TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT

There's a certain prosaic pleasure to be found in watching an old Tarzan movie on a lazy Saturday afternoon, which is exactly what I found myself doing last weekend. TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT (1960) borrows only the name from the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel as the script (by writer/director Robert Day) is completely original.

Let's see what Tarzan boxes this film checks.

Cheetah? Yes, but only for a very few seconds of screen time, thankfully.

Jane? Alas, no, but her absence is compensated for in the form of two lovely ladies, Betta St. John and the stunningly beautiful Alexandra Stewart. Oh, and one of these lovelies gets eaten by a lioness (off camera), so the movie has that going for it.

Vine swinging? Yes, but only a few scenes and then only in the third act.

Tarzan jungle cry? Nope.

A decent Tarzan? Yes, Gordon Scott makes a perfectly suitable Lord of the Jungle in this, his fourth Tarzan film.

Filmed on location? Well, at least the exteriors were shot in Africa. The interiors were filmed in Great Britain.

A good bad guy? Yes and not one but two in the forms of veteran actor John Carradine and Jock Mahoney, who would take over the role of the Ape Man from Scott in the next Tarzan film, TARZAN GOES TO INDIA (1962).

The evil Banton crime family rob a jungle postal station and escape into the wilderness. Tarzan gives chase along with a British police officer. The officer is killed, Tarzan kills one of the Bantons, and captures oldest son Coy (Mahoney), while father Abel (Carradine) and his two other sons escape.

Tarzan decides to transport his captive to Kairobi to collect the reward money for the dead policeman's family. It's an arduous cross country trek made even more difficult when he's forced to include a group of civilians in the party. Ames (Lionel Jeffries) is a whinging git, all puffed up and incessantly squabbling with his wife, Fay (St. John), who is regularly making eyes at prisoner Coy. Also in the group are Tate (Earl Cameron), Conway (Charles Tingwell) and Lori (Stewart).

Tarzan and his unlikely fellow travelers are besieged by various perils along the way including wild animals, the ever-popular quicksand (what would a Tarzan movie be without quicksand?) and constant harassment by the Banton men. Tarzan and Coy finally duke it out in a well mounted fight scene that takes place among the rocks at the bottom of a waterfall.

There's nothing exceptional here but TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT does provide the requisite number of jungle adventure thrills that the durable Tarzan film series could always be counted on to deliver.