TARZAN'S PERIL (1951) ¢ ¢
D: Byron Haskin
Lex Barker, Virginia Huston, Dorothy Dandridge,
George Macready, Douglas Fowley, Glenn Anders,
Alan Napier, Frederick O'Neal, Edward Ashley
A jungle adventure off the Tarzan assembly line, in which Tarzan kills a giant snake with a knife, battles a man-eating plant and goes after some evil white men who are selling guns to the natives. Lex Barker had replaced Johnny Weissmuller two years before, and he was a better actor than Weissmuller - who wasn't? - but Weissmuller had more charisma, at least in the early Tarzan films, and a sort of goofy, amateur charm. Barker's most revealing moment in this movie comes when he and Cheetah come up to a pool to get a drink and Tarzan pauses to admire his reflection in the water. We get it, Lex. You're pretty. Now go fight a lion or something. Virginia Huston as Jane and Dorothy Dandridge as a jungle queen both look like they just spent the day at the jungle beauty salon, and neither of them get enough screen time to do much else. The scenes with Tarzan and Jane at home show them in their treehouse with a table and chairs and pots and pans and silverware and a stove. Tarzan eating with a fork? That's just way too civilized.
