Word: tarzans
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...just because she looks nice in front of a camera doesn't mean she can act. She can't. Tarzan, the Ape Man. John Derek's latest Let's-Look-at-My-Wife offering, makes this painfully clear. To call her a bad actress is to make a gross understatement. Unlike "10," which asked only that Bo slink around a beach and look pretty--of which she is eminently capable--Tarzan demands that she exhibit a wide range of emotions, and that's where she fails miserably. When she is supposed to be frightened, she squeals: when she should laugh...
...shame that this movie is so bad, because, as remakes of old serials go, this one certainly has potential--certainly as much as Superman did. But because of director-cinematographer John Derek's egomaniacal insistance that his wife always remain on screen, the story of Tarzan is lost. We never see the legendary plane crash which brought the baby Tarzan to the jungle; we don't see him learning how to survive in the wilds or forging his bonds of friendship with the animals. In the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies, jungle adventure was the main feature. Jane was simply...
...version, Jane is the overriding presence, and Tarzan serves merely as window dressing. The result is that the movie can never approach the level of excitement or adventure reached in earlier versions. And this is inexcusable. Considering the potential laid open by modern cinematic tenchnology. Tarzan should only improve. Not that Jane should be reduced to the traditional helpless female role--obviously there is room for the '80s mentality--but the new movie lacks even a healthy interaction between Tarzan and Jane. Miles O'Keefe's Tarzan never says a word, he just grunts a lot, and, of course, periodically...
...interactions are with Jane, so Harris must cope with the unenviable task of bouncing his lines off Bo, which is like bouncing a casaba melon off cement. Nevertheless, he is successful at times, and provides the film's few entertaining moments. It is hard to say if Tarzan would have been a good movie even with a better actress playing Jane, somebody with style and grace. Julie Christie for instance, or (a few years ago) Katherine Hepburn. That it would be a better film is certain. The role of stoic-woman-against-all-odds-in-the-wilderness requuces more than...
...wallow in me!" trumpets Harris, and he does indeed: he wades hippo-deep through the rank mud of his loopy monologues. The generously muscled O'Keeffe utters not an intelligible word-only Tarzan's patented bull-elephant yodel. As for Bo's acting, she sucks in her stomach to look pretty and chews her cuticles to suggest fear. Alas, all the displays of Bo's body cannot divert attention from the ludicrous ineptness of the enterprise. Nothing breaks a tumid erotic spell faster than giggling...