Tarzan and the Huntress

Plot synopsis:
Due to a shortage of animals in American zoos following World War II, Tanya Rawlins (Patricia Morison), a big-game "huntress," Carl Marley (John Warburton), her financial backer and Paul Weir (Barton MacLane), a cruel trail boss, are given permission by King Farrod (Charles Trowbridge), to capture a male and female of each species of animal on his land.
In a subplot, Oziri (Ted Hecht), nephew to King Farrod, colludes with Weir to allow him to trap more animals than bargained for. He also has Weir's men kill King Farrod and his son, Prince Suli (Maurice Tauzin), in order for him to take over the throne. Farrod is shot in the back and killed, and Suli is thrown into a pit full of crocodiles, but, unknown to all watching, he lands on a hidden ledge and is knocked unconscious.
Boy (Johnny Sheffield) trades two lion cubs to the trappers for a flashlight. When Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) finds out, he returns the flashlight, retrieves the cubs, and calls all the animals from King Farrod's land across the river to his part of the jungle. When the hunters begin trapping on his side of the river, Tarzan and Boy sneak into their camp at night, take their guns and hide them in a cave behind a waterfall. They then begin to systematically release all the trapped animals from their cages.
Cheeta inadvertently reveals the location of the cache of weapons to Rawlins and her safari.
Prince Suli is able to make his way through the jungle, and is found by Tarzan. Tarzan, Boy and a herd of elephants defeat both the usurping nephew and the huntress, but the latter escapes on board a plane.

Tags: murder

Review:
Edgar Rice Burrough's TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS (RKO Radio, 1947), directed by Kurt Neumann, being Johnny Weissmuller's 11th portrayal as the king of the jungle, and fifth under Sol Lesser's unit distributed by RKO, can be summed up by this time in saying, "If you've seen one Tarzan movie, you've seen them all," however the series continues.The plot revolves around a zoological expedition headed by Tanya Rollins (Patricia Morison) and her guide, John Weire (Barton MacLane) who make arrangements with Prince Ozira (Ted Hecht), nephew of King Farrod (Charles Trowbridge) to capture wild animals for the zoos.
After arranging for the death of the king, leaving Prince Suli (Maurice Tauzen) in charge command of the throne, Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller), having learned of the capture of his animal friends, including Cheta, starts to oppose the expedition and intervene.Brenda Joyce in her third go round as the blonde Jane, and Johnny Sheffield in his eighth time playing Boy, each continue their recurring roles in the usual manner.
This was to be the teen-aged Sheffield's farewell performance as Boy, now being more physically muscular and nearly as tall as Weissmuller's Tarzan, giving full indication that while the writers kept him on as long as possible, he has outgrown his part.
He would return to the jungle in the character of "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" a new film series as produced by Monogram Pictures (1949-1955).
Bomba could very well be Boy returning to Africa after a few years attending school in England, thus, starting life anew and following the tradition of jungle living amongst the animals and facing every day danger like Tarzan.
As with the Tarzan/Weissmuller adventures, the writers of the "Bomba" series failed to introduce the jungle boy's origin as to where he came from, who were his people and how did he end up in the jungle.
Now back to TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS.Others appearing in the cast include John Warburton as Carl Morley; Wallace Scott as Smithers; and Mickey Simpson as Monak.
It's not Tarzan, Jane nor Boy who get to appear in the final fadeout, but Cheta being parachuted from the airplane with the "The End" inter-title superimposed over her puss having the time of her life.TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS returns Barton MacLane to the series, once more playing the villain, having already appeared two years earlier in TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS (1945), by whose presence in these two movies could stir up confusion.
An interesting switch from previous episodes is having a safari leader portrayed by a woman, the role awarded to Patricia Morison, who makes a fine villainous in the most sultry manner.
Unlike the previous efforts made for RKO, "Huntress" gets plenty of use of animal extras along with an climatic elephant stampede.TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS, clocked at 77 minutes, is acceptable fun but a far cry from being the best in the series.
As much as to where this annual series was heading, the Tarzan adventures continued to hold their own as one of the most popular film series ever produced, enjoyed by many, especially youngsters in the Saturday afternoon matinée crowd cheering on the jungle hero as he battles against the bad guys entering his domain once again.
By the time "Tarzan and the Huntress" was produced by Sol Lesser with Kurt Neumann, one of my favorite Hollywood talents, the jungle man series was fifteen years old.
In this unusually-well-directed and attractive entry to the series, the chief of invaders is a far-from-evil but uncaring female, played by gorgeous Patricia Morison.
This is champion swimmer Johnny Weissmuller's eleventh turn as the King of the Jungle; he is still stolid and sometimes impressive, especially when he has Brenda Joyce as a blonde Jane or raven-haired Morison to play off.
And Johnny Sheffield as Tarzan's adopted son, Boy, has become by then an attractive and grown-up young man, on the verge of his own series as the sourceless but likable "Bomba" the Jungle Boy. Others appearing in the cast include John Warburton as Carl Morley, Wallace Scott as Smithers, and Mickey Simpson as Monak.
The fact that Morison never wanted her men to kill Tarzan, or anyone else, excuses her complicity in what they do to gain unearned wealth; there are exciting scenes as Tarzan bedevils, is nearly killed by and then finally overcomes the true villains.
The authors get lots of fun out of an only-passable story line in every scene; Bbt to this film we owe "Tarzan the Magnificent", "Tarzan and the Lost Safari", "Jivaro" and a number of other films that finally saw a female in a jungle as something other than a danger or a distraction.
Wallace Scott and Ted Hecht were also featured; look for a well-done elephant stampede and Ms. Morison; they are for me the highlights of a seminal and enjoyable exotic-locale adventure..
Perhaps to feed a certain misimpression of what the movie was about, a poster of the time shows Patricia Morison's character looking on enviously as Tarzan and Jane enjoy a tender moment.
Johnny Weissmuller's next-to-last Tarzan is a good adventure and the last outing for Johnny Sheffield as Boy.Young Johnny had grown too big for the part and would soon start playing BOMBA the JUNGLE BOY.Johnny Weissmuller still looks toned and strong but is not in the great condition he showed in the previous year's LEOPARD WOMAN.Brenda Joyce as Jane looks gorgeous as ever and sports a sexy two-piece outfit in some scenes.She was a beautiful girl and was quite underrated as Jane.
HUNTRESS doesn't have the intensity and erotica that LEOPARD WOMAN has,but it's still a fun adventure with Johnny keeping busy saving his animal friends from greedy hunters.Patricia Morison as the HUNTRESS ia a lovely antagonist,but nowhere the evil,sexual villainess that Acquanetta was in LEOPARD WOMAN.(Tough act to follow).All in all a nice wrap-up to the Tarzan-Jane-Boy Trio.The next film ,TARZAN and the MERMAIDS was a rather dull and lackluster finale to Johnny's Tarzan career..
TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS suffers from a low budget and a ho-hum plot, although it is far less silly than the previous feature, TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN; entrepreneur Tanya Rawlins (Patricia Morison), and her milquetoast lover (John Warburton), mount an expedition to capture animals to restock war-depleted zoos, a not unworthy goal...except they are primarily interested in making big money, which means depleting an area of a large part of it's wild animal population!
Fortunately, she has a ruthless expedition 'boss' (Barton MacLane, making his second 'villainous' appearance in a Tarzan feature), and Farrod has a greedy nephew (Ted Hecht), so a scheme is hatched, to kill Farrod and his heir (Maurice Tauzin), and pay the new King a healthy kickback, in exchange for 'unlimited' hunting (an oft-used scheme of 'bad guys', which would continue to be popular, as recently as George Clooney's SYRIANA).Of course, this being a Tarzan movie, our aging hero is friends with Farrod, and when the ruler is murdered, and the young prince disappears, Tarzan gets involved, which is BAD NEWS for Rawlins and her crew!
The film utilizes more 'stock' animal footage than any of the other RKO/Weissmuller features, and unfortunately, it doesn't 'match up' well with the other footage, making the studio scenes look even cheesier; adding to this is a general listlessness in most of the performances, which hurts the overall movie.
Even Cheeta seems bored!The most interesting aspect of the film is Johnny Sheffield, who looks startlingly 'adult' in this, his last appearance as 'Boy'.
After this feature, Boy would be off to "school in England" (and Sheffield would move on to his own series, as "Bomba, the Jungle Boy").Weissmuller appears tired and a bit out-of-shape, although Brenda Joyce, as Jane, is as fetching as ever!
The Tarzan series was obviously "winding down"; the next feature, the surreal TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS, would mark the end of Weissmuller's reign as "King of the Jungle"....
Already in agreement with the other comments about the place of this film in the tradition of Tarzan movies, I would like to concentrate on one sub-plot, the animosity between Tarzan (played by Johnny Weissmuller) and Monak (played by ex-prize fighter Mickey Simpson), loyal servant to the scheming, evil Ozira (yes, my namesake; I am a major Tarzan fan).Ozira stands to receive generous bounties for helping a safari catch African animals to re-stock the zoos after the Second World War. Since his uncle, King Farad, won't cooperate, Ozira stages the shooting of Farad (by Monak) to look like an accident and Farad's teenage son Suli is also believed killed, pushed into a pool of crocodiles, again by Monak.As Monak leads the gun bearers and safari hands to help the hunters get their animals, he has a number of brushes with Tarzan.
Tarzan liberates captured animals, knocks out several of Monak's guards and, when other bearers are sent back to the city for help, one safari hand is killed by a lion.
Monak seethes to get revenge and tangle with Tarzan.In one scene, after Tarzan and Boy steal the guns and rifles, Cheetah the Chimp tries to steal the compact of the female hunter (the Huntress of the movie, Tanya, Patricia Morrison's character).
Certainly, he would never miss with a knife again.The guns retrieved, the safari continues to collect animals and Tarzan and Boy find Prince Suli very much alive.
The city of Toronga must know the truth about this and Ozira's treachery unmasked.As Tarzan attempts to lead Suli to safety, Monak, rifle in hand, bandoleer across his powerful, commanding chest, knife stuck in his sarong-like wraparound, spies him and, along with two gun bearers, bandoleers crisscrossing their majestic chests also, Monak goes after them, pausing to take a few unsuccessful shots.
Tarzan takes to the trees and the three separate to get at him and to finish off Suli.Weissmuller sharpens a vine to use as a spear and hurls it into the bare belly of one of the gun bearers who topples to the jungle ground.
Tarzan then flings his knife into the back of a second gun bearer, who falls onto the ground, the bullets framing his brave chest, his life lost for Monak and Ozira.Monak has climbed a tree to direct the battle.
In 1942, America's biggest film studio MGM scrapped its legendary Tarzan series, with the option being snapped up by the smaller RKO.
The villainous gang includes former Warner heavy Barton MacLane and the eponymous huntress - Patricia Morison.
Though the film is a touch confused about the morality of stealing animals from the jungle (presumably that was how the bulk of its supporting players came to Hollywood), Tarz does ultimately get pretty narked about the whole thing, leading to a series of lively showdowns.
He's accompanied once more by Brenda Joyce and Johnny Sheffield, whose Boy is now a man, with a deep, booming voice.
The Tarzan saga continues.This time Tarzan is upset after a group of people want to take animals from the jungle and fill the shortage they have of zoo animals in America.Luckily Tarzan speaks the language of the animals so he can get help from the elephants if he needs.Kurt Neumann's Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) is a very good addition to the Tarzan franchise.Johnny Weissmuller, who to many is the one and only Tarzan really is one of the kind.Brenda Joyce, who is still living at the age of 96, makes her third of five performances as Jane.What a fine Jane she makes!
Johnny Sheffield as the adopted son of Tarzan marks his eight and final appearance as Boy.Patricia Morison, now 93, is awfully lovely with her dark long hair.The great Barton MacLane plays Paul Weir.Also fine performances are given by John Warburton (Carl Marley), Charles Trowbridge (King Farrod) and Maurice Tauzin (Prince Suli).You can't count Cheeta the chimpanzee out.The final picture with Cheeta coming down an airplane with a parachute is unforgettable.This movie entertained me thoroughly.Tarzan and the Huntress gives you the right amount of action, adventure and some romance..
After the hugely enjoyable Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, the Weissmuller Tarzan series slides back into mediocrity with a rather stale tale of unscrupulous trappers—led by 'huntress' Tanya Rawlins (Patricia Morison)—collecting specimens to restock the world's zoos, much to Tarzan's disgust, of course.
A woefully underdeveloped sub-plot about the assassination of a jungle king by his power hungry nephew adds little to the film's overall entertainment value.As usual, Cheetah is on hand to provide the laughs, annoying the other jungle critters and taking Boy's model aeroplane for a short flight, Jane (Brenda Joyce) gives the film some sex appeal (surprisingly, the titular 'huntress' provides little in the way of titillation), Boy (Johnny Sheffield) learns an important lesson about life (trading lion cubs for a torch is wrong!), the family indulges in a spot of synchronised swimming, and Tarzan saves the day (and the captured animals) in the final reel with that old chestnut, the stampeding herd of elephants; but whilst all of this makes for adequate 'rainy Sunday afternoon' family viewing, it offers avid Tarzan fans nothing much to get excited about.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb..
A group of trappers seek to invade Tarzan's jungle and capture all the animals they want for their zoo, but Tarzan and the King object.
In this installment, the rapidly growing Johnny Sheffield plays Boy for the last time.
We continue to see other recognizable Universal actors in each film, and this time it's Patricia Morison (CALLING DR.
Penultimate Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film and the last to feature Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy in eight Tarzan films before getting his own series as Bomba, the Jungle Boy. Patricia Morison heads an expedition to Tarzan's neck of the woods to nab some animals for zoos back in the States.
The bad guys take the animals but Tarzan steals them back and, with help from Boy and his animal friends, runs the villains out of Africa.
Johnny Sheffield, who's almost as big as Weissmuller at this point, does well in his final outing as Boy. There's a thread running throughout the movie about Boy learning responsibility ("Boy man now.
Lovely Patricia Morison is interesting as the title character (who is not really a huntress).
A couple of final notes: in one scene, Tarzan is freeing the various animals that were captured by the hunters and he is shown releasing two bear cubs from their cages.
Tarzan And The Huntress finds Johnny Weissmuller battling yet another trapper coming on to his jungle turf to take some animals back for the zoos of the world.
The film is a curiously anti-feminine one.She directs the operation to capture the animals as she is also a female Clyde Beatty, but the heavy villainy is left to John Warburton and Barton MacLane.
They also get involved in tribal politics in the area where chief Charles Trowbridge is killed and his son thought to be also killed by a nephew looking for big payoff from the trappers.Patricia Morison would shortly get the role of her life, but on the stage.
Who could have suspected what a great soprano she was from the parts she played in films?Tarzan And The Huntress is one of the better Weissmuller Tarzans that RKO did.
The "Huntress" is a very standard, but enjoyable low-budget Tarzan adventure via way of R-K-O producer Sol Lessor It is also a "hoot." Sheffield plays "Boy." Except to call him "Boy" in all his teenage masculine glory can be disconcerting or a howl.
Weismeuller was easily in his 50s when this was made "Huntress" and in scenes with Sheffield, the now muscular and agile (as only a teenager can be) makes Weismueller look like Gramps.After this, Sheffield began the "Bomba" series, where about the only attraction was John's handsome looks, good natured aura, maturing bod and barely covering his private parts loin cloth.
Goodbye To Boy. Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) ** (out of 4) Eleventh film in the original Tarzan series once again features Johnny Weissmuller in the role of the Ape Man. This time out a group of people (led by Patricia Morison) come to Africa where they want to take the wildlife back and fill up various zoos across the world.
Soon the group are trying to take as many animals as possible so it's up to Tarzan and Boy (Johnny Sheffield) to stop them.
This film certainly isn't as silly as the previous effort but there's no question that the series was running out of steam due to its budget that looks to have been cut yet again and the fact that the story itself just isn't that interesting.
Weissmuller, it's fair to say, looks completely bored in the role as Tarzan and you can't help but think he wishes he was somewhere else.
I mentioned in my TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN review that I was shocked to see how much Sheffield had grown between it and the previous film and that continues here.
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 installment finds a party of greedy trappers trying to exploit the jungle to the fullest.
The 100% natural yell isn't quite as impressive as the MGM version, but knowing it was 100% Weismuller adds to the enjoyment and novelty.This film has a good plot involving a basically good-natured lady played by the smoking-hot Patricia Morison (clearly upstaging wholesome-sexy Brenda Joyce) who is hunting for zoo animals.
Tarzan is ahead of his time in this film, as he opposes taking animals from their native habitat, just as he opposes killing them for anything other than self-defense or sustenance.
The concluding sequence, where Tarzan initiates an elephant stampede, causing mass carnage and death among the hunters, is well-done and highly satisfying, despite the usage of some stock footage.This film is a fine use of your time if you are a fan of vintage B-features, or a fan of the Weismuller Tarzan.