Tarzan and His Mate

Infobox Film | name = Tarzan and His Mate


caption = "Tarzan and His Mate" movie poster
director = Cedric Gibbons
Jack Conway (uncredited co-director)
James C. McKay (uncredited)
producer = Bernard H. Hyman
writer = Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters)
starring = Johnny Weissmuller
Maureen O'Sullivan
Neil Hamilton
Paul Cavanagh
music =
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = MGM
released = April 16, 1934 (premiere)
country = USA
runtime = 104 min.
language = English
budget = $1,279,142 (estimated)
amg_id = 1:48678
imdb_id = 0025862
preceded_by = "Tarzan the Ape Man"
followed_by = "Tarzan Escapes"

"Tarzan and His Mate" (1934) is a Tarzan film based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the second in the "Tarzan" film series to star Johnny Weissmuller.

In 2003, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

The film begins with Tarzan and Jane living in the Jungle. Henry Holt, with business partner Marlin Arlington, meet up with them on their way to take ivory from an elephant burial ground. Holt tries to convince Jane, who was with him on his first trip to the jungle, to return with him by bringing her gifts from civilization including clothing and modern gadgets but she tells them she'd rather stay with Tarzan.

Later, when Tarzan refuses to let the men take ivory from the burial ground he is shot by Arlington and left for dead. Jane, thinking Tarzan is dead, contemplates leaving the jungle. Meanwhile, Cheeta and his ape friends nurse Tarzan back to health in time for him to stop the men who shot him.

Trivia

*The infamous Jane skinny dipping scene (her clothes were snagged on a tree branch and pulled off, as Tarzan threw her playfully into the water) was initially cut by the Production Code Administration when the film was first released but was restored in 1986 by Turner Entertainment for its video release. Maureen O'Sullivan did not play the naked Jane in the scene. Instead she was doubled by Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim, who competed in the 1928 games with Johnny Weissmuller.

*Like other Tarzan/Weissmuller films, the elephants were Indian and not African. Large ears and tusks were fitted onto the animals in an attempt to make them look authentic.

*Tarzan rides a rhinoceros in one scene - a first for film. The rhino, Mary, was imported from the Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg, Germany. Weismuller did the scene himself, sustaining only minor scrapes to sensitive places from Mary's rough hide. [See John Taliaferro's biography of Burroughs, "Tarzan Forever"; ISBN 0-684-83359-X; page 282.]

References