New Adventures of Tarzan, The (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: May 12, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Edward Kull, Wilbur F. McGaughRelease Date(s)
1935 (January 28, 2025)Studio(s)
Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises, Inc. (Film Masters)- Film/Program Grade: C+
- Video Grade: D+
- Audio Grade: D-
- Extras Grade: F
Review
Film Masters is a terrific label, doing great work restoring and releasing unloved niche titles, but they probably should have shelved this “Restored in HD” Archive Collection release of The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935), a 12-chapter serial made independently but parallel with MGM’s big-budget “official” feature film series starring Johnny Weissmuller. Available on home video via PD labels for decades, this production never looked any better than dogmeat on VHS and DVD; sadly, while Film Masters’ Blu-ray is noticeably an improvement, it’s still a long way from being watchable. As a big Tarzan fan who eagerly gobbled up Warner Archive’s chronological releases of the official feature film series and the subsequent television series (1932-1968), my hopes for the long-beleaguered serial were quickly dashed. Trying to get through this 240-minute epic, even with a week between chapters, is a grueling, unrewarding experience.
What makes this especially sad is that The New Adventures of Tarzan is ambitious if low-budget and ultimately laborious. Much of it was shot on location Guatemala, and is far closer in spirit to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s original Tarzan novels than MGM’s concurrent series, Tarzan here the English Lord Greystoke of the novels, cultured and articulate. Star Herman Brix was as athletic as Weissmuller, Brix having played football for the University of Washington where he was also a track-and-field star, later winning a Silver medal for the shot put at the 1928 Olympic Games. Changing his stage name to Bruce Bennett, post-Tarzan he rebuilt his acting career from the ground up, starting in bit parts in numerous Three Stooges shorts before graduating to feature films, where he became a solid character actor, perhaps best known for his role in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, as the stranger who wants to cut in the gold mining operation. Bennett’s other credits include supporting roles in big films like Mildred Pierce, Angels in the Outfield, and Strategic Air Command, and leading roles in lesser films such as The Cosmic Man, Fiend on Dope Island (which he co-wrote), and The Alligator People. Later still, he very active on television, on series like Perry Mason, and continued working until 1980. Brix/Bennett died in 2007 at the age of 100.
Even in this early serial appearance, his performance isn’t bad, he having appeared in at least a dozen films before this, often uncredited. Tarzan leaves Africa for Guatemala to rescue his friend, the French Lt. d’Arnot, who crashed his plane in a jungle and presumed held by a lost civilization tribe. Accompanying Tarzan are d’Arnot’s fiancée, Ula Vale (Ula Holt); archaeologist Maj. Francis Martling (Frank Baker), who is searching for the tribe and its priceless “Green Goddess”; his bumbling assistant George (Lewis Sargent); the Major’s daughter, Alice (Dale Walsh) and her fiancé, Gordon Hamilton (Harry Ernest); and Nkima (Jiggs), Tarzan’s chimpanzee friend. (Cheetah was an MGM creation; Nkima is the primate of Burroughs’s books.)
They hope to reach Guatemala before rival P.B. Raglan (Ashton Dearholt), a mercenary sent to steal the Green Goddess, but he beats the other party there, where they run afoul of Queen Maya (Jackie Gentry), the (rather ludicrous) white leader of the Indian tribe, dressed like a flabby chorine in a cheap Monogram musical.
The New Adventures of Tarzan was a problem-plagued production that had a spotty theatrical release. Some blame pressure from MGM, which supposedly threatened to blacklist any theater or chain that exhibited it, but more likely the states-rights system killed its financial chances, as well as the confusing myriad formats in which it was offered, including several different feature-length versions. The first of its 12 chapters runs more than an hour, unusual for a serial at the time, which sometimes added an extra reel (about 10 minutes) to Chapter One for narrative clarity, but certainly not three.
Presumably the film is in the public domain, its copyright not renewed, and the original 35mm nitrate film and sound elements are lost, though since the Blu-ray has no explanatory booklet or extras of any kind, your guess is as good as mine. What seems sourced for this Region-Free release is a decent but not-great 16mm print with wobbling and other imperfections. What’s so frustrating watching The New Adventures of Tarzan is trying to discern which problems are inherent in the original production, which are inherent in the 35mm-to-16mm transfer, and which are due to Film Masters’ video transfer and/or attempts to fix various problems. This is particularly true of the DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 mono). The original sound recording, on a budget in far-flung locales, appears to have been barely adequate but, as presented here, the dialogue sounds like it’s being reproduced underwater. It’s so awful one is grateful the Blu-ray is closed-captioned (in English only); without it, viewers would have trouble even following the storyline. For the record, the four-hour serial is contained on a single disc.
Many Film Masters releases have been most welcome, and one makes allowances for their having to source 35mm theatrical prints without the money or access major labels enjoy. In this case, though, they probably should have waited until better film and sound elements could be located, if ever. As is, this release of The New Adventures of Tarzan is tough sledding, even for die-hard Tarzan fans.
- Stuart Galbraith IV