Saved by the yell
July 28, 2009 (Tuesday)
Johnny Weismuller was born of Hungarian parents in what is now Romania. He was a sickly child, so the doctor prescribed swimming as a way to strengthen his body. He had a real talent for the sport, and later won several Olympic medals.
Last night I saw his 1932 movie, “Tarzan the Ape Man.” He was not the first screen Tarzan, but he was the first talking Tarzan. His complete vocabulary in the movie was not much more than the words, “Tarzan” and “Jane.” When we were kids, my friends and I took great pride in how well we could reproduce his famous “Tarzan yell.” You may recall that comedienne Carol Burnet had a lot of fun doing the Tarzan yell. It served another purpose for him in Cuba when the revolution broke out. He was playing golf and with his golfing friends was suddenly surrounded by a group of hostile men, intent on kidnapping them or worse. Although he was then a business man retired from acting for 12 years, he sounded out his famous yell, and his would-be captors immediately recognized him as Tarzan, got his autograph and escorted him to safety.
Since he was new in films, the movie credits list him last as number 7 on the list of players.
The film is highly entertaining. Where else will you see a chimpanzee (Cheta) rally a herd of elephants to cross a crocodile-infested river to rescue an ape man and his girlfriend from a malicious tribe of black dwarfs who are roping their prisoners and dangling them into a pit occupied by a giant vicious gorilla? Now that’s good old family fun.
As a commentary on changing times, its values will stand out to the younger viewers because people are shot just because they are different and animals are freely shot without remorse, as the group of white people allow their burden bearers to be whipped into submission while the whites seek a fortune in African Ivory at the taboo burying grounds of the elephants. Well, times change. In 1932, it is doubtful that many people seeing the movie would have noticed any of those things.
Films are influential. I betcha you have said or heard said, “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”