Johnny Weissmuller made a name for himself as Tarzan at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio. However, and I am not sure why, Weissmuller and 'Boy' (Johnny Sheffield) jumped from this prestige studio to the less than stellar RKO--where the budgets shrank considerably as did the quality. The scripts got a lot more weird and the films became chock full of poorly integrated stock footage and animals that often weren't even African. Additionally, 'Jane' (Maureen O'Sullivan) remained at MGM and a new leading lady needed to be found. After having the character be 'off on vacation in England' or 'helping with the war effort' in a couple films, RKO decided to re-cast this character with Brenda Joyce--who bore little similarity to O'Sullivan.
This film about a silly cult of the Leopard. Its followers don't want civilization to encroach on their part of the jungle and so they kill people in caravans who cross nearby. But to hide that people are responsible, they make it look like leopards did this. Now here is the funny part--these guys dress up like these big cats--complete with metal claws and silly leopard costumes. It's even sillier when they dance about back at their lair--as if it was choreographed by a monkey!
Early on Tarzan tells everyone that it is NOT leopards that have been doing the killing. Despite this King of the Jungle ALWAYS being right in the past, he is quickly ignored and the idiots in charge just go out and shoot a lot of poor old leopards. Eventually, this leads to more attacks--including one where four hot school teachers are kidnapped. When they kidnap Tarzan, who's to save him?! Tune in and see the surprising answer (hint: it is neither Jane nor Boy).
This is fun to watch (Cheeta is in rare form) but ultimately a pretty dumb outing for the series. While not nearly as lame as "Tarzan and the Mermaid" (by far the worst of the Weissmuller films for RKO), its plot is so silly that it can never be taken very seriously. Worth seeing for fans of the series, but if you are a novice to them DON'T start with this one--you'll assume the others are all equally silly--which they aren't.
By the way, in the summary I say that this film signals that the series had 'jumped the shark'. In other words, it arrives AFTER the series has gone into serious decline and the writers are trying desperately to find some way to convince viewers to watch (such as the Leopard angle). Likewise, by this film RKO completely gave up on having extras that looked African in any way. There are no black extras and the leopard cult look as if they are from Central America. In fact, in the final film of this series just a couple years later, the movie was filmed in Mexico--with lots of Mexicans and even Aztec sets!!
This film about a silly cult of the Leopard. Its followers don't want civilization to encroach on their part of the jungle and so they kill people in caravans who cross nearby. But to hide that people are responsible, they make it look like leopards did this. Now here is the funny part--these guys dress up like these big cats--complete with metal claws and silly leopard costumes. It's even sillier when they dance about back at their lair--as if it was choreographed by a monkey!
Early on Tarzan tells everyone that it is NOT leopards that have been doing the killing. Despite this King of the Jungle ALWAYS being right in the past, he is quickly ignored and the idiots in charge just go out and shoot a lot of poor old leopards. Eventually, this leads to more attacks--including one where four hot school teachers are kidnapped. When they kidnap Tarzan, who's to save him?! Tune in and see the surprising answer (hint: it is neither Jane nor Boy).
This is fun to watch (Cheeta is in rare form) but ultimately a pretty dumb outing for the series. While not nearly as lame as "Tarzan and the Mermaid" (by far the worst of the Weissmuller films for RKO), its plot is so silly that it can never be taken very seriously. Worth seeing for fans of the series, but if you are a novice to them DON'T start with this one--you'll assume the others are all equally silly--which they aren't.
By the way, in the summary I say that this film signals that the series had 'jumped the shark'. In other words, it arrives AFTER the series has gone into serious decline and the writers are trying desperately to find some way to convince viewers to watch (such as the Leopard angle). Likewise, by this film RKO completely gave up on having extras that looked African in any way. There are no black extras and the leopard cult look as if they are from Central America. In fact, in the final film of this series just a couple years later, the movie was filmed in Mexico--with lots of Mexicans and even Aztec sets!!