Tarzan's Revenge
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
D. Ross Lederman
Glenn Morris
Eleanor Holm
George Barbier
C. Henry Gordon
Hedda Hopper
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
American Eleanor Reed travels to the interior of Africa with her father Roger, who hopes to capture animals for zoos, her mother Penny, who sneezes and complains incessantly, and her fiancé, Nevin Potter, who wants to kill all the animals he can. On the steamship, Ben Alleu Bey, an Oxford-educated royal playboy, who has a hundred wives, sends Eleanor a ruby. She refuses it and, at the landing, beats and insults Bey when he thrashes a servant for bumping into her. Bey, who controls the tribes of the interior, makes secret arrangements with Olaf, the Reed party guide, to have Eleanor abducted by tribesmen near Bey's palace. During the safari, Tarzan, a white man whom the jungle animals obey, curiously watches the group in hiding. When a leopard gets too close to them, he calls it away, and when Eleanor, alone, gets stuck in mud, Tarzan pulls her out. No one in the party believes her story about the mysterious man. After Eleanor and Nevin put two lion cubs in cages, their angry mother enters Eleanor's tent, but Tarzan sends the lioness away and retrieves the cubs. When Nevin cages Tarzan's chimpanzee, Tarzan frees all the caged animals that the party have captured and carries Eleanor to his tree, after which they swing on vines, swim and sleep next to each other. The next day, as Tarzan gets some coconuts, the party finds Eleanor. Dejected at finding her gone, Tarzan is comforted by the chimp. Near Bey's palace, tribesmen capture Eleanor after Nevin cowardly swims away when a crocodile chases her, but Tarzan breaks into the palace and rescues her. As the party prepares to go home, Nevin, jealous of Eleanor's concern at leaving Tarzan, shoots at him and grazes his arm. Tarzan throws Nevin off, and on the boat back, Penny wonders what the people back home will think, while in the jungle, Eleanor swims with Tarzan.
Director
D. Ross Lederman
Cast
Glenn Morris
Eleanor Holm
George Barbier
C. Henry Gordon
Hedda Hopper
Joseph Sawyer
George Meeker
Corbet Morris
John Lester Johnson
Frederick Clarke
Crew
Jerry Bos
Barney Briskin
Robert Lee Johnson
Bert Jordan
Terry Kellum
Sol Lesser
Wilbur Mcgaugh
George Meehan
Abe Meyer
Eugene Milford
Lewis J. Rachmil
Hugo Riesenfeld
Jay Vann
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Producer Sol Lesser considered casting New York Yankees baseball great Lou Gehrig as Tarzan, but changed his mind after seeing his legs, which were "more functional than decorative."
Notes
The opening credits call the film, "Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan's Revenge." According to New York Times, after M-G-M had so much trouble making the previous "Tarzan" film, Tarzan Escapes, which starred Johnny Weissmuller, Sol Lesser made Burroughs a better offer than he had with M-G-M for the rights to use the character. Burroughs, reportedly, was to get a sum at the start of production and also share in the profits. According to the News review for Rawhide, Lesser wanted to star baseball great Lou Gehrig as Tarzan, but decided against it after seeing that Gehrig's legs were "functional rather than decorative." Glenn Morris, whom Lesser chose instead, was the 1936 Olympic decathlon champion, and this was his first film. Eleanor Holm was an Olympic swimmer. After the film's release, Hollywood Reporter reported that because exhibitors and audiences did not accept anyone other than Weismuller in the role, Lesser dropped his plans to continue the series and sold three Burroughs scripts to M-G-M for use as Weissmuller pictures. A book based on the film, entitled Tarzan's Revenge, by Burroughs was published in 1938. For information on other films featuring the Tarzan character, consult the Series Index and see entry above for Tarzan, the Ape Man.
