250 Well speak of the devil, I think that's him now. 901 00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:58,454 And now they're gonna cut away from ‘em, so. 902 00:50:05,369 --> 00:50:06,495 And that of course, would've been one of the 903 00:50:06,570 --> 00:50:08,561 indoor stages at Universal. 904 00:50:08,639 --> 00:50:13,509 When Universal City first opened up for business in 1915, 905 00:50:13,577 --> 00:50:15,272 they didn't have indoor stages, 906 00:50:15,346 --> 00:50:19,715 they had a very long outdoor stage 907 00:50:19,783 --> 00:50:24,152 that was sectioned off for multiple companies. 908 00:50:24,221 --> 00:50:28,385 So there could be six movies shooting in one day 909 00:50:28,459 --> 00:50:31,724 at the same time simultaneously on this long stage. 910 00:50:31,795 --> 00:50:34,662 I believe it was 200 feet long or 300 feet long. 911 00:50:51,815 --> 00:50:54,182 So we're rapidly approaching the climax. 912 00:50:54,251 --> 00:50:56,652 We're now into what would've been 913 00:50:56,720 --> 00:51:01,123 the final chapter of the original serial. 914 00:51:08,599 --> 00:51:13,036 So after 14 episodes, 915 00:51:13,103 --> 00:51:16,630 Rokoff and Gernot have finally penetrated 916 00:51:16,707 --> 00:51:19,677 the Lost City of Opar and they're determined to loot it, 917 00:51:21,312 --> 00:51:25,271 get the treasure that's there for the taking. 918 00:51:27,818 --> 00:51:30,617 Now you can see some of these natives look pretty shaggy 919 00:51:30,688 --> 00:51:32,713 that's because Edgar Rice Burroughs in the novels 920 00:51:32,790 --> 00:51:37,728 described the Queen La's subjects 921 00:51:37,795 --> 00:51:40,492 as beastly or only half human, 922 00:51:40,564 --> 00:51:43,226 or, you know, descended from the missing link 923 00:51:43,300 --> 00:51:44,426 or something like that. 924 00:51:46,437 --> 00:51:50,374 The women aren't quite as unattractive, 925 00:51:50,441 --> 00:51:54,275 but these guys are supposed to be real savages. 926 00:51:54,345 --> 00:51:59,283 Now, again, the enduring mystery of jungle movies 927 00:52:00,684 --> 00:52:02,311 and jungle stories like the Tarzan novels 928 00:52:02,386 --> 00:52:06,152 is where are all these white Queens popping up? 929 00:52:06,223 --> 00:52:07,554 Where are they from? 930 00:52:07,625 --> 00:52:10,651 They all pop up in these African law cities. 931 00:52:10,728 --> 00:52:12,492 How did they get there? 932 00:52:12,563 --> 00:52:15,089 That's a question that nobody seems to want to answer. 933 00:52:17,401 --> 00:52:19,267 This clearly is an artificial set. 934 00:52:19,336 --> 00:52:22,670 You can see by the rocks there, 935 00:52:22,740 --> 00:52:25,266 it looks like they've painted some shadows on the rocks. 936 00:52:25,342 --> 00:52:28,209 That's the kind of stagecraft that was used 937 00:52:28,278 --> 00:52:31,304 in the early silent era that they never would've gotten 938 00:52:31,382 --> 00:52:33,680 away with later on when talking pictures came in. 939 00:52:35,285 --> 00:52:36,650 And they would make these caves, 940 00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:40,850 they'd be made out of either plaster of paris, 941 00:52:40,924 --> 00:52:42,585 or they might even be paper mache. 942 00:52:44,328 --> 00:52:47,628 That's kind of plastered over plywood 943 00:52:47,698 --> 00:52:50,599 and chicken wire structures. 944 00:52:56,340 --> 00:53:00,368 Again, typically serials were produced inexpensively, 945 00:53:00,444 --> 00:53:03,778 especially relative to feature length films at this time. 946 00:53:03,847 --> 00:53:06,475 So they would try to achieve the best possible effects 947 00:53:06,550 --> 00:53:08,848 on as little money possible. 948 00:53:10,454 --> 00:53:13,480 So elaborate things like glass shots 949 00:53:13,557 --> 00:53:17,824 and match shots and double exposures, things like that. 950 00:53:17,895 --> 00:53:20,159 Well, double exposures weren't very expensive to do, 951 00:53:20,230 --> 00:53:22,164 but a lot of the things were. 952 00:53:22,232 --> 00:53:24,667 So the serials tried to downplay them, 953 00:53:24,735 --> 00:53:28,296 and that's also why the writers, 954 00:53:28,372 --> 00:53:30,204 when they were concocting the stories, 955 00:53:30,274 --> 00:53:32,800 even if they were adapting them from other sources, 956 00:53:32,876 --> 00:53:35,709 they would constantly have to keep in mind 957 00:53:35,779 --> 00:53:39,147 what kind of sets were available on the lot, 958 00:53:39,216 --> 00:53:41,776 because if they could utilize a big set 959 00:53:41,852 --> 00:53:44,583 that was built for an expensive picture, 960 00:53:44,655 --> 00:53:46,589 especially an expensive feature film 961 00:53:47,991 --> 00:53:50,392 that made serial look a whole lot better 962 00:53:50,461 --> 00:53:53,192 without having to incur the additional expense. 963 00:53:54,631 --> 00:53:57,396 And now here's for the umpteenth time, 964 00:53:57,468 --> 00:53:59,835 Jane is being chased by a lion. 965 00:53:59,903 --> 00:54:02,497 (gentle music) 966 00:54:04,608 --> 00:54:07,703 Lorraine is, to use a word that's 967 00:54:07,778 --> 00:54:10,907 kind of out of favor today, she's a very plucky heroine. 968 00:54:12,249 --> 00:54:15,184 She has a lot of courage, 969 00:54:15,252 --> 00:54:17,619 in real life she faced a lot of danger, 970 00:54:19,556 --> 00:54:21,388 in these serials, she was injured a number of times, 971 00:54:21,458 --> 00:54:24,894 she made quite a few serials and I don't think she emerged 972 00:54:24,962 --> 00:54:27,761 from one of them completely unscathed. 973 00:54:27,831 --> 00:54:29,629 Although I don't believe 974 00:54:29,700 --> 00:54:31,668 she suffered any really serious injuries. 975 00:54:34,638 --> 00:54:37,300 Now, there is a story that might be apocryphal 976 00:54:39,009 --> 00:54:40,704 that takes place during the making of this serial, 977 00:54:41,879 --> 00:54:44,746 in which supposedly Elmo Lincoln 978 00:54:44,815 --> 00:54:47,785 was very upset about being asked to do something. 979 00:54:49,720 --> 00:54:53,520 And for some reason, he got on the bad side of director, 980 00:54:53,590 --> 00:54:54,580 Robert F Hill. 981 00:54:55,726 --> 00:54:57,558 And according to a story, 982 00:54:57,628 --> 00:55:00,598 that's in a book on serials called "Bound and Gagged" 983 00:55:00,664 --> 00:55:02,894 by an author who purported to talk to Hill 984 00:55:02,966 --> 00:55:04,491 personally about this. 985 00:55:06,336 --> 00:55:08,964 At some point during the "Adventures of Tarzan" filming 986 00:55:10,574 --> 00:55:13,236 while Lincoln and Hill were squabbling, 987 00:55:13,310 --> 00:55:16,610 it was some kind of thing where Lincoln's costume there 988 00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:20,742 came apart and they held it together with safety pins, 989 00:55:20,818 --> 00:55:23,412 and at some point he pricked his finger on a safety pin 990 00:55:23,487 --> 00:55:27,583 and he let out a yelp and the crew laughed at him 991 00:55:27,658 --> 00:55:29,490 and they stopped filming 992 00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:33,588 and Lincoln stormed off the set with his feelings hurt 993 00:55:33,664 --> 00:55:35,723 and told somebody he wasn't gonna come back. 994 00:55:37,601 --> 00:55:41,401 So Hill, according to this account in this book, 995 00:55:42,639 --> 00:55:45,904 decided to talk loudly enough 996 00:55:45,976 --> 00:55:49,571 so that Lincoln's double, one of his doubles, 997 00:55:49,646 --> 00:55:52,411 a guy named Monte Montague, 998 00:55:52,482 --> 00:55:54,644 who I think frankly, he's referred to as a double. 999 00:55:54,718 --> 00:55:56,812 I think he was probably a stand-in 1000 00:55:56,887 --> 00:55:59,948 because Frank Merrill did a lot of the doubling 1001 00:56:00,023 --> 00:56:01,889 that Lincoln needed. 1002 00:56:01,959 --> 00:56:05,395 I think Hill said something within earshot of Monte Montague 1003 00:56:05,462 --> 00:56:08,329 to the effect that they were gonna change the story. 1004 00:56:08,398 --> 00:56:10,492 If Lincoln was gonna be a problem, 1005 00:56:10,567 --> 00:56:12,626 they were gonna change the story. 1006 00:56:12,703 --> 00:56:17,641 So the Tarzan would walk into a magic river of some kind, 1007 00:56:19,543 --> 00:56:21,568 and they would have Monte Montague as the stand-in 1008 00:56:21,645 --> 00:56:24,376 shot from behind walking into this water, 1009 00:56:24,448 --> 00:56:26,439 and then they would have a double exposure 1010 00:56:26,516 --> 00:56:30,851 and Tarzan would emerge from the other side as a small boy. 1011 00:56:30,921 --> 00:56:32,980 And that somehow the properties of the water 1012 00:56:33,056 --> 00:56:35,582 had turned him into a small boy, 1013 00:56:35,659 --> 00:56:39,357 which sounds like an absolutely ridiculous idea. 1014 00:56:39,429 --> 00:56:43,593 And again, I'm skeptical if this ever happened, 1015 00:56:43,667 --> 00:56:47,069 but according to the story is printed in this book, 1016 00:56:47,137 --> 00:56:50,505 Monte Montague then went back to Elmo Lincoln 1017 00:56:50,574 --> 00:56:53,874 and said, listen, you better get your ass back on the set 1018 00:56:53,944 --> 00:56:56,914 because Hill is gonna change the story in midstream 1019 00:56:56,980 --> 00:56:58,948 and he's gonna write you out of the plot. 1020 00:57:00,817 --> 00:57:03,582 So supposedly at that point, Lincoln came back and they kind 1021 00:57:03,654 --> 00:57:06,555 of ironed out their differences. 1022 00:57:06,623 --> 00:57:11,060 Again, it's a very colorful, but a very unlikely yarn. 1023 00:57:11,128 --> 00:57:16,066 I'm not sure that I believe it, but it is part of the lore 1024 00:57:17,701 --> 00:57:18,361 surrounding this particular serial. 1025 00:57:23,740 --> 00:57:27,540 So now Rokoff, Gernot, and their Arab henchman 1026 00:57:28,979 --> 00:57:32,916 are all choking on this poison gas. 1027 00:57:35,118 --> 00:57:37,644 Good enough for 'em I say. 1028 00:57:37,721 --> 00:57:40,122 (gentle music) 1029 00:57:52,803 --> 00:57:55,135 Now after "Adventures of Tarzan" 1030 00:57:59,743 --> 00:58:03,771 Edgar Rice Burroughs took a break from Hollywood. 1031 00:58:03,847 --> 00:58:06,748 He did not grant any further licenses 1032 00:58:06,817 --> 00:58:09,115 at this particular time. 1033 00:58:09,186 --> 00:58:11,883 Now you have to remember by 1922, 1034 00:58:11,955 --> 00:58:14,014 when this serial finished its playoff, 1035 00:58:15,859 --> 00:58:19,523 in a period of four years, beginning in 1918, 1036 00:58:19,596 --> 00:58:24,534 there had been three feature films, "Tarzan of The Apes”, 1037 00:58:26,269 --> 00:58:29,034 "The Romance of Tarzan", both of which starred Elmo Lincoln, 1038 00:58:29,106 --> 00:58:31,837 the aforementioned "Revenge of Tarzan", 1039 00:58:31,908 --> 00:58:34,741 which starred the fireman Gene Pollar, 1040 00:58:36,179 --> 00:58:40,013 and then two serials, "The Son of Tarzan", 1041 00:58:40,083 --> 00:58:43,883 which starred P Dempsey Tabler as Tarzan. 1042 00:58:46,089 --> 00:58:47,887 And this film, 1043 00:58:47,958 --> 00:58:50,893 "The Adventures Of Tarzan" returning Lincoln to the role 1044 00:58:50,961 --> 00:58:52,725 that made him a star. 1045 00:58:52,796 --> 00:58:55,697 That was a lot of Tarzan in a four year period. 1046 00:58:57,534 --> 00:58:59,059 Burroughs himself was trying to get away 1047 00:58:59,136 --> 00:59:01,867 from the character, even though the Tarzan novels 1048 00:59:01,938 --> 00:59:04,669 were the most popular stories that he wrote, 1049 00:59:04,741 --> 00:59:08,644 he was tired of them and he felt his own personal view 1050 00:59:08,712 --> 00:59:10,680 was that the character was kind of written out 1051 00:59:10,747 --> 00:59:12,772 that he'd really done everything he could do 1052 00:59:12,849 --> 00:59:15,841 with the character in the first five novels or so. 1053 00:59:15,919 --> 00:59:17,512 And that everything after that, 1054 00:59:17,587 --> 00:59:20,022 he was just gonna find himself repeating 1055 00:59:20,090 --> 00:59:21,922 the kinds of situations 1056 00:59:21,992 --> 00:59:24,484 and using the similar types of characters 1057 00:59:24,561 --> 00:59:25,926 that he'd already gone through 1058 00:59:25,996 --> 00:59:27,964 in the first four or five novels. 1059 00:59:28,031 --> 00:59:30,830 So he was looking to get away from Tarzan. 1060 00:59:30,901 --> 00:59:33,734 So it was not until 1927 1061 00:59:33,804 --> 00:59:36,239 that the ape man would return to the screen. 1062 00:59:36,306 --> 00:59:38,274 And we discussed this some in the commentary 1063 00:59:38,341 --> 00:59:40,571 for "New Adventures at Tarzan". 1064 00:59:40,644 --> 00:59:43,113 He was played by a guy named Jim Pierce, 1065 00:59:43,180 --> 00:59:45,012 who was a football star 1066 00:59:45,082 --> 00:59:49,542 and a football coach who did occasional work in movies 1067 00:59:50,954 --> 00:59:53,719 and somehow met up with Edgar Rice Burroughs 1068 00:59:53,790 --> 00:59:57,192 who reportedly said, that's him, that's my Tarzan. 1069 00:59:57,260 --> 00:59:58,921 And he appeared in a feature film called 1070 00:59:58,995 --> 01:00:01,123 “Tarzan and the Golden Lion", 1071 01:00:01,198 --> 01:00:05,635 which was based on the ninth Tarzan novel of the same name. 1072 01:00:05,702 --> 01:00:07,534 After that of course, in 1928, 1073 01:00:07,604 --> 01:00:09,572 you had "Tarzan The Mighty", 1074 01:00:09,639 --> 01:00:12,165 followed by "Tarzan The Tiger” the next year. 1075 01:00:12,242 --> 01:00:17,180 They both start Frank Merrill, who as Otto pole was, 1076 01:00:20,016 --> 01:00:24,954 formerly a Newark police officer, who was a bodybuilder 1077 01:00:26,756 --> 01:00:29,088 and a competitive athlete, national champion 1078 01:00:29,159 --> 01:00:33,653 in certain gymnastic contests. 1079 01:00:33,730 --> 01:00:36,927 He was the final silent movie Tarzan, and after that, 1080 01:00:37,000 --> 01:00:38,798 you had of course, Johnny Weissmuller 1081 01:00:38,869 --> 01:00:41,566 in "Tarzan The Apeman”, 1932. 1082 01:00:41,638 --> 01:00:44,869 And that began that whole string of Tarzan movies. 1083 01:00:46,877 --> 01:00:50,780 So for a guy who really was sick of the ape man by 1922, 1084 01:00:50,847 --> 01:00:53,646 Burrows actually did pretty well with him. 1085 01:00:53,717 --> 01:00:57,244 He saw new Tarzans and new Tarzan movies being made 1086 01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,084 throughout his entire life. 1087 01:01:00,957 --> 01:01:03,119 He passed away in the years after World War Il. 1088 01:01:03,193 --> 01:01:05,787 He'd been a war correspondent during World War Il. 1089 01:01:07,697 --> 01:01:12,191 And he continued to license the ape man to Hollywood, 1090 01:01:13,870 --> 01:01:15,201 even though he was never really happy 1091 01:01:15,272 --> 01:01:17,104 or he claimed, it's been claimed, 1092 01:01:17,174 --> 01:01:19,074 he was never really happy with the way 1093 01:01:20,210 --> 01:01:22,178 Tarzan was treated on film. 1094 01:01:22,245 --> 01:01:25,112 He found, fought with all of the films, 1095 01:01:25,182 --> 01:01:28,709 even the ones that he liked from a production standpoint. 1096 01:01:28,785 --> 01:01:30,378 You know, for example, 1097 01:01:30,453 --> 01:01:33,218 he thought that the first two Weissmuller films 1098 01:01:33,290 --> 01:01:37,249 were fantastic as movies in terms of the thrills 1099 01:01:37,327 --> 01:01:40,763 and the atmosphere and, you know, 1100 01:01:40,830 --> 01:01:44,164 the general overall production value that they had. 1101 01:01:44,234 --> 01:01:46,965 And yet it bothered him that they didn't 1102 01:01:47,037 --> 01:01:49,369 stick even remotely close to the character 1103 01:01:49,439 --> 01:01:53,740 that he had written, the boy who was raised in the jungle, 1104 01:01:53,810 --> 01:01:56,245 but who eventually returned civilization 1105 01:01:56,313 --> 01:01:58,805 and became this cultured English Lord. 1106 01:02:07,791 --> 01:02:08,986 So Shic Ben Ali, 1107 01:02:12,229 --> 01:02:14,391 is going to die as he lived, violently, 1108 01:02:14,464 --> 01:02:16,660 according to this newly made title 1109 01:02:17,801 --> 01:02:19,030 was made for this version. 1110 01:02:22,372 --> 01:02:25,307 Again, take it big as the expression 1111 01:02:25,375 --> 01:02:30,313 that old time actors used to describe overacting. 1112 01:02:40,023 --> 01:02:42,822 Once again, Lilian Lorraine and her father 1113 01:02:42,892 --> 01:02:44,451 are cowering from lions. 1114 01:02:49,399 --> 01:02:51,094 So they're stretching this out a little more 1115 01:02:51,167 --> 01:02:52,965 than it needs to be. 1116 01:02:53,036 --> 01:02:54,731 This is basically the last sequence of the film. 1117 01:02:56,373 --> 01:03:00,935 But you know, the other thing with doing a serial was 1118 01:03:02,879 --> 01:03:05,109 you had to have chapters that were roughly the same length. 1119 01:03:06,983 --> 01:03:11,352 And if you know, were five minutes short of that 1120 01:03:13,223 --> 01:03:15,453 20 minute length, you had to have for a chapter, 1121 01:03:15,525 --> 01:03:17,755 then you had to vamp until it was done. 1122 01:03:17,827 --> 01:03:19,454 Here's another ape suit scene. 1123 01:03:19,529 --> 01:03:22,829 I think we're gonna see Joe Martin one more time, 1124 01:03:22,899 --> 01:03:23,923 if I'm not mistaken. 1125 01:03:29,873 --> 01:03:32,171 I don't know where this footage is shot, 1126 01:03:32,242 --> 01:03:34,734 that scene there on that beach or whatever it is. 1127 01:03:46,423 --> 01:03:51,361 Now Rokoff is apprehended in "Return of Tarzan", 1128 01:03:53,029 --> 01:03:56,226 but he escapes and he menaces Tarzan 1129 01:03:56,299 --> 01:04:00,167 again in both the third novel, 1130 01:04:00,236 --> 01:04:04,230 "The Beast of Tarzan" and the fourth novel 1131 01:04:04,307 --> 01:04:08,141 "Son of Tarzan", which finally kills him off. 1132 01:04:09,346 --> 01:04:11,041 And of course, "Son of Tarzan" 1133 01:04:12,582 --> 01:04:15,347 deals with Lord Greystoke's son, 1134 01:04:15,418 --> 01:04:17,910 who even though he's been raised 1135 01:04:19,622 --> 01:04:23,456 on the luxurious estates of his father of his parents, 1136 01:04:23,526 --> 01:04:25,961 longs, he has the jungle in his blood. 1137 01:04:26,029 --> 01:04:28,828 He doesn't really know why cause he's never been there, 1138 01:04:28,898 --> 01:04:30,161 but he's got the jungle in his blood 1139 01:04:30,233 --> 01:04:32,099 and he winds up in Africa 1140 01:04:32,168 --> 01:04:34,865 and he becomes kind of a Tarzan light 1141 01:04:34,938 --> 01:04:39,500 who is known among the animals as Corak the Killer, 1142 01:04:39,576 --> 01:04:42,978 another great white ape, like his father Tarzan. 1143 01:04:43,046 --> 01:04:46,539 Well Rokoff after so many years 1144 01:04:46,616 --> 01:04:50,575 has hoped to get the ultimate revenge on Tarzan 1145 01:04:50,653 --> 01:04:53,020 by killing his son. 1146 01:04:53,089 --> 01:04:58,027 And he's responsible for Corak being shanghai'd 1147 01:04:59,896 --> 01:05:01,295 and taken to Africa. 1148 01:05:03,233 --> 01:05:05,861 So even though this looks like he's been apprehended 1149 01:05:05,935 --> 01:05:10,532 and is gonna spend the rest of his days behind bars, 1150 01:05:10,607 --> 01:05:11,438 I don't think, 1151 01:05:13,309 --> 01:05:15,505 that's certainly not what Burroughs had in mind. 1152 01:05:15,578 --> 01:05:17,603 This stuff doesn't seem all that thrilling, 1153 01:05:17,680 --> 01:05:20,081 but audiences in the silent era 1154 01:05:20,150 --> 01:05:23,381 were absolutely mesmerized by all this wild animal stuff. 1155 01:05:23,453 --> 01:05:27,083 And I guess that in the days before television, 1156 01:05:27,157 --> 01:05:32,095 if you didn't have a zoo in a large city or near you 1157 01:05:33,963 --> 01:05:38,400 had no way of ever seeing lions or tigers or elephants. 1158 01:05:40,270 --> 01:05:43,365 But there was no way of seeing creatures like this, 1159 01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:45,431 unless you saw them in the movies. 1160 01:05:45,508 --> 01:05:49,172 And so audiences really ate up all this footage 1161 01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:54,482 and they were not yet jaded, you know, in 1921 and "22, 1162 01:05:54,551 --> 01:05:56,076 when they were seeing this movie, 1163 01:05:56,152 --> 01:05:58,985 they were not yet jaded by guys in ape suits 1164 01:05:59,055 --> 01:06:03,515 or stuffed animals being tossed around or whatever. 1165 01:06:03,593 --> 01:06:08,531 This is a Tarzan giving some really protracted goodbyes 1166 01:06:10,166 --> 01:06:12,066 here to his jungle friends. 1167 01:06:20,310 --> 01:06:22,472 Elmo Lincoln and Louise Lorraine made a good team. 1168 01:06:22,545 --> 01:06:25,105 I really wish that I could see the other two serials 1169 01:06:25,181 --> 01:06:26,945 they did together. 1170 01:06:27,016 --> 01:06:29,576 “Elmo the Fearless" and the "Flaming Disc". 1171 01:06:29,652 --> 01:06:31,381 But sadly, those are lost films. 1172 01:06:31,454 --> 01:06:35,584 Like 90% of all the silent films ever made 1173 01:06:35,658 --> 01:06:37,490 deteriorated over the years 1174 01:06:37,560 --> 01:06:39,528 because the nitrate film they were printed on 1175 01:06:39,596 --> 01:06:42,258 was unstable or their negatives, 1176 01:06:42,332 --> 01:06:46,132 which were very flammable, have gone up in fires. 1177 01:06:46,202 --> 01:06:49,570 We have to be really grateful that any of it survives. 1178 01:06:49,639 --> 01:06:51,664 And even though I'm the first to admit 1179 01:06:51,741 --> 01:06:56,338 that this particular incarnation of "Adventures of Tarzan" 1180 01:06:56,412 --> 01:06:58,403 is not the most coherent, 1181 01:06:59,782 --> 01:07:01,546 the fact that we have any of it at all 1182 01:07:01,618 --> 01:07:03,609 is a reason for celebration. 1183 01:07:03,686 --> 01:07:06,451 And I wanna thank The Film Detective 1184 01:07:06,523 --> 01:07:08,651 for reviving this film, 1185 01:07:08,725 --> 01:07:10,420 for making it look as good as it can, 1186 01:07:10,493 --> 01:07:12,427 and for getting me to do the commentary.