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by dankelleghan

Richard Thorpe Directs Tarzan’s New York Adventure

Myles Connolly, William R. Lipman and Gordon Kahn wrote the screenplay based on characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). Richard Thorpe (Tarzan Escapes, Tarzan’s Secret Treasure) directed and David Snell rendered the original music score.

Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan), Maureen O’Sullivan (Jane Parker) and Johnny Sheffield (Boy) head the cast. Other players include Virginia Grey (Connie Beach), Charles Bickford (Buck Rand), Paul Kelly (Jimmy Shields), Chill Wills (Manchester Montford), Cy Kendall (Col. Ralph Sargent), Russell Hicks (Judge Abbotson), Howard Hickman (Blake Norton), Charles Lane (Gould Beaton), Miles Mander (Portmaster) and Hobart Cavanaugh (Hotel Desk Clerk).

Tarzan’s New York Adventure Filmed in Florida and California

Budgeted at a healthy 0,000, Tarzan’s New York Adventure began filming on December 17, 1941, a mere 10 days after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. By early February 1942, the picture was completed.

Wakulla Springs, Florida, subbed as the movie’s Dark Africa setting, with some exterior scenes minus the cast being shot in New York City. The entire Hagenback-Wallace Circus was rented by producers and housed on MGM’s back lot in Hollywood.

The movie’s big scene – Tarzan’s dive from the Brooklyn Bridge – was filmed on lot 3 at MGM Studios. Cameraman Jack Smith positioned himself high atop MGM’s tower, aiming straight down as a dummy dropped into a tank of water.

Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan in Final Tarzan Movie Pairing

Tarzan’s New York Adventure marks the final pairing of Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan as Africa’s hottest couple. Their first movie together had come ten years earlier in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). It’s a fitting swan song for the enchanting O’Sullivan, who’s afforded the opportunity to shed her skimpy jungle attire for something a little more 5th Avenue fashionable.

Tarzan’s New York Adventure provides a rousing farewell to the Weissmuller/O’Sullivan team. When circus owner/big game hunter Buck Rand flies out of Africa with Boy on board, Tarzan and Jane follow. Arriving in the Big Apple, the two try to reclaim their son in a court battle with the rich and powerful Rand.

Tarzan fans will revel in Tarzan’s New York Adventure. The jungle scenes are exciting, but the real action – and laughs – come in Gotham, where Africa’s favorite son, along with chimpanzee Cheetah, learn the strange ways of civilization. “Woman sick! Scream for witch doctor!” Tarzan proclaims after hearing an opera singer on the radio. His assessment of the smoke-filled Club Moonbeam isn’t much better, as he queries of Jane: “Smell like a Swahili swamp. Why people stay?”

Like Jane, Tarzan sheds his usual jungle outfit and goes “native” – donning a dapper double-breasted suit. But the vaunted “King of the Jungle” doesn’t remain part of the fashion crowd for long as he later “swings” through the canyons of Manhattan, on his merry way to a spectacular 250-foot plunge from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Look for an uncredited Elmo Lincoln in the role of a circus roustabout. Lincoln was the first movie Tarzan, starring in Tarzan of the Apes (1918).

Tarzan’s New York Adventure Release, Reviews, DVD

Tarzan’s New York Adventure was first screened – free of charge – for American servicemen stationed in Iceland on May 10, 1942.
“With an African yodel and a tailor-made suit, our jungle friend is back in Tarzan’s New York Adventure, currently chilling the veins of reviewers and twelve-year-olds at the Capitol,” reported Theodore Strauss of The New York Times (8/7/42).
The Tarzan Collection DVD (Warner, 2004).

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Video Rating: 4 / 5