Tarzan and the Amazons

The ninth movie in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series (and third since the series moved from MGM to RKO) is also the first to feature an actress besides Maureen O'Sullivan playing Jane. In the first two RKO films, Jane was off helping with the war effort in England. Now it's time for her to come home but, alas, O'Sullivan wouldn't return to the part so it was recast with Brenda Joyce. Maureen is certainly missed but Brenda does a decent job and would play Jane for the remainder of the Weissmuller films. As I said, Jane returns home to Africa but she doesn't come alone. She brings with her some archaeologists who are interested in the lost city of the Amazons, a tribe of women warriors. Tarzan knows where the city is but won't tell them. If you've seen even one Tarzan movie before this, you should know the outsiders won't leave it alone. They convince Boy to lead them to the Amazon city, where they are not greeted with open arms.

I noticed Johnny Sheffield, the actor playing Boy, is in the middle of puberty by this point and his voice is noticeably deeper than the last film in the series. It's the sort of thing you probably only notice when you watch the series back to back. Sheffield's enjoyable, though Boy's a bit of a brat in this one. Cheeta, the series' regular scene stealer, is great as always. Henry Stephenson plays the kindly old lead archaeologist who has no clue how rotten his friends are. Barton MacLane makes a particularly slimy heavy. The Amazons are lovely young women in skimpy (for the time) outfits. Nothing wrong with that. Pretty Shirley O'Hara is the one given the most to do. Their leader is the awesome Maria Ouspenskaya. She's always a treat to watch. Nice sets and matte paintings. The Amazon stuff is lots of fun. As with all of the RKO Tarzan movies, this is a solid escapist adventure film. Nothing deep but good to watch on a lazy weekend.

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.

This jungle adventure was a popular Saturday matinée entry and has a simple but effective plot of archaeologists looking for a mysterious city of a warrior tribe of women. The white hunters are searching for wealth and riches believed to be in the domain of the Amazons and convince Tarzan's son to guide them to the hidden valley. Tarzan and Jane quarrel about Boy's involvement with the safari because the jungle man knows that the intruders are headed for trouble when they encounter the Amazons. Johnny Weissmuller was winding down in his role as Tarzan but is good as always as the king of the jungle. Brenda Joyce is okay in her first role as Jane and Johnny Sheffield is the troublesome youngster who disobeys Tarzan. Barton MacClane is good as the heavy and Cheetah is along for some scene-stealing fun.

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 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!