Better Late Then Never

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I don't know about the serial, but the movie version is terrible. It's just Tarzan running around in a thong, getting his naked butt cheeks kicked. The movie made him look like a complete idiot. Did the filmmakers hate Tarzan or something? I've seen a lot of Tarzan movies, and this is the only one I really didn't like. It smells worse than Cheetah's armpits.

Buster Crabbe was the Tarzan I most vividly remember from my childhood television viewing days and after getting a chance to re-view "Tarzan the Fearless" after almost 50 years, I can't understand why he wasn't MGM's first choice. He was given a screen test along with many others including Joel McCrea and Clark Gable but Johnny Weissmuller was Metro's final choice. Crabbe was very handsome and had a far better physique than Weissmuller which he did manage to maintain - apparently in 1970 Crabbe returned to swimming in a Senior Sports Swimming meet and managed to set a world record in the 400 metre freestyle event. Even though he didn't catch Metro's eye, Paramount was interested and he pleased them with "King of the Jungle" and later that year starred in a serial "Tarzan the Fearless" which was also re-edited into an 85 minute feature which opened at the Roxy in 1933. As Time magazine said "From the neck down Crabbe easily equals Weissmuller as an attraction to female audiences, from the neck up he is a vast improvement"!!!This is supposedly (according to the preface) Tarzan's "strangest and most romantic adventure" and being a pre-coder there is lots of double meaning dialogue and many chances for Mary to be scantily clad in the jungle. Tarzan is asked by Dr. Brooks (E. Alyn Warren) to take a letter to his daughter Mary (fetching Jacqueline Welles) who is searching for him in the jungle. It wouldn't be a Tarzan movie without crooked safari guides - in this case they want to ditch the pesky girl and get down to the real business which is claiming a 10,000 pounds reward if they can prove Tarzan is dead - oh, and they also plan to look for a lost Emerald mine!!! Tarzan has already made himself known to viewers with an establishing scene that shows off his glorious physique, swinging through the trees (he made it look very real and dangerous) and also shows he is a defender of the weak as he fights a lion to the death to save a defenceless deer. Camping by a river Mary indulges in a near nude swim that brings Tarzan to her rescue when the river turns out to be crocodile infested. He is able to deliver the letter and also guides them to her father's hut but the father has gone to the temple - but wait!! he leaves a map.Being edited from a 12 episode serial there is plenty of action and villains!! Suddenly Bedouins appear (Mischa Auer turns up as a High Priest and beautiful Carlotta Monti as the High Priestess) to kidnap Mary for a Sultan's harem but Tarzan is on hand to save her from a horse stampede and whisk Mary to the treetops at last!! By the end the bad villain is dead, the half hearted villain, who was forcing Mary into marriage with him in return for Tarzan's life has repented and has sent her after Tarzan for the fadeout. At least with this Tarzan, apart from a scene where he is taught to read, there are no scenes to make him feelinferior because of his jungle upbringing - no scoffing at his tablemanners etc. And this Mary (or Jane) looked at him with longing - dare I say lust, she did not try to show she was superior by laughing at him!!! In different books I've read the story goes that once Jacqueline Welles changed her name to Julie Bishop in the early 1940s her career really took off, but looking at her filmography at IMDb she had a pretty big career in the thirties - she was a 1934 Wampas Baby Star and was the female lead in the horror cult classic "The Black Cat" (1934).

In an attempt to cash-in on MGM's successful "Tarzan the Ape Man" (1932) starring Johnny Weissmuller, producer Sol Lesser went ahead with a serial follow-up. Perhaps not expecting its revival would become so valuable a property, MGM had not fully secured the rights. Cashing in on cashing in, the first four chapters of the "Tarzan" serial were edited into a feature-length "Tarzan the Fearless". The full 12-part serial is presently lost. This is not a good film, but it's worth seeing muscularly handsome Buster Crabbe in the lead role; he has a different, more spirited, take on the jungle man. Watchers should be advised that Mr. Crabbe's loincloth seems to be missing half of its backside, but his front is securely covered.*** Tarzan the Fearless (8/11/33) Robert F. Hill ~ Buster Crabbe, Julie Bishop, E. Alyn Warren, Edward Woods

This is a feature version of a 12-chapter serial, although some don't seem to know that the serial exists. As was a semi-common practice of the time, some serials were produced as both a feature and also as a serial. The reason was that some theatres would not book serials but had no qualms about booking a feature edited from a serial, and this practice allowed the serial producer to get a booking in a theatre for his condensed feature that they would not have gotten as a 12-episode serial.This "feature version" consists of the first four chapters of the 12-chapter SERIAL that was titled "Tarzan the Fearless," , which a great many collectors have in its 12-chapter form (that some don't seem to know exists) and, some of the luckier ones, even have all of the different original one-sheets posters issued with each chapter title, and the full eight-card set of different lobby cards issued with each chapter following the showing of the feature version at theatres that did book serials; and most of those theatres that did book serials didn't bother showing this feature version, opting instead to show one chapter a week for 12 weeks.The chapter titles for the 12 episodes of this serial (from which the "Tarzan the Fearless" feature version was chopped out of) were: 1. The Dive of Death; 2. The Storm God Strikes; 3. Thundering Death; 4. The Pit of Peril; 5. Blood Money; 6. Voodoo Vengeance; 7. Caught by Cannibals; 8. The Creeping Terror; 9. Eyes of Evil; 10. The Death Plunge; 11. Harvest of Hate and 12. Jungle Justice.Producer Sol Lesser's plan was to make both a feature version and a serial...and he did both.