Returning to the Jungle With Tarzan

American Movie Classics pays tribute this weekend to the greatest swinger of all time, Tarzan.

The three-day “Tarzan Adventures” festival features a new documentary, “Investigating Tarzan,” plus 32 of the ape man’s films, including the very first: 1918’s “Tarzan of the Apes,” starring the barrel-chested Elmo Lincoln.

Also on the cable channel’s agenda: 1933’s “Tarzan the Fearless” with Buster Crabbe; 1936’s “Tarzan’s New Adventure” with Herman Brix; 1949’s “Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” with Lex Barker; and 1959’s “Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure,” starring Gordon Scott.

But the heart of the festival, which begins today at 5 p.m., are the 11 films starring the most popular Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, who played Edgar Rice Burroughs’ loincloth-clad jungle hero and Cheetah’s best friend from 1932 through 1948. Who can forget his immortal “Me Tarzan, you Jane” scene with Maureen O’Sullivan in 1932’s “Tarzan, the Ape Man”?

An Olympic champion swimmer who broke the one-minute mark in the 100-meter freestyle, Weissmuller was an amateur yodeling champ whose jungle “yell” came in handy in the Tarzan films.

AMC will be airing such Weissmuller classics as 1934’s sexy “Tarzan and His Mate,” which is considered to be the best of the series, as well as 1936’s “Tarzan Escapes,” 1939’s “Tarzan Finds a Son!,” which introduced Johnny Sheffield as Boy, and 1942’s “Tarzan’s New York Adventure,” which was O’Sullivan’s last outing as Tarzan’s beloved Jane.

Burroughs’ “da-vine” protector first appeared in a short story in 1912 and the he-man has since been the subject of more than 90 books, 40 movies, 350 radio serials, three TV series, comics, Web sites and, as any Southern Californian knows, the namesake of Tarzana.

Gabe Essoe, the author of the book “Tarzan of the Movies,” maintains that the Tarzan mystique is alive and well because “it’s a fantasy life. It’s primarily males who see the entire mystique of Tarzan as being desirable.

“Just think about it. Here is a guy who is out in the wilderness. He doesn’t have to answer to any authority. He’s king of everything he can see and has animal friends. He has this wonderful babe out there in the wilderness with him. I think, especially with the stress of modern life, we look to a fantasy like that. I find it attractive.”

Burroughs’ literary Tarzan is far more erudite and educated than most screen Tarzans. “The character in the movies was sort of created over at MGM, where they went for more of the noble savage,” Essoe offers, “and sort of disregarded what was written in books. It didn’t make Edgar Rice Burroughs very happy, but it created a formula on the screen that is sheer magic.”

During Weissmuller’s reign, several other actors donned a loincloth to play Tarzan in lesser known films, including Olympic champions Crabbe and Brix. In fact, Burroughs was the producer of the two Brix films: 1936’s “Tarzan’s New Adventure” and “Tarzan and the Green Goddess,” which were more faithful to his original vision. But it was Weissmuller who had the charisma.

Johnny Sheffield, now 66, starred as Boy in eight Tarzan films from 1939 until 1947’s “Tarzan the Huntress.” At 15, he got his own movie series, “Bomba, the Jungle Boy,” which lasted until 1955.

Though the UCLA graduate has been out of the limelight for more than 40 years, he still gets a steady stream of fan mail.

“The mail always says, ‘Hey. We want to thank you a lot for some good times at the movie show,’ ” he says. “They watched [the movies], went home and put up a rope and started swinging.”

The son of a British child star, Sheffield made his Broadway debut at age 7 in “On Borrowed Time” and was chosen from 300 youngsters to play the role of Boy.

“There were two parts to the screen test,” recalls Sheffield, who, now retired, worked as a builder and in the import and export business. “The one part was swimming, which I didn’t know about because I couldn’t swim. The first was just talking to [Weissmuller] and that was no problem.”

Sheffield took his swimming test with Weissmuller at the Hollywood Athletic Club. “He jumped into the deep end of the swimming pool,” he relates. “He knew I couldn’t swim. He said, ‘Jump in.’ I jumped in the deep end and he took my arm and set me on his knee. He said, ‘You’re doing fine. Hold your breath, we’re going under.’ ”

Sheffield held on tight to Weissmuller. “We did a lot of those scenes like that [in the movies], where I was holding on to him [underwater] and swimming. We got out of the pool, toweled off and he said, ‘This kid can swim just fine.’ ”

Sheffield doesn’t have a favorite “Tarzan” film, but he does single out “Tarzan Finds a Son!” as a film dear to his heart because “that was my first introduction to the movies and filmmaking. There was a lot of action in that film. There were spiders and lily pads and I learned to swing on the vines.”

Here are highlights of the “Tarzan Adventures” marathon:

Today

“Tarzan and His Mate” (6 p.m.; also Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.)

“Tarzan Escapes” (7:45 p.m. and Saturday at 10:45 a.m.)

“Tarzan Finds a Son!” (midnight; Saturday at 12:30 p.m.)

Saturday

“Tarzan’s New York Adventure” (1 a.m.)

“Tarzan Triumphs” (2:45 a.m.)

“Tarzan and the Leopard Woman” (7 a.m.)

“Tarzan and the Mermaids” (9:30 a.m.)

“Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” (3:45 p.m.)

“Tarzan the Fearless” (6:30 p.m.)

“Tarzan of the Apes” (11:15 p.m.)

Sunday

“Tarzan’s New Adventure” (12:15 a.m.)

“Tarzan’s Revenge” (1:30 a.m.)

“Tarzan and the Green Goddess” (2:45 a.m.)

“Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle” (6:30 a.m.)

“Tarzan’s Fight for Life” (11:30 a.m.)

“Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure” (1 p.m.)

“Tarzan the Magnificent” (2:30 p.m.)

“Tarzan and the Great River” (9:45 p.m.)