The Jungle Book

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle marked the debut of Gordon Scott as Edgar Rice Burroughs legendary ape man of the African jungle. It was also the last Tarzan film done at RKO studios which was slowly going out of business and would in the next two years. It was the reason they did not invest this film with too many production values. It was nice that they actually used black people to portray natives in the film as producers did not on too many occasions for Johnny Weissmuller and Lex Barker Tarzan movies.

Gordon Scott was one of those Hollywood discovery stories you read about. A professional bodybuilder he was discovered pool side and brought to Hollywood and beat out a whole lot of other candidates for the Tarzan roles. He wasn't exactly Brando or Olivier with the dialog, but for someone who was making his screen debut with no other acting experience, Scott handled the dialog better than you would expect.

And he married the leading lady Vera Miles while still shooting the film. Miles plays the assistant to UN doctor Peter Van Eyck who gets tricked by some unscrupulous hunters, Jack Elam and Charles Fredericks, to take them along on his humanitarian mission.

Van Eyck's mission was to a native tribe who apparently were vegetarians because they did not believe in the killing of animals. As a result game flourished in their territory. As Tarzan is a friend of the animals as well, his mission was to stop the bad guys from harming his jungle friends.

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle is not a bad debut for Gordon Scott in the new role. In fact Scott was my particular favorite among the actors who played Tarzan.

I just caught this on TCM Saturday run of Tarzan films. No doubt I must have seen this during a Saturday matinee because I loved Tarzan books and movies when I was a kid but this is a rather slow moving Tarzan and in retrospect it seems the film was aimed at a more sophisticated audience and not just eight year olds. Real fans knew that Tarzan was the well educated Lord Greystoke who constantly yielded to his need to return to the jungle but this Tarzan is still monosyllabic The action here is minimal; not the Tarzan a kid wants to imitate in their backyard play.

Tarzan, "The ape man", fights it out (again) with a bunch of hunters, an evil witch-doctor and all those "scary" animals of the jungle. As you can see, this is what Tarzan's all about. Nothing new nor surprising here, no Academy Awards nominations, no great dialogue, not really exciting. When you see a Tarzan flick you know what to expect. I guess for some people that 's the charm of Tarzan, but there are better ways to spend your afternoon. And better Tarzan films (e.g. TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE)too. But it still is a Tarzan film, and there are also worse films than one of those. 4/10

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (1955)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Tarzan (Gordon Scott) must help a good doctor and his assistant (Vera Miles) when they're fooled by some "cameramen" who are actually hunters. The hunters trick the doctor into taking them across the river, which is a place guarded by a tribe who worship the jungle animals. This was Scott's first film as Tarzan and it's easy to see why fans originally went so crazy for the actor as he certainly fit the bill and turned in a fine performance. The story itself really isn't all that original and especially when you consider how many of the previous films dealt with Tarzan having to do battle against hunters coming to harm animals. The screenplay offers up the most basic story as Tarzan and Cheta are living happily in the jungle when animals begin to show up with gunshot wounds. Tarzan of course starts to investigate and this here leads up to him going after the bad guys. The story itself is pretty routine and it actually doesn't offer up too much excitement but thankfully the cast is good enough to where you can overlook some of the weak story points. Scott is pretty good as Tarzan as he certainly has the body for it and I thought the performance was fitting as well. Legend has it that Scott was noticed at a pool, brought to Hollywood and this newbie beat out some who had been acting for quite a period. Scott doesn't perfectly nail the dialogue but I thought he was believable as the ape man. Miles, a few years from Hitchcock, isn't the greatest female lead in the series but I found her to be quite entertaining. Scott and Miles would marry shortly after the filming of this film and the two certainly share some chemistry in front of the cameras. Peter van Eyck is fairly bland as the doctor but Jack Elam offers up a fun villain performance. As you'd expect, we get a few jungle animals in good form but there's also quite a bit of stock footage used as naturally it doesn't mix in too well with the real footage. Also on hard is a pretty good sequence where Miles is stranded in the jungle alone and faces a lion, a large snake and then quicksand. This sequence comes towards the end of the film but it has some nice drama to it. TARZAN'S HIDDEN JUNGLE isn't a masterpiece but fans of the series should be entertained with the cast doing such a fine job.

Gordon Scott makes his debut here as the king of the jungle in this acceptable but routine Tarzan flick. TARZAN'S HIDDEN JUNGLE isn't as bad as some of this film detractors claim. As far as the RKO Tarzan flicks go, TARZAN'S HIDDEN JUNGLE is about average. What disappoints most Tarzan fans, is that one would think with RKO introducing a new actor in the role of Tarzan, they would have made this film a little something more. The film has a good supporting cast, but the production values are slightly below par. One would think the studio heads at RKO would have given this film a higher budget considering they were introducing a "new" Tarzan. I've heard that producer Sol Lesser tried to convince RKO to make this film in color, but the studio brass refused. Lesser, who owned the screen rights to Burroughs famous character, departed from RKO after twelve years of making Tarzan flicks for RKO, and moved on to make Tarzan flicks with Scott for other studios. I suspect it was RKO's refusal to allow him to shoot this film in color and the usual low budget that made Lesser part company with RKO. The next Tarzan flick (TARZAN AND THE LOST SAFARI) was in color and had a higher budget.

Note: this film does have one scene thats a real gem. Tarzan rescues Vera Miles from quick sand and then tries to wash the mud off her. She tells Tarzan she needs a bath, so Tarzan agrees and tosses the startled Miss Miles in the drink.