Tarzan and the Amazons

One of the very few Amazon films where the women warriors were both attractive and able to some butt. Right on (icon of raised clenched fist. Every other amazon film I have seen had the women warriors just parade around in ancient Greek military costumes and behave cutsey-wootsey when the men show up - they need a man after all. These Amazons were beautiful and well build but also willing and able to shoot those arrows and cast those spears when the enemy men showed up - though they still needed Tarzan to get them out of the scrap at the end, but hey, it is a Tarzan movie.

In the last two Tarzan films, the last one for MGM and the first one for RKO, the character of Jane was written out by having her go to the United Kingdom as a patriotic gesture for the war. Tarzan himself dealt with the Nazis in his usual manner in these last two films himself, Tarzan Triumphs and Tarzan's Desert Mystery.

Jane is now played by Brenda Joyce as Tarzan and his family are fully reunited now. She's bought some friends along headed by Henry Stephenson who is fascinated by a bracelet that Cheetah found for Jane. It speaks of an ancient legend of an Amazon tribe and a lost city.

Of course Tarzan knows all about it and he's been keeping the Amazons a secret. There ain't nothing in the jungle that he doesn't know about. And in Tarzan And The Amazons the usual common theme of all Tarzan films comes true. Outsiders only mean trouble, especially if they come from civilization.

Stephenson is a cultured scientist, but the rest of his crew have their own ideas. Folks like Barton MacLane, Lionel Royce, Don Douglas, J.M. Kerrigan, and Steven Geray see visions of untold riches. I think you can figure the rest of this story out.

Tarzan And The Amazons features Maria Ouspenskaya as the ancient Queen of the Amazons who exacts hard punishment for those who violate the sanctity of the Amazons, She's always good even in some really terrible films.

This like so many other Hollywood films with an African setting give us a pulp fiction view of that continent. It was only in the Fifties with King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen that we started getting a realistic view of Africa. Still Tarzan And The Amazons is entertaining enough in a pulp fiction sort of way.

TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS is closest in 'style' to the earlier MGM/Johnny Weissmuller 'Tarzan' films (offering a crocodile fight, a 'classic' safari with many more black extras than in any other RKO 'Tarzan' feature of the era, far above-average production values), and is most famous for introducing American Brenda Joyce as the new 'Jane', back from the war. Joyce, 33, blond and wholesomely beautiful, lacked Maureen O'Sullivan's intellectual 'spin' to the role, but worked well with the 41-year-old Weissmuller, while providing a mother figure for 'Boy' Johnny Sheffield that the predominately 'kid' audience could relate to.

With a cast of terrific character actors (including Henry Stephenson, Maria Ouspenskaya, and Barton MacLane), and a plot involving a 'lost' city of women (guaranteed to arouse male hormones), the end result is one of the best-remembered RKO entries, and great fun to watch!

After a brief hiatus from the series, the character of Jane returns now in the form of the statuesque Brenda Joyce. Johnny Weissmuller's starting to get visibly older and the same may be said for Johnny Sheffield as Boy, who's voice is now changing and growing deeper. Still, this is a solid entry where a hidden civilization consisting of beautiful women (their queen is old Maria Ouspenskaya - the gypsy woman from THE WOLF MAN) begins to take action when greedy men stumble upon their secret domain, previously only known to exist by Tarzan. Good action, thrills.

*** out of ****

Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Johnny Weissmuller's ninth time playing Tarzan has him and Boy (Johnny Sheffield) welcoming home Jane (Brenda Joyce) who also brings with her some archaeologists. They soon learn of a secret tribe of women (led by Maria Ouspenskaya) and ask Tarzan to take them to the ladies. He refuses but Boy agrees to take them not realizing that some of the men in the group have bad plans for them. This entry is certainly a step up from the previous, TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY but it's still a long ways off from the early films when the series was still with MGM. With that said, if you enjoy "B" movies and especially those with Tarzan, there are enough good moments here to make the film worth sitting through at least once. As you'd expect, the real highlight comes from the good-hearted performance of Weissmueller. No one would ever call him a great actor but what he lacked as an actor perfectly made him suitable to play Tarzan. If you've seen any of his future Jungle Jim movies then you know his line delivery was pretty poor but when you play Tarzan this actually helps things. Weissmuller might have played this role eight times before but it's clear he's still having fun with it and this certainly comes across and is quite apparent to the viewer. Sheffield is also pretty good in his role as Boy and shares a lot of chemistry with Weissmuller. Joyce certainly isn't going to make anyone forget Maureen O'Sullivan but she's cute enough in the part and her flirtatious ways with Tarzan were quite charming. The supporting cast includes Ouspenskaya (THE WOLF MAN) who is sadly underused, Barton MacLane and Henry Stephenson. For the majority of the running time we get the cheap thrills one had come to expect from the series. These range of lions going on the attack to the crocodiles who are constantly swimming after someone to do damage only to have Tarzan step in. These type of thrills are things we've seen before but they still work here. What doesn't work too well is that there's about 15-20 minutes where the viewer has to just sit still and listen to Tarzan refuse to help the men. There's a long stretch where nothing much happens and the film starts to drag here before finally picking up with the action packed ending. The female tribe run around in skimpy clothing for some sex appeal but I was curious how a group of all ladies were able to reproduce when none of them had ever seen a man.