TARZAN RESURGENCE

A Tarzan resurgence began in 1959 when new producers purchased the film franchise from Sol Lesser, who had continued the series with the Johnny Weissmuller version of the Ape-Man left over from MGM. The new Tarzan was somewhat the way author Edgar Rice Burroughs intended, by dropping the Weissmuller stereotype of the monosyllabic Ape-Man. They also took away his Super-Human strength, and played down the feral aspects. Nevertheless, four of the best films in the entire series were released. Gordon Scott starred in Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), and Tarzan the Magnificent (1960). Jock Mahoney took over the role in two films, Tarzan Goes to India (1962), and Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963), two of the biggest commercial successes in the entire series. In the spring of 1962, the Tarzan revival took on an even more significant form over his banishment from a California library.

Left: Gordon Scott defeats arch villain Jock Mahoney in Tarzan the Magnificent, 1960. Middle: Jock Mahoney takes over the role of the Ape-Man in Tarzan Goes to India, 1962. Right: Mike Henry's best Ape-Man feature, 1966.

A librarian who had never read any of the novels, assumed that Tarzan and Jane weren't married because of the informal marital arrangement between them in the movies. ERB enthusiasts responded to the banishment, including articles in Life magazine and the Wall Street Journal, pointing out that the couple were formally married in the second novel, The Return of Tarzan. One of the results of all this was that one in thirty of the total annual sales of all paperbacks sold in the U.S. were Tarzan novels. The movie series, established with the first Weissmuller film in 1932, continued into the late 1960s and early 1970s, branching (no pun) into television. The Tarzan films as a whole, beginning in 1918, continue to attempt capturing the true essence of Burroughs's character.

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