gridoon2018 This early Tarzan film, produced without the backing of a major studio, is primitive and crudely made, and the story (written by Edgar Rice Burroughs himself!) is formulaic, but it has plenty of action, some impressive animal performances, and, in Buster Crabbe, a Tarzan who is both sturdy and nimble. Lots of beefcake here. It would be welcome news if the entire serial (this movie is only the first 4 chapters) was discovered some day. **1/2 out of 4.

mark.waltz Buster Crabbe takes on the role of Tarzan a year after MGM produced its blockbuster smash hit epic with Johnny Weismmueller. While that certainly is made on a higher budget and very good, this serial which was edited down to a 90-minute feature is equally entertaining and often even better because of the low budget it was made on. Crabbe isn't as eloquent in his performance as Weismuueller would become over the decade and a half that he played the role, but there's something more realistic and manly about the way he played Edgar Rice Burroughs famous character. Jacqueline Welles, AKA Julie Bishop, isn't playing Jane here, obviously not allowed to use the character's name because of the rights owned by MGM, but with the basic story being in the public domain, this version was allowed to adopt it. She's an American girl searching for her father who happens to know Tarzan, and she's accompanied by a man who has instructions to find the supposedly missing Tarzan in order to give him an inheritance. But greed takes over, not only with the attorney's representative, but other members of the explorer's party who discover that there is valuable treasure to be found in the African jungles. Tarzan realistically fights lions, saving one of the villain's life, temporarily saving his own, and battled a high priest played by an unrecognizable Mischa Auer whose staff is in a combination of fashions representing what Hollywood believed native Africans to wear, also looking like ancient Egyptians or Arabs. A cute little chimpanzee is Tarzan's best friend, and there are lots of other adventures involving animals. Tarzan battles lion to save a cute gazelle and shots of large snakes, elephants and other jungle creatures are part of the stock footage utilized to give this an authentic look. It's all very entertaining yet impressively done inside of obviously being made cheaply. Music heard the previous year in the Bela Lugosi horror film "White Zombie" is mixed in with the modern music that seems absolutely out of place in the African jungle where Tarzan resides. I would much prefer the edited feature version over the serial, because the future retains the book of the action yet cut a good hour of story edits out.

bkoganbing Tarzan The Fearless has swimming icon Buster Crabbe in the role of Edgar Rice Burroughs noble savage of the African jungle. What I'm reviewing is a condensed version of a Tarzan serial which this film was. Condensed when referring to serials is never good. I'm not a big fan of serials in general, but editing them down to feature film you lose a whole lot of continuity. I have to confess I gave up trying to follow the plot.Crabbe though was one magnificent specimen. We have a blond 'Jane' played by Julie Bishop who with her fiancé Edward Woods is on an expedition to find her scientist father E. Alyn Warren. Bishop and Woods have a pair of treacherous guides in Philo McCullough and Matthew Betz who've got an agenda of their own which is to locate a fortune in emeralds from the lost people of Zar whom Warren is trying to locate and study.Crabbe even in the condensed version is wrestling with lions and crocodiles and the people of Zar bailing these intruders out of trouble. All in all viewed today it's pretty silly.

longrush The Tarzan of the movies was a sissy, compared with the blood thirsty apeman of the early Burroughs novels. The real Tarzan ate raw meat and the blood ran off his chin. Moviegoers might not have been up to this kind of realism. That aside, this is a worthwhile, albeit early, Tarzan film. Buster Crabbe was a better athlete than other actors who played the role; like Weismuller, Crabbe had an Olympic gold medal and was more muscular. He also had a skimpier costume in the pre-Hayes Office days.The plot skips all over the place, probably because it was edited down from an episodic serial. The chimp is there, playing cute, as he did in almost all Tarzan films. The trapeze or vine swinging work is considerably better here. If Buster Crabbe didn't actually do it, he appeared to be quite high and hanging on precariously. Unfortunately the Tarzan yell, a trademark of these films, is a mild bleat compared with those that came later. I miss that in this version.All in all, I'd give this a fair to good grade.