TARZAN OF THE APES (1918)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

The very first Tarzan film, starring Elmo Lincoln as the ape man, adapted roughly the first half of Burroughs' book, while a second film, THE ROMANCE OF TARZAN, adapted the other half, or at least something approximating that narrative. ROMANCE so far remains a lost film, but fortunately the first TARZAN stands on its own mythic appeal, despite a few loose ends that presumably would have been clarified by the sequel.

As in the novel, Lord Greystoke and his pregnant wife Lady Greystoke are traveling to Africa when mutineers take over the ship. A well-meaning crewman named Binns (George B. French) persuades the other sailors to strand the English lord and lady on a desolate stretch of the African coast. Lord Greystoke manages to deliver his son but both of the newborn's parents are killed by the hostile apes of the region. Kala, a female ape who has lost her own child, succors the infant aristocrat and raises him as one of her own. Eventually, despite being smaller and weaker than most of his "brethren," the man-child Tarzan eventually becomes "lord" of the other apes and of this corner of the jungle, where he not infrequently comes into conflict with the local Black natives.

Unlike many adaptations of the novel, APES does spend a fair amount of time with Tarzan in childhood, though only at the age of ten, where he's played by one Gordon Griffith. Ten-year-old Tarzan stumbles across the cabin built by his late father and becomes fascinated with the human artifacts. However, in contrast to Burroughs' story, the young ape-man does not teach himself to read the books in the cabin by an unlikely process of deduction.

Instead, Young Tarzan gets introduced to human culture by Binns, the man who saved Tarzan's parents and thus made Tarzan's survival possible. Following the mutiny, Binns gets caught by Arab slavers, and only escapes his captors at the time Tarzan turns ten. The altruistic sailor seeks out the coastline where the castaways were abandoned, and upon meeting the boy, he pieces together what must have happened. Binns stays in Tarzan's company long enough to teach the ape-boy language. Then he leaves, planning to seek out Young Greystoke's family in England while the boy remains with the apes.

I forget what keeps Binns busy for roughly the next ten years, but by the time he does reach England, the boy has grown into a brawny male Tarzan (Elmo Lincoln). Though Binns is never seen again, he apparently convinces the heir to the peerage, William Clayton, to investigate the claim that the true Lord Greystoke still lives. Along with William comes the young American woman he's been courting, Jane Porter (Enid Markey), as well as Jane's father and her maid. In the book, Jane's party comes to Africa in total ignorance of Tarzan's existence.

During the interim Tarzan's mother Kala has been slain by one of the natives, causing even more strife between Tarzan and the Blacks. Tarzan spies Jane from afar and falls in love, though he doesn't stalk her quite as much as he did in the book.

In Burroughs, one of the great apes, not able to get busy with any female apes, abducts Jane from her camp, and she's rescued by Tarzan, after which the primeval man courts the civilized woman. The movie keeps the skeleton of this arrangement, but, perhaps wisely, chose to have a lustful native carry Jane away for a fate worse than death. I'm sure some viewers will assume that the filmmakers meant to equate Black men and apes. I just think it was easier for them to use a Black guy than a man in an ape costume.

The fight between the two big guys, White and Black, is the film's highlight, even though the finish is inadequately filmed and cutaways to Enid Markey screaming spoil the fight's continuity. Tarzan wins, of course, and Enid/Jane becomes a little less histrionic for the romance portion of the story. The plighting of their troth serves as the end of the film, though presumably the sequel would have found new complications to keep them apart, as the books did.

Silent-film director Scott Sidney handles things in an efficient if pedestrian manner. He also directed Lincoln in a 15-chapter serial, THE ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, of which ten chapters survive. Lincoln suggests a stolid nobility but does not project as much charm in the role as his successor Frank Merrill did in TARZAN THE TIGER, to say nothing of being able to touch the hem of Weismuller's leotard. But it's pleasing that the first TARZAN does a better than average job of telling the hero's unique origin story.