Uncensored ’34 ‘Tarzan’ Titillates

Move over Rocketeer and Indiana Jones. The real swinging movie adventurer--Tarzan of the Apes--is back and he’s better than ever.

For most film buffs, there was really only one authentic film Tarzan, played a dozen times by Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. With the alluring, adorable Maureen O’Sullivan at his side as Jane in six of the films, from 1932-42, the pair were unbeatable.

Now, the best film in the series, “Tarzan and His Mate” (1934), is out on MGM/UA home video laser disc--and it almost seems to begin with what the original left out. This sequel to the first “Tarzan” was filled with enough adventure, violence and erotic fantasy to keep the Hays Office censors working overtime. So, few moviegoers in 1934 had a chance to see the uncut “Mate”--a semi-nude swim, topless tribal women and some of the goriest action this side of “King Kong” (also censored). They had to be content watching Weissmuller and O’Sullivan in the skimpiest costumes imaginable.

All the censored scenes in this crisp black-and-white “Tarzan and His Mate” have been restored, and they are enough to make any audience almost blush.

The sound, while dated, can still fill the room with enough stampeding elephants, baying lions--and, of course, the expected Tarzan yell and the unexpected Jane “Aieeeeeeeee-o” yell-rejoinder and cry for help. Along for the ride is the original theatrical trailer.

The erotic underwater nude swim (Chapter 10, Side 1) lives up to its reputation as O’Sullivan’s seemingly nude double circles, ensnares and generally seduces a loin-cloth clad Tarzan. Brooke Shields and “Blue Lagoon” half a century later had nothing on Maureen O’Sullivan--and Maureen O’Sullivan, or her double, had practically nothing on through most of the film. Just who thought Frederick’s of Hollywood invented skimpy costumes?

Also back in the laser version are some pretty raw killing scenes: arrows sticking out of heads, a knife plunging into flesh, eyes ripped out, animals speared. Even in black-and-white, it gives “Terminator 2” some competition.

“Tarzan and His Mate” runs 1 hour and 33 minutes but moves fast, with speeded-up shots of the ape man flying through the jungle and fighting assorted beasts, including a monstrous crocodile, a rampaging rhinoceros (who murders the original Cheetah) and charging lions.

If the fake elephant ears turning Indian elephants into African elephants and the ludicrous special effects--superimposed lions attack pictures of elephants--bother you, just go to the next chapter. The sequence of Tarzan and Jane soaring from tree to tree is amazing, even by today’s standards.

More than 50 Tarzan films followed the Weissmuller-O’Sullivan series, and nearly 20 other actors tried their hand at playing Tarzan, but nothing equals these original early talkies. Weissmuller’s Tarzan makes Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones look like a wimp, and Maureen O’Sullivan’s Jane makes Bo Derek look anemic, even in black-and-white.

And lest we think we invented environmental concerns, in “Tarzan and His Mate,” the jungle man won’t let any greedy white adventurers leave the jungle with any elephant’s ivory, and certainly not with his mate, either.