Tarzan, Escape From Reality

First published in March 2009, modified with photo and Word History, 6/1/2016

We all need to get away from the grueling events going on around us on a daily basis; maybe its work, maybe its NO work, maybe its financial, maybe its illness, maybe its an issue with a loved one. This is true, not only in trying economic times, but even in better times, as harsh reality never rests and it spares no one, regardless of background, from at least an occasional smack upside the head or an out and out punch in the nose. To avoid a knockout blow, we often retreat to something that makes us forget, however temporarily, the troubling aspects of life. Just don’t forget to return to Planet Earth afterwards, no matter how much the other option appeals to you. Movies are one way to escape from reality, and “Tarzan” certainly provided many a person with a path through their own personal jungle to a place where these immortal characters of the screen gave us temporary shelter in the world of fiction.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, an American born in Chicago, wrote a series of books about the main character, Tarzan, a man of the African jungle, with the strength of the apes he lived around. Burroughs’ Tarzan stories differed from the later movies, and one of the reasons for that was, Burroughs signed a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, known to many simply as “MGM,” that permitted them to use his characters, but NOT his stories. I happen to think that this worked out for the better, as Burroughs’ Tarzan was educated, and was thus very different from the character many people around the world came to know. While there had been previous Tarzan films, it was when “MGM” developed a series of six movies between 1932 and 1942, centered around the Tarzan character, his companion Jane, and a mischievous chimp by the name of Cheeta, that Tarzan became a mainstay. After three movies, the studio decided to add another character, “Boy,” who was not their natural born son, as Tarzan and Jane were not legally married, a subject as “taboo” to the movie censors, and likely to much of the public of those times, as many things were to the native tribes depicted in the Tarzan movies. In order to get around such a touchy subject, the writers had Boy’s parents killed in a plane crash, the baby found by a group of chimps and eventually taken to Tarzan and Jane by Cheeta. Just to make note here, neither Boy nor Cheeta were original Burroughs’ characters, but simply developed by the MGM writers.

When I was a kid Tarzan was BIG stuff! Attempts by so many of us to imitate, however badly, the “Tarzan yell,” were commonplace. Up along a steep hillside near my neighborhood, someone had draped a heavy, thick rope over a huge tree branch in an attempt to provide us with a swinging vine, as depicted in the movies. We simply called it “The Tarzan Swing,“ and need I say, a few broken arms came as the penalty for those unskilled enough at using it, although their “yells” may have ended up being closer to the true Tarzan yell, so elusive previously.

While commercial television got under way after World War Two, it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that virtually EVERY American home had a television. Whether this is true or not, I’m not sure, but I remember it being said back then that more American homes had televisions than had telephones. Hey, at least some folks didn’t have their favorite shows interrupted! Television stations found a great source of entertainment for viewers by airing old movies, and since color programming didn’t become pretty much standard until the mid 1960s, the old black and white movies of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s were easily transferred to the small screen. I can’t say exactly when, but I’ll just say circa 1960, the Tarzan movies were released to television, and they were a SMASH HIT! To me, to many of my generation, and to many from the generations when the movies were first released to theaters, Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller WAS Tarzan. Any other actors who portrayed the “Ape Man,” no matter how competent, were purely imitators. Maureen O’Sullivan was Jane, but I think we came to later accept others in that role, but not easily. Cheeta was beloved by all, maybe even more than Weissmuller, as the chimp character showed us the close similarities, but also the dissimilarities, between humans and our closest relatives, chimpanzees.

The Tarzan movies gave us a chance to escape to a place where this monumental jungle man figure could communicate with the animals in his jungle habitat, especially the elephants, chimps, and apes; where Tarzan, Jane, and eventually Boy, shared the jungle with creatures large and small, vicious and meek, and where there seemed to be a true natural balance between all involved. Trouble almost always came when other humans, usually ruthless, greedy white men (and sometimes women)* intruded into Tarzan’s paradise to exploit some aspect of its environment, including in the last MGM episode, Boy, who was snatched for a circus act.

To those unaware, these films were shot at the MGM studios in Hollywood, with occasional location filming done in Florida for some underwater scenes. They were NOT shot in Africa, nor in New York, even though the one story has Boy taken to New York for the circus. The scenes of vast animal herds and prowling lions or leopards were added to the movies from previous footage that was actually filmed in Africa for another movie. The scenes of New York in the one movie, are just that, scenes of various NY buildings, but the actors weren’t present for filming there. MGM had a “jungle” put together at its studios, complete with a large water tank and even a river for those water scenes in the various pictures. They also had Tarzan and Jane’s “tree house” built there. Johnny Weissmuller didn’t swing through the trees “with the greatest of ease,” they used a professional acrobat. Tarzan’s famous underwater fight with a huge crocodile (the footage was used over in several episodes) was a fight with a mechanical croc, with dye sacks attached to it, so that when Tarzan stabbed the beast, it looked like blood flowing into the water.

Cheeta was portrayed by several different chimps during the course of the entire twelve episode Weissmuller series, and while Cheeta is usually referred to as a female in the stories, most of the chimps used were males. How they got those chimps to do some of things they did, truly amazes me to this day. I recall in the early 1960s, not long after the release of the movies to television, Weissmuller made a national tour and was welcomed everywhere by big crowds. As I recollect, he told of how he met Cheeta, although I don’t believe he said which Cheeta, since, as I mentioned, there were several different chimps used during Weissmuller’s career. I believe part of the reason for this was, they used younger chimps, as from what I’ve read, a chimp’s “personality” can change pretty dramatically after a certain age, and they can become aggressive, as unfortunately recently happened when a chimp viciously attacked a woman, almost killing her. Anyway, by all accounts, all of the chimps used to play Cheeta absolutely LOVED Johnny Weissmuller. Of course, he was a huge man, I think 6’ 3,” and he learned to quickly assert dominance over the chimps, as instructed by their trainers. Weissmuller’s son related a story in a book about his father, saying how much this one “Cheeta” loved his father, and Johnny would go and visit him in the zoo after the studio retired the chimp. The chimp died and Johhny told his son that it was almost like losing a child.

On the other hand, Maureen O’Sullivan wasn’t all that taken with the chimps, and they weren’t taken with her. From various things I’ve read and from interviews of O’Sullivan, since the chimps were usually males and they had been trained by male humans, they therefore connected well with the strapping Weissmuller, and later with Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy, but they grew jealous of O’Sullivan when she was too close to Weissmuller in some scenes. O’Sullivan noted in a couple of interviews and articles about a publicity picture taken with Weissmuller, Johnny Sheffield, Cheeta, and O’Sullivan. She said they had to make sure Sheffield separated her from Cheeta and Weissmuller, and that there was a rope or a chain on the chimp’s leg to prevent him from going after her. If you watch the movies, Cheeta will go to Jane, whisper in her ear and even give her a kiss on the cheek, but to my recollection, Weissmuller is not in the scene with them, so I guess the jealousy dissipated when he was not around.

Maureen O’Sullivan left the series in 1942, and MGM, having lost interest in the series, because of declining audiences in Europe due to World War Two, didn’t pursue a new agreement with Burroughs, who signed a new accord with RKO Pictures. This studio also produced six more movies, featuring Weissmuller in the lead. The first two, done in the midst of the war, had no Jane actually present. The storyline was that she was home in England helping the war effort, although she frequently wrote to Tarzan and Boy. Then RKO signed Brenda Joyce to play Jane in the final episodes. Johnny Sheffield also left the series, as it was felt that he was getting too old for the Boy role, so the script said he was off at school. RKO also had a jungle built for the series, complete with tree house. Interestingly, the RKO episodes no longer had Tarzan and his family in contact with the natives tribes in central Africa, but rather with people in areas in and around the Sahara Desert; that is, northern Africa. Why this was, I’ve never known.

‘Til next time....AhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaAhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

*You have to remember, these movies were made in the time of European colonialism, so “the enemy,” if you will, were usually white Europeans trying to exploit the area for personal gain. Americans, having successfully removed themselves from British colonial rule, were certainly not offended by the characterization of white Europeans playing “the bad guy” role. Further, four of the six Weissmuller MGM films were released during the Depression, a time when greed was easily seen as “the enemy.”

Photo is from the 2005 Turner Entertainment/Warner Home Video DVD set release

WORD HISTORY:
Jungle-The ultimate origins of this word are unknown, and its meaning has changed greatly from the original meaning. It goes back to Sanskrit ^ "jangala," which meant, "dry wasteland." This gave Hindi/Urdu,^^ "jangal," with the same meaning, but the meaning of which began to evolve to "area overgrown with trees and brush," from the notion of "wasteland." It was borrowed into English in the latter part of the 1700s (British presence in India, which included both Pakistan and Bangladesh, in those times).

^ Sanskrit is an ancient Indo European language, still in use to some degree, especially in India. It is related to English, but much further down the family tree.

^^ Hindi is an Indo European language and one of the main languages of India, while the closely related Urdu is the main language of Pakistan, but with a presence in India also.