The film opens on an African drum ceremony under the credits; very noticeable is the fact that the close-ups of hands beating a variety of functional drums is the real stuff and not Hollywood fakery. Wide shots following the credits feature more genuine footage of tribal dancing. The authenticity properly established, other footage shot on Hollywood soundstages is intercut, although it is clear that the African footage is not "stock" - it shows leading characters establishing story points specific to this movie (although they are shown in long shot, indicating that doubles for the actors were filmed on location).
The dance ceremony is in honor of Melmendi (Dorothy Dandridge), Queen of the Ashuba tribe. The ceremony is observed by the local British East Africa commissioner Peters (Alan Napier) along with his just-arrived replacement, Connors (Edward Ashley). The elderly Peters is retiring after thirty years of service - experienced movie watchers know that this is a death sentence for any well-liked civil servant and that his subsequent line of dialogue, "So far I've been able to keep guns and gin out of the territory," is a major hint of the evil that will soon invade his peaceful terrain. As if on cue, the audience is introduced to Radijeck (George Macready in a wonderfully villainous performance), who has just escaped from prison, and who along with his two cronies Trask (Douglas Fowley) and Andrews (Glenn Anders), plans to sell guns to Bulam (Frederick O'Neal), the brutal King of the neighboring Yorango tribe. Jane (Virginia Huston) hears of Radijeck's escape and is concerned for Tarzan (Lex Barker), who brought Radijeck to justice previously. Radijeck does have revenge on his mind and proceeds to commit multiple murders, terrorize Jane, and kidnap Queen Melmendi.
Sol Lesser and company, including second unit director Phil Brandon, departed for Africa in July of 1950, and filmed with Technicolor cameras in Kenya (British East Africa) - primarily in Meru National Park, and also in Uganda and Tanganyika. The timing of their trip was a miscalculation, because warm months above the equator are cold below - the primary trouble they encountered was an almost ever-present layer of fog. According to author Gabe Essoe (in Tarzan of the Movies: A Pictorial History of More Than Fifty Years of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Legendary Hero, Citadel Press, 1972), "...the location site at the base of Mount Kenya was always so cloudy that Tarzan lost his tan, and an urgent call was sent to Hollywood for more body make-up." Lex Barker told Essoe, "We just weren't prepared for location conditions. Local natives were rounded up, and the first time I appeared in the jungle in my loincloth, they burst out laughing. It was demoralizing." Barker also described an incident in which "...the director wanted me to tangle with a man-eating plant. I told him that I would only wrestle a plant that had sense enough to let go on cue. I eventually battled one back in Hollywood that the RKO special effects department built."
The most serious problem on the African shoot, however, was an accident which resulted in half of the color footage being ruined. The company returned to Hollywood in late August and Lesser decided to shoot Tarzan's Peril in black-and-white and incorporate what African footage he could salvage in matching monochrome. (Some of this material would later be used as stock footage - and seen as intended - starting in 1957 when the Tarzan series switched to color). Sadly, any footage of Barker as Tarzan must have been amongst the ruined reels, because all of his scenes in the finished film are sourced from Hollywood soundstages. As it stands, the best sequence shot in Africa is a rousing assault on the peaceful Ashuba village by the gun-toting warriors of the Yorango tribe. Despite the problems, the effort to capture genuine scenes in Africa give the film a sense of scope and verisimilitude that previous Tarzan pictures could not approach. It helped, also, that the integration of the footage was very skillfully handled by director Byron Haskin.
Tarzan's Peril opened in March, 1951. The critic for Variety noted that the film "...has the familiar ingredients of jungle adventure, plus good background footage actually lensed in Africa." This writer noted that "Virginia Huston has only a few scenes as Tarzan's mate, Jane, in the footage. There's more emphasis on Dorothy Dandridge, queen of a tribe that is saved by Tarzan from its warring rivals." Certainly, the film was an enormous boost in notoriety and publicity for Dandridge, who was just two years away from her breakout role in Bright Road (1953). Donald Bogle (in his book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Continuum 2001) described the film as "...typical jungle fare with one twist. In a crucial episode, Dandridge, as a kidnapped African princess, was tied to the stakes by a warlike tribal leader. As she lay with legs sprawled apart, heaving and turning to break loose, it was apparent that never before had the black woman been so erotically and obviously used as a sex object. From the way Lex Barker's Tarzan eyed the sumptuous Dandridge, it was obvious too, that for once Tarzan's mind was not on Jane or Boy or Cheetah!"
Producer: Sol Lesser
Director: Byron Haskin
Screenplay: Samuel Newman, Francis Swann (original screenplay); John Cousins (additional dialogue); Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters)
Cinematography: Karl Struss
Art Direction: John Meehan
Music: Michel Michelet
Film Editing: John Murray
Cast: Lex Barker (Tarzan), Virginia Huston (Jane), George Macready (Radijeck), Douglas Fowley (Herbert Trask), Glenn Anders (Andrews), Alan Napier (Commissioner Peters), Edward Ashley (Conners), Dorothy Dandridge (Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba), Walter Kingsford (Barney), Frederick O'Neal (King Bulam)
BW-79m.
By John M. Miller
