"Tarzan's New York Adventure" (1942) Is Surprisingly Good...Worth Seeing!
This is yet another excellent sequel movie to the original "Tarzan" (1932) movie starring Johnny Weismuller as "Tarzan," and also starring Maureen O'Sullivan as "Jane," who has become Tarzan's wife in this very well written, acted, and directed movie.
"Tarzan And His Mate" (1934) is an earlier "Tarzan" series (with Johnny Weismuller playing Tarzan....others played Tarzan in other series), and is rightly considered one of the best movies ever made, and is honored by placement on the Library Of Congress National Film Registry List. "Tarzan And His Mate" (1934) is unusual for many reasons, but one of the most important is that it is a high quality movie which is seldom the case for most "sequel" movies.
"Tarzan's New York Adventure" (1942 MGM) starring Johnny Weismuller is a fast paced intelligent movie which is presented in only 71 minutes total, obviously intended as part of a "double feature" which was an important and frequent form of movie house programming of "B" movies in the 1930s and 1940s.
The script is well written and very tight.
The adopted son of Tarzan and Jane, named Boy and roughly 12 years old, is taken without the permission of his adopted parents (Tarzan and Jane) to New York City by a Long Island, New York (located near New York City) circus owner who wants to use the talents the boy has with wild animals in his circus.
Wonderful group elephant tricks are shown both in the Africa sequences which open and close the movie, and also in the center part New York City/ Long Island, New York circus location. Other riveting animal performances (one by a chimpanzee and another by a lion) are also memorable.
Tarzan and Jane follow their adopted son, Boy, to New York City, locate him, and fight to have him returned to them and to Africa.
Both the action sequences at the Long Island, New York circus location (which includes wonderful action by circus elephants Tarzan calls upon successfully to help him stop the bad guys from kidnapping his adopted son) and the courtroom sequences (Tarzan and Jane must go to court to prove they are suitable parents) are well done, well acted, believable and entertaining.
This movie includes a famous sequence in which Tarzan climbs the upper structure of the famous Brooklyn Bridge in NYC, then dives 200 feet head first into the East River. This sequence was actually filmed at the real Brooklyn Bridge, and is also included in the excellent Ken Burns "Brooklyn Bridge" documentary about the history of the building and cultural importance of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Circus grounds scenes were actually filmed in Florida at a circus wintertime headquarters location there.
The movie is entertaining, fast paced, well written, well acted, well directed, and has wonderful animal and exotic Africa locations, all worth seeing.
It is an unexpected gem.
I enjoyed the "Crocodile Dundee" (1986) movie starring Paul Hogan and read that "Tarzan's New York Adventure" (1942) is similar in story and location (both Tarzan and Crocodile Dundee visit New York City, and neither fits in or is a typical New Yorker, which has comic and sometimes interesting action results).
I decided to obtain this not very famous or honored movie, and I'm very glad I got it and screened it.
A great action/ comedy movie lasting not much longer than one hour, and worth seeing again and again.
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Written by Tex (David) Allen, SAG-AFTRA USA east coast movie actor.
See the IMDb website for bio and movie credit details about me.
Email to Tex Allen at TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com
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