Tarzan Goes to India (1962)
** (out of 4)
A group of evil contractors are in India building a damn, which is going to flood several villages as well as kill over three hundred elephants. Tarzan (Jock Mahoney) is called in to try and rescue the elephants but a rogue is causing all sorts of trouble and making the other elephants do a lot of harm. Not only does Tarzan have to fight the elephant but he must also go against the head engineer (Leo Gordon) who doesn't care about human life. TARZAN GOES TO India comes as a major disappointment and especially when you consider it followed TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT, which was one of the greatest in the series. That film got a great villain performance by Mahoney who wound up taking the lead role here. Having seen both of his Tarzan films, it's clear Mahoney really wasn't the right person for the job. He was a very good actor as the previous film shows but he just didn't have the personality for Tarzan. You never believed him in the part and this is something that really kills this film because it really does seem like a non-Tarzan movie. The excitement of the character is missing and Mahoney just seems as if he's either bored and just doesn't know what to do with the part, which is a real shame because some of the story here is interesting. The one major benefit going on here is that the film was actually shot partially in India so we get some nice visuals. Another major plus is that there are quite a bit of elephants on hand and we get some very good shots of them. There's even a major battle between two of them that contains some nice drama. The rest of the story is pretty much the same thing just a new location. Once again Tarzan has to battle an evil person who is evil for no other reason than to have someone for Tarzan to fight. Gordon is very good and sinister in his role but at the same time you really wish the screenplay had given him more to do or at least built up his character some. The supporting cast also includes Jai "The Elephant Boy" playing Tarzan's travel mate. Fans of the series who must see all of them are the only ones that this is going to be recommended to.
