1962 - TARZAN GOES TO INDIA, very entertaining adventure film

Jock Mahoney is Tarzan No. 12 if someone is keeping count.  Tarzan Goes to India was now being produced by Sy Weintraub who had the novel idea of actually filming a Tarzan film in jungle locations.  The director was Englishman John Guillermin who was apparently a real tough guy on a film set.  Guillermin had a long career in England and America.  His strength was filming adventure and action films.  Guillerman had previously shot Tarzan's Greatest Adventure on location in Africa.  For Tarzan Goes to India, Guillerman filmed in India, a big change from the usual studio back lot phoniness.

In this adventure (no. 24 in the Tarzan series if for some reason you are keeping count), Tarzan flies into India jumps out of the plane into a lake swims to a palace where he meets the daughter of of an old Indian friend who is trying to save a herd of elephants.  It seems the elephants are in a portion of a hydroelectric dam flood zone which some evil Westerners are building.  When the water is turned on it will flood out the valley and kill all the elephants.  You know these Westerners are evil since one of them is played by perennial bad guy Leo Gordon at his bad guy snarling best.

 

This film is essentially non stop action with Tarzan fighting off Leo Gordon, poison snakes, rouge elephants and man eating tigers, all while running around barefoot.  The film is an excellent "boy's own" adventure film with no silly romantic plot to distract the story.  Overall a very fast moving film with nice on location photography and lots of elephants stepping on stuff

The film was written by Robin Hardy Andrews and John Guillermin, the running time a brisk 88 minutes.

1968 - HOUSE OF CARDS reasonably entertaining thriller

George Peppard is a "down on his luck" Hemingway type of writer living in Paris.  He befriends a young boy and ends up as a tutor for the boy whose mother just happens to be gorgeous Inger Stevens who just happens to be a member of a fascist family that just happens to be a part of a large right wing conspiracy to take over Europe and ultimately the United States.

 The director is John Guillermin who was a decent enough filmmaker.  I guess he was kind of a go to studio guy for projects like King Kong (Jessica Lange version). The Towering Inferno, and one of the better Tarzan films, Tarzan's Greatest Adventure. Guillermin had done a couple of other films with Peppard so it was probably old home week for the two of them.

Back to the film, this is a reasonably entertaining thriller which probably could have used a little more focus in it's writing,  the story kind of meanders around.  However Guillermin does a good job keeping the action moving along which helps to cover up some really big holes in the story.  The on location filming in Paris and Rome also helps. Inger Stevens dressed by Edith Head, is easy on the eyes. Peppard does a reasonably good job as the "Hitchcockian" man on the run hero.  This is the usual inoffensive time killer of a film.

 

Oh yes, Orson Welles is third billed in the cast but he's barely in the film.  This was probably another one of his "paycheck films."

The film was written by the team of Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. under assumed names, which is never a good sign.  The running time is 105 minutes.

1974 - THE TOWERING INFERNO, the high point of the 70's disaster film cycle

Irwin Allen's formula, stick big stars in a high concept studio film project probably reached the high point in The Towering Inferno.  The film had Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway and lots of spot the star supporting talent.  Allen also had lots of stuff to set on fire as befits a film with the word Inferno in it.

The film looks a little dated today with it's rear projection and model and miniature work but the fire scenes with stuntmen being set on fire and running around the burning sets are still very effective.  The script by Stirling Silliphant as a big bag of cliches and the characterization is pretty weak (heroic architect in the Ayn Rand mode, superhuman fire chief etc), but he does move the story along for the most part.

The film was directed by John Guillermin who apparently wasn't very happy about Irwin Allen taking the credit for the action sequences.  However this is an Irwin Allen film all the way.  He had been making this film almost all his life, sticking a cast of actors who audiences could recognize in improbable story situations.

The Towering Inferno is Irwin Allen's high point.  After this film it's all downhill with films like The Swarm, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and When Time Ran Out.

165 minutes.

1976 - KING KONG, first remake.

Long and kind of lame remake of the original film.  The writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. the guy who created the Batman TV series with Adam West wrote a semi spoofy version of the original film.  John Guillermin a director the studio could push around was hired.  The producer was the eccentric Italian Dino De Laurentis who had worked with Fellini on La Strada and Nights of the Cabiria along with Orca, The White Buffalo, Lipstick and Death Wish.

The cast had competent actors like Jeff Bridges, Rene Auberjonois, John Randolph, Ed Lauter and Charles Grodin.  But the film also had the De Laurentis discovery, model turned actress Jessica Lange who De Laurentis hired because she had "big boobs."  Lange is pretty hopeless in this film, she plays her character like she is channeling another "big boob" actress Marilyn Monroe. 

This is a very 70's film, the bad guy is the evil oil company and there is an overall campy tone that pervades the entire film.  The special effects are the old Toho studios trick of sticking a guy in a monster suit (in this case a monkey suit) and having him stomp around miniature jungle and New City sets.  De Laurentis played fast and lose with the production facts claiming that a 40 foot robotic gorilla would play Kong.  In fact an actual full scale replica was built but barely worked and never looked like the guy in the monkey suit.

What entertainment there is in this film pretty much comes from Charles Grodin as the snarky oil executive trying to exploit Kong.  The film has some good photography from the cinematographer Richard Kline.

134 minutes.

1959 - TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE, is actually very good.

Let's give the producers of this film their due, this is actually a good Tarzan film with a great cast.
The Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films are pretty bad.  They were always filmed on phony jungle sets with Tarzan fighting the same phony alligator in the river and the films always had way to many scenes with Cheetah the monkey. Weissmuller sounded and looked like a half wit when he spoke,  you would hardly know the guy was a five time Olympic gold medal winner.

Somehow the producers of the 1950's Tarzan films got their act together for Tarzan's Greatest Adventure.  They hired a pretty good action director in John Guillermin, they actually filmed most of the movie on location in Africa for a change and most importantly they hired an excellent cast for the film.

Anthony Quayle, Sean Connery and Neil MacGinnis are the bad guys heading up river on a boat in search of a diamond mine.  Gordon Scott as Tarzan is in pursuit, he's stuck with the usual woman in tow played by a British actress named Sara Shane, who actually has a personality. Their relationship almost seems realistic considering the situation.  

Probably the big change in this Tarzan film was giving the Tarzan character a vocabulary.  He doesn't sound like a dumb jock although I'm not so sure about his American accent.  You know you're in for a different kind of Tarzan film, when Tarzan tells Cheetah to stay behind and take care of the tree house. 

The on location filming and the action scenes really make this picture.  There is an exciting scene on the river where Tarzan attacks the bad guys and the final fight on a cliff with an animal snare is very exciting.

Tarzan's Greatest Adventure is a fast moving 90 minutes and this is a movie where you get to see Sean Connery in black face.

88 minutes, written by Bernie Giler and John Guillermin.