Tarzan The Ape Man (1932)

James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) and Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) are on an expedition in Africa in search of the elephant burial grounds that will provide enough ivory to make them rich. Parker's beautiful young daughter Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) arrives unexpectedly to join them. Harry is obviously attracted to Jane and he does his best to help protect her from all the dangers that they experience in the jungle. Jane is terrified when Tarzan ( Johnny Weissmuller) and his ape friends first abduct her as hilarity ensues, but when she returns to her father's expedition she has second thoughts about leaving Tarzan. After the expedition is captured by a tribe of violent dwarfs, Jane sends Cheetah to bring Tarzan to rescue them...

Trivia: When Johnny Weissmuller was approached to play Tarzan, he was under contract with BVD to advertise their underwear and swimming trunks. BVD strenuously objected to its spokesman appearing in just a loincloth - the company only wanted him to appear wearing its product. In return for letting Weismuller play Tarzan, MGM allowed BVD to run ads featuring the studio's contract players in BVD swimsuits (including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler). Tarzan's distinctive call was created by sound recordist Douglas Shearer. It was a normal call, manipulated and played backwards. Clark Gable was considered for the role of Tarzan, but was deemed too much of an unknown to play the ape man. At no point in this movie is the line "Me Tarzan, you Jane" spoken. When Jane and Tarzan meet, it is she who initiates the verbal exchange, repeatedly indicating herself and giving her name until he repeats it. She then points to him, indicating that she wants to know if there's a word for who he is as "Jane" is the word for who she is, until eventually he understands and says, "Tarzan." This film used considerable stock footage from Trader Horn also directed by W.S. Van Dyke, resulting in some very obvious back-projection effects, particularly toward the beginning of the picture.

I have seen enough Tarzan movies on Saturday afternoons to expect certain things. There would be animals, they would put an expedition in danger and Tarzan would come swooping in for the rescue. Well, I wasn't disappointed, but it was other things that surprised me. First, Jane shows up at her father's trading post in Africa unannounced then finds out her father will be going on an expedition into the deep African jungles and promptly invites herself. Her father protests for about 2 seconds then says okay when Harry Holt says he doesn't see a problem in it (besides the fact the she has only been in Africa for less then 10 minutes). Jane is very talkative and she was very hott, especially when she was showing her legs (who walks through the jungles of Africa in a dress?) And man was this movie politically incorrect, they whipped their porters mercilessly, and they were attacked by violent dwarfs ("Are those Pygmys" asked Jane, "No, they are dwarfs", and that was the funniest scenes in the whole movie, I mean they really looked like Oompa Loompas). And this movies is very violent. Tarzan kills people! I know they killed his ape friend first, but he sneaks up behind one person and hold his head under the water until he drowns. Oh yeah, Tarzan. This guy is, well, to use a modern term, an real horndog. I mean he kidnaps Jane 2minutes after meeting her, takes her to his love nest...umm...tree house home, he continually paws at her and grabs her, and Jane turns into a little giggling school girl, screaming and running around. I know this is an unconventional love story but it was hilarious.