Word: tarzans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...came of competition age. One longs for the inspired insanity of such a notion during this slack and dreary comedy from Walt Disney studios. The idea here is that the coach of a smalltown college (John Amos) and his cretinous assistant (Tim Conway) stumble on a kind of peroxide Tarzan (Jan-Michael Vincent) and import him from Africa to bring athletic glory to the campus. The jokes are either raucously insipid or coyly racist (Africans and their quaint primitive ideas). Vincent seems very much in his element swinging from a vine. Conway sounds like Porky Pig after speech therapy...
...last few years, total recall has become almost a way of life. Rip examines magazines devoted to trivia, recalling the names of Tarzan's co-stars and the Lone Ranger's genealogy. He sees ads for Buster Keaton festivals and even for Ozymandian musicals like Grease, celebrating the vanished glories of '50s rock 'n' roll. The stranger pushes on; nostalgia-at preposterous prices-peers at him from shop windows. Fashion bends backward with shaped suits and long skirts, wide-brimmed hats, ubiquitous denims and saddle shoes. He has, alas, missed miniskirts and hot pants...
...According to Johnny Weissmuller, the Tarzan calls are his own. His yells were recorded and used in some of his later movies in order to save his voice...
...those who still care for polished English prose these 20 years of chronologically arranged essays can be read or reread as one would replay old records. There are such golden oldies as 'The Holy Family" (the Kennedys), "Nasser's Egypt," "E. Nesbit's Magic," "Tarzan" and "Writing Plays for Television," which offers a self-assessment yet to be equaled by Vidal's critics: "I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise...
Comparisons with Jesus Christ are tiresome, but consider--Frank Champi. A poor boy from Everett, Frank was maligned by many. "Sure," they'd say, "Frank's good with a javelin, but so was Tarzan; and you wouldn't want Tarzan calling signals for Harvard." But Frank stuck to it, buoyed by a simple faith that there was a power higher than Nathan Pusey and the Crimson sports page combined. And so on that fateful day, Frank suited up as usual in Dillon Field House, dutifully applying Dr. Wood's Miracle Splinter Resister to the rear of his uniform. And Frank...