The New Adventures of Tarzan is a 1935 film serial directed by Edward Kull and William F. McGaugh.
It's a 12-episode serial about, yes, Tarzan. The plot turns on a mysterious statue deep in the jungles of Guatemala called the "Green Goddess". Lots of people, as it turns out, want the Green Goddess. Ula Vale, adventuress, seeks the Green Goddess because her fiancée David Brent died in an earlier expedition to find the statue. The Goddess is also said to contain the formula for a powerful explosive, which Ula wants to prevent from falling into the wrong hands. An explorer, Major Martling, is mounting his own expedition to find the statue, which he describes as "purely scientific." Martling has obtained and deciphered an ancient inscription which gives directions on how to find the Green Goddess. A third person seeking the Goddess, P.B. Raglan, is the villain. Unlike the unselfish good guys, Raglan is very much interested in both the formula for an explosive and the pile of precious jewels reported to be inside the Green Goddess.
The vine-swinging, yodeling hero (played by Bruce Bennett, credited under his real name of Herman Brix) comes into the story when a Frenchman named Bouchart seeks him out in Africa. Bouchart tells Tarzan that he was on the ill-fated expedition that got David Brent killed. Bouchart tells Tarzan that Tarzan's friend and mentor, Lt. Paul D'Arnot, was also on the expedition, and is still alive, but is being held captive by the natives. Tarzan agrees to accompany Martling and Vale on a new expedition to find both the Green Goddess and D'Arnot, but they'll have to beat Raglan, who mounts his own quest to get the Goddess for himself.
Produced by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who also suggested the original story. Unlike the MGM Tarzan movies and in fact most any adventure epic of this era, much of The New Adventures of Tarzan was filmed on location in Guatemala, which makes the whole series look more authentic but also resulted in a mess of a Troubled Production.
Tropes:
- Answer Cut: In episode 3, the gang looks down into the alligator pit where Tarzan fell. Martling says "Even if he survived the explosion, those devils would have destroyed him." Cut to Tarzan surfacing in the river, having swum out via underground passage (Tarzan seems to have gills).
- The Artifact: The original story was a spy plot with Ula Vale being a secret agent code-named "Operator No. 17" who was seeking the formula for the explosive. The series was extensively re-written after production had already started, and the spy plot was dropped, but Vale is still seen in disguise a couple of times, and the last episode is still titled "Operator No. 17".
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: In the Dead City, the high priest and his minions speak a foreign-sounding gibberish.
- Bond Villain Stupidity:
- Typical of the genre. In episode 2 a couple of Raglan's goons have beaned Tarzan with a rock and have the chance to chop him up with machetes. Instead Raglan says "Hey! He's all finished!", and summons the goons to come away with him. Somewhat excusable as the area is teeming with angry natives, but he still had a chance to finish Tarzan off.
- In episode 6 two mooks and a half-dozen native porters manage to overwhelm Tarzan and knock him out. One even says "Let me finish him!", but the other insists on waiting for Raglan. They tie him up...and then they all casually walk away. Guess what happens?
- Booby Trap: In episode 2, Raglan, trying to make his escape, rigs up a booby trap, namely a trip wire attached to a bunch of dynamite for the heroes to blunder into. They do blunder into it, and it blows up, providing the cliffhanger for that episode.
- Bottomless Magazines: George seems to have an infinite supply of the machine gun bullets he uses to fend off the natives in episode 2.
- Breaking the Bonds: Tarzan is so damn manly that all he has to do in episode 6 to escape from being tied to a tree is flex his muscles. The ropes snap.
- Caught in a Snare:
- In the first episode Alice gets caught in a rope snare as she's running from the natives. That's bad, but the fact that she winds up dangling over a pit with two angry leopards is worse.
- Episode 3 ends in Tarzan getting caught in a snare just as he's running to rescue Ula from a burning building.
- Cliffhanger: As usual with film serials, episodes end with a cliffhanger placing the heroes in some sort of mortal danger, which they escape at the beginning of the next episode.
- Clip Show: The 12th and last episode is basically a recap/highlight episode, after the story has been resolved.
- Darkest Africa: Technically, only the first part of the first episode is this, as Tarzan and the gang all leave Africa by boat for Guatemala. But there are a few angry lions and such before the setting switches to Central America.
- Dramatic Irony: In episode 5, one of Raglan's mooks says "I say that guy Tarzan is as dead as a maggot." This while Tarzan is sitting in a tree directly overhead. He immediately jumps on the two mooks.
- Extra-Long Episode: The first episode is an hour long, much longer than usual for film serials of this era. Theater owners of the day were given the option to either run the serial or run the first episode, also titled "The New Adventures of Tarzan", as a feature.
- Film Serial: A 12-episode film serial in which Tarzan goes on an adventure in Central America. Produced by Edgar Rice Burroughs who disliked the MGM take on his character.
- Flashback: Accompanies Bouchart's story in episode 1 about how the expeditions's plane crashed in the jungle but D'Arnot bailed out in a parachute.
- His Name Is...: In the first episode Tarzan has apprehended the ship's steward that attacked Martling. Tarzan demands that the steward reveal who hired him. The steward says "It was—", before he is interrupted by a bullet from Raglan's gun. (Naturally nobody sees Raglan fire the shot, even though he wasn't very far away.)
- If My Calculations Are Correct: Martling leads the party to a 400-year-old Spanish church (this film being shot on location, it was a real 400-year-old Spanish church
, then says "If my deductions are correct, we should find the ancient Mayan ruins directly underneath these." - Jungles Sound Like Kookaburras: Amazingly, Guatemalan natives make the stereotypical kookaburra call when they signal to each other.
- Just Following Orders: "We were just obeying orders," says the mook in episode 6 after Tarzan defeats him. Tarzan, being a nice guy, lets the two mooks leave.
- The Load: George, who mans a machine gun nicely when the party is attacked by natives early in the series, but otherwise is utterly useless, whining and complaining and often doing dumb stuff that forces Tarzan to rescue him.
- In episode 7, George is freaking out because he was attacked by...turtles. As George flails around in panic, he knocks the code book out of Martling's hand and kicks it into the river. Tarzan has to dive into the river to get the code book, and he winds up going over the waterfall downstream.
- Loincloth: Tarzan wears his standard loincloth, although, this version being truer to the novels, he's also seen in Western formal dress.
- MacGuffin: The "Green Goddess", an ancient Mayan statue that is filled with jewels and has a formula for a powerful explosive. It's actually discovered in the first episode, due to the first episode doubling as a stand-alone feature, but but for much of the rest of the series the problem is how to decode it.
- Magical Romani: In the Clip Show finale Tarzan hosts a "gypsy party" (
1934, folks) at Greystoke Mansion, and a "gypsy fortune teller" delivers the recap by showing highlights in her crystal ball. It's Ula Vale, in costume. - Mischief-Making Monkey: Some comedy in episode 4 when a monkey steals George the idiot's yo-yo, and George winds up chasing the monkey all over the village.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Naturally, Tarzan takes his pet chimp Nkima with him. Nkima is played by the same chimpanzee who played Cheeta in the more famous Weissmuller films. Nkima sometimes gives Tarzan a heads-up when danger is at hand.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: An extreme example of this at the end of episode 10, when the camera zooms in for a tight closeup of the barrel of the gun Raglan's pointing at Tarzan, right before Raglan fires.
- Signature Roar: Tarzan does his yodel/roar, although, since it's not Johnny Weissmuller's distinctive yodel, it just sounds wrong.
- Soft Water: In episode 8, Tarzan falls down a pretty high waterfall, and lives.
- Spikes of Doom: In episode 6 some natives are seen rigging up a tiger trap consisting of a bamboo pallet with scary spikes attached, rigged with a tripwire to fall on a passing tiger. George the idiot accidentally lures Tarzan right into it.
- Timmy in a Well: An extreme example in episode 9, when Nkima comes up to Tarzan and hoots. Tarzan gleans, from the hoots, "What's that? Prisoners in the Dead City?"
- Truer to the Text: This serial was motivated in part by Edgar Rice Burroughs' irritation at the changes MGM made to his character and stories. In the Weissmuller movies, Tarzan is an "ape man" who talks in pidgin You No Take Candle English. In this serial, as in the texts, Tarzan is now an educated man who has assumed the role of Lord Greystoke, and while he seems to prefer wearing a loincloth and swinging on vines, he is also fully at home wearing a tuxedo and exchanging witty banter. Additionally, the character of D'Arnot is taken from the books (D'Arnot was the one who brought young Tarzan out of the jungle and to civilization), and Tarzan's Non-Human Sidekick is named Nkima like in the books instead of "Cheeta".
- Video Credits: Episodes after the first one not only have video credits of the main players, they also have little captions along with the video credits explaining who the characters are.
- Vine Swing: Can't make a Tarzan movie without him swinging around on vines. Amusingly, in the first episode Tarzan swings around the ropes on a ship, while wearing a tuxedo, in order to save Martling from the mook who's attacking him.
- Your Television Hates You: In episode 6 George is whining about being hungry, so Ula tells him to read a book to take his mind off his stomach. The two books that he picks up (the gang having decided to take hardback books on a jungle trek!) are titled The Hungry Man and Food for Thought.
