Tarzan's Three Challenges

There's a TARZAN curse when you look into the actors: Johnny Weismuller was golfing in Cuba during the Castro takeover, and decades later ended up doing his Tarzan call throughout the lonely corridors of an old folk's home; Lex Barker died middle-aged before marrying a younger woman; Mike Henry was bitten by a chimp and suffered from monkey fever; and far worst of all, Ron Ely hosted Name That Tune with Kathie Lee Gifford...

At least Gordon Scott turned out okay, but his replacement in actor/stuntman Jock Mahoney... after getting through TARZAN GOES TO INDIA without trouble... dared to swim across a giant, extremely polluted Thailand river and caught amoebic dysentery, never gaining back complete strength for future stunt or acting roles...

Which supposedly explains why he looks so frail here... but even in INDIA he was the skinniest Tarzan ever, appearing more like an in-shape long-distance-runner than the kind of bodybuilder type the part's known, and, given the character's legendary strength, most often calls for...

But he makes a decent vine-swinger... and his initial CHALLENGES happen in the course of eight-minutes, leaving the rest of the picture for villain Woody Strode, evil uncle of a child about to rule over the Asian country, trying to get his own young son to replace him...

Taking place within the vibrant yet antique oriental cities and monasteries, providing terrific visuals between random jungle romps, Tarzan could have used more action and less of the baby elephant...

But he does finally have an effective sidekick that's not some vulnerable kid or a goofy adult forcing comic relief... but a swift and agile local (Jimmy Jamal) who unfortunately dies too soon...

Which is normal since anything with enough potential peters out quickly enough to where the audience forgets the villain's motivation, or Tarzan's motivation in stopping him: a shame being Jock's last romp while Woody Strode (though his voice was dubbed) definitely looks the part of a worthwhile adversary...

But most of the time they seem in two different movies... until squaring-off in an adjoined-competition/challenge that takes far too long to happen, and ultimately aren't very... challenging... except for the incredible final sword-fight over a roped-covered flame-pit that (with the casting of Strode) could even put SPARTACUS to shame.

TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1963) a Sy Weintraub production, directed by Robert Day, stars Jock Mahoney in his second and final role as Tarzan, the jungle lord. An immediate sequel to TARZAN GOES TO INDIA (1962), this time Tarzan heads out for more adventure out of Africa. Produced in Metro-color and breaking the traditional stories featuring Tarzan, Jane, Boy and their chimpanzee, Cheta, none of these characters exists here nor does the famous Tarzan yell. With the exception of Woody Strode, who assumes second billing after Mahoney in the casting credits, many of the supporting players are virtually unknown to American audiences, which is just as well, mainly to give the impression of watching actual people from Thailand rather than marque named performers playing characters from another country.

The plot development deals with Tarim (Woody Strode), a dying leader of Sun Mai, who has summoned Tarzan from Africa to guide Kashi (Ricky Der), the true heir and chosen one, to Sun Mai to claim his throne. Tarim has a jealous brother, Khan (Woody Strode), who believes his own son, Hani (Jimmy Jamal) should be the successor and attempts on keeping Tarzan from fulfilling his mission. Parachuting from a passing airplane, Tarzan (Jock Mahoney), immediately deals with Khan's men getting in his way. He soon befriends Hani (Salah Jamal) whom he uses as his guide. After passing his test of strength and wisdom, Tarzan meets Kashi, along with Cho San (Tsuruko Kobayashi) and Mang (Earl Cameron) to accompany him on his long and dangerous mission. With the journey completed, both Tarzan and Kashi find themselves individually put to difficult tasks and challenges. Featuring Anthony Chinn (Tor); Christopher Carlos (Sechung) in the supporting cast. Both Ricky Der and an elephant named Hungry get special introduction billing in the opening credits.

Location scenery, color photography and good story make up for the fact that Jock Mahoney does not eradicate the memory of Tarzan actors who preceded him, namely Johnny Weissmuller. Although a lot of effort was put into TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES to make this both different and uplifting to this long running series, Jock Mahoney doesn't seem the right fit for the Edgar Rice Burrough's created character. Speaking in articulate manner is fine. He venturing from Africa to Thailand only in loincloth, with his predecessor Gordon Scott being a muscular build, Mahoney's physical appearance shows him to be the slimmest Tarzan thus far. Regardless of these minor flaws, Mahoney, as in TARZAN GOES TO INDIA, does his best with his role. With Mahoney reportedly a stunt man before turning to acting, it's been said Mahoney did his own stunts here, and it shows. At least of all the movies featuring Jock Mahoney, he would be best remembered for being one of many actors to have played Tarzan. Woody Strode, however, stands out as the villain (what Tarzan movie never had a villain?), especially when fighting with knives on a net over a pit of burning coals with Tarzan, one of the true highlights of the story. A straightforward 100 minute adventure with slight humor going briefly to the elephant named Hungry.

Never distributed on home video but available on DVD, TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES did have cable television broadcasts including American Movie Classics (1997-2000) and Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: August 5, 2010). Next TARZAN adventure: TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD (1966) introducing Mike Henry as the new and muscular Tarzan. (***)

Although this film was shot in Thailand, the small inaccessible kingdom where the action of the film takes place looks more like a Tibetian type culture. Jock Mahoney plays Tarzan for the second and last time in Tarzan's Three Challenges. And the title is a misnomer, the heir to the kingdom has three challenges, Tarzan is his champion in the fourth which is a kind of medieval wager of battle.

Woody Strode is both the old and dying king and his younger ambitious brother. A young child played by Ricky Der is named the heir probably in a process similar to how the Dalai Lama is chosen. The brother who is a warrior and has trained his son to be the same thinks the time has come for a warrior to lead in this modern age and the hell with traditions of pacifism.

Tarzan comes to this kingdom to aid young Master Der on his journey to claim his rights. And of course Strode the warrior tries to stop him as the king Strode dies. When Der completes his three challenges Strode does the wager of battle thing that involves barrels of hot oil. Quite a good challenge as Tarzan is the only guy around who would have chance against Strode.

Actually Strode the warrior does make some rather valid points about moving into the 20th century. Even the Dalai Lama in exile has come to grips with modernity in some ways.

Tarzan's Three Challenges holds up very well for today's audiences, these films shot on location are so much better than those shot on the back lot of RKO back in the day.

Tarzan is called in to watch over the heir to a kingdom whose uncle, played by Strode, is determined to make his son ruler instead. The movie is filled with the uncle trying to keep Tarzan from making it to the end of the obstacles or 3 challenges. The fight scenes are good. The story was good, the other actors were OK. Strode was great, in my opinion. I've never seen him play a bad guy before and he did a wonderful job. There was a lot of action and a pretty good plot. It kept my attention. However, as a lover of Tarzan movies since I was a kid in the 60's, I was shocked to see such a frail looking actor play Tarzan. I learned, as an adult, that he had been sick. Then they should have replaced him. Tarzan movies didn't call for great acting skills, but it did require "presence" Sadly, he didn't have it. Poor Mahoney certainly looked different from the funny guy in the 3 Stooges movies who was in love with "Nell, honey!"

Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963)

** (out of 4)

Strange entry in the never ending series has Tarzan (Jock Mahoney) going to an oriental country when he learns that their leader is dying. The throne is suppose to go to the dying man's son but his evil brother (Woody Strode) plans on stealing it. This film does have some nice touches here and there but sadly the screenplay takes way too many easy spots and in the end there's just not enough to carry the 93-minute running time. I think Mahoney makes for a rather strange Tarzan because outside the outfit and people calling him Tarzan you'd never really know he was the legendary character. I say that because Mahoney really doesn't give him much of a personality and so many of the classic things are missing here including the famous yell. I'm really not sure how much blame should go towards the actor since he apparently got dysentery and dengue fever while filming this movie. You can actually see that his body weight is different in various scenes in the film and there are times that he appears so white you'll be thinking he's playing a ghost. I'm really not sure of the full story so I don't know if the actor got sick early on and this impacted everything going forward or not but there are many scenes where it's obvious the actor isn't in the best shape. Strode is pretty fun as the bad guy but the screenplay really doesn't leave him too much to do except be mean and act tough. The rest of the supporting cast fit their roles nicely even if no one really sticks out. The title refers to three challenges that Tarzan must go through and these here are certainly the highlights. One of the best moments happens during the strength challenge when Tarzan's arms are attached to two bull pulling in the opposite direction. Another very good scene happens at the end when Tarzan and the brother must battle to see who will get the throne. Having a kid as a side kick was certainly due to this film being aimed at children but I didn't mind this too much. I only wish the screenplay had added a tad bit more of a story or at least thrown in a few more interesting characters. This isn't a totally worthless film but I don't see anyone except Tarzan junkies eating this thing up.