Saturday, April 8, 2017

Episode 5: Tarzan the Tiger (1929)



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Michael and Noel wrap up the 1920s with guest David May and another 15-chapter serial. This time it's director Henry McRae's Tarzan the Tiger, starring Frank Merrill as Tarzan, Natalie Kingston as Jane, and Kithnou as Queen La of Opar. There's treasure, amnesia, and (thanks to this being a transitional film into the sound era) our first listen at a Tarzan yell.




5 comments:

  1. Looking at pictures of Merrill, I see what you mean about his build. It's not beefy ala Elmo Lincoln, it's lean muscle mass. A more... modern physique.

    I see that all 4 1/2 hours are up on YouTube, but you'll forgive me if I opted for the 10 minute montage instead. We've gotta be getting close to the "Talky" era, right?

    Good work, and nice to see David return.

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  2. Hi Guys!

    I always enjoy your Greystoked podcast and wanted to drop a note after hearing the comment about dubbed voices and your question about why Sam Jones' voice was dubbed in Flash Gordon.

    Ruth and I actually had the opportunity to see Sam Jones and Melody Anderson at DragonCon and that question came up. Sam Jones and the producers had a serious dispute near the end of filming Flash Gordon and he refused to return for the dialogue rerecording that is done at the end of a film to replace any dialogue that wasn't captured clearly on set. In response, the producers chose to rerecord all of his dialogue instead of having a sound alike actor just fill in the needed sections. So, it had nothing to do with the quality of his performance. It was all a dispute between him and the producers. Apparently they all made up later and still hoped to film the planned sequel, but it just never worked out.

    Thanks as always for a great show.

    Darrin

    PS: I don't know if you are interested, but we covered Tarzan and the Gods of Opar by Mike Grell on our Warlord Worlds podcast. He is a huge fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It’s a good story. If you are interested, it is in episode 9 of Warlord Worlds.

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  3. Tony, you're right about the talkies. After the next episode (which is a recap of the books and movies up to 1929), we'll cover Johnny Weissmuller, the first talking Tarzan.

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  4. Darrin, thanks for the Sam Jones story. I'd heard about the dispute, but not about the reconciliation. That's good to hear.

    I'll check out AT LEAST that Warlord Worlds episode, too. I'm a big fan of Mike Grell.

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  5. Thanks for the info on Kithnou.She was pretty sexy for 1929-not too far off from Acquanetta's Lea.It's too bad Merrill had to wear that old fashioned animal skin-He had a Great Physique.

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