Tarzan's Magic Fountain | |
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Directed by | Lee Sholem |
Written by | Curt Siodmak Harry Chandlee |
Based on | Characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs |
Produced by | Sol Lesser |
Starring | Lex Barker Brenda Joyce Albert Dekker Evelyn Ankers |
Cinematography | Karl Struss |
Edited by | Merril G. White |
Music by | Alexander Laszlo |
Production company | Sol Lesser Productions |
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 73 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Tarzan's Magic Fountain is a 1949 Tarzan film directed by Lee Sholem and starring Lex Barker as Tarzan and Brenda Joyce as his companion Jane. The thirteenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man , the film also features Albert Dekker and Evelyn Ankers. It was co-written by Curt Siodmak.
This was Barker's first appearance as Edgar Rice Burroughs' ape-man, while Joyce had played Jane opposite Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan in four previous films. She was one of only two actresses to portray Jane in movies with two different actors as Tarzan. (The other was Karla Schramm in the silent era.) Tarzan's Magic Fountain was Joyce's final turn in the role, and different actresses played Jane in each of Barker's four subsequent Tarzan movies: (Vanessa Brown, Virginia Huston, Dorothy Hart, and Joyce MacKenzie). Elmo Lincoln, who had been the first screen Tarzan three decades earlier, appears uncredited as a fisherman repairing his nets. The film was followed by Tarzan and the Slave Girl in 1950.
Aviator Gloria James Jessup went missing twenty years ago. Tarzan and Jane hear news of a man back in the United States who is about to be sentenced to life imprisonment; the only way he can be cleared is for Jessup's testimony. Tarzan secretly leaves for the hidden valley where Jessup has secretly been living for almost two decades and brings her back to testify.
Jessup looks decades younger than her actual age and this prompts a pair of men to ponder the rumor of a magic Fountain of Youth and try to find it after she returns from testifying and heads back there.
The New York Times welcomed Lex Barker's new Tarzan as "A younger, more streamlined apeman with a personable grin and a torso guaranteed to make any lion cringe, he seems to be just what the witch-doctor ordered for this tattered series. The picture, though, is a matter of stale peanuts at the same old jungle stand. Instead of resorting to new ideas and treatment and a timely overhauling job, the studio has dragged out a mouldy script, the same sheepish-looking extras, and the wheezing chimpanzee, Cheetah, who isn't getting any younger, either." [2]
Cheeta is a chimpanzee character that appeared in numerous Hollywood Tarzan films of the 1930s–1960s, as well as the 1966–1968 television series, as the ape sidekick of the title character, Tarzan. Cheeta has usually been characterized as male, but sometimes as female, and has been portrayed by chimpanzees of both sexes.
Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr., known as Lex Barker, was an American actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953, and portraying leading characters from Karl May's novels, notably as Old Shatterhand in a film series by the West German studio Constantin Film. At the height of his fame, he was one of the most popular actors in German-speaking cinema, and received Bambi Award and Bravo Otto nominations for the honor.
Tarzan, the Ape Man is a 1981 American adventure film directed by John Derek and starring Bo Derek, Miles O'Keeffe, Richard Harris, and John Phillip Law. The screenplay by Tom Rowe and Gary Goddard is loosely based on the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but from the point of view of Jane Parker.
Tarzan the Ape Man is a 1932 pre-Code American action adventure film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer featuring Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and starring Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith and Maureen O'Sullivan. It was Weissmuller's first of 12 Tarzan films. O'Sullivan played Jane in six features between 1932 and 1942. The film is loosely based on Burroughs' 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, with the dialogue written by Ivor Novello. The film was directed by W.S. Van Dyke. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released two remakes of Tarzan, the Ape Man in 1959 and in 1981, but each was a different adaptation of Rice Burroughs' novel. It is also the first appearance of Tarzan's famous yell.
Brenda Joyce was an American film actress. She was best known for playing Jane Porter in RKO's Tarzan films from 1945 to 1949.
Tarzan's New York Adventure is a 1942 American adventure film from Metro Goldwyn Mayer, produced by Frederick Stephani, directed by Richard Thorpe, that stars Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan. This was the sixth and final film in MGM's Tarzan series and was the studio's last Tarzan feature until 1957's Tarzan and the Lost Safari. Although Tarzan's New York Adventure includes scenes set in New York, as well as the customary jungle sequences, it is yet another Tarzan production primarily shot on MGM's back lots.
Elmo Lincoln was an American stage and film actor whose career in motion pictures spanned the silent and sound eras. He performed in over 100 screen productions between 1913 and 1952 and was the first actor to portray on film novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs' fictional "jungle" character Tarzan, initially appearing in that role in the 1918 release Tarzan of the Apes.
Evelyn Felisa Ankers was a British-American actress who often played variations on the role of the cultured young leading lady in many American horror films during the 1940s, most notably The Wolf Man (1941) opposite Lon Chaney Jr., a frequent screen partner.
Jane Porter is a fictional character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Tarzan novels and in adaptations of the saga to other media, particularly film. Jane, an American from Baltimore, Maryland, is the daughter of professor Archimedes Q. Porter. She becomes the love interest, later the wife of Tarzan and subsequently the mother of their son, Korak. She develops over the course of the series from a conventional damsel in distress, who must be rescued from various perils, to an educated, competent and capable adventuress in her own right, fully capable of defending herself and surviving on her own in the jungles of Africa.
Tarzan of the Apes is a 1918 American action/adventure silent film directed by Scott Sidney starring Elmo Lincoln, Enid Markey, George B. French and Gordon Griffith.
Tarzan and the Mermaids is a 1948 American adventure film based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Directed by Robert Florey, it was the last of twelve Tarzan films to star Johnny Weissmuller in the title role, with the following sixteen films in the series featuring alternating actors between main and supporting, while maintaining a single continuity. It was also the first Tarzan film since 1939 not to feature the character Boy, adopted son of Tarzan and Jane.
Tarzan, a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in twenty-four sequels by Burroughs and numerous more by other authors. The character proved immensely popular and quickly made the jump to other media, first and most notably to comics and film.
The Romance of Tarzan is a 1918 American silent action adventure film directed by Wilfred Lucas starring Elmo Lincoln, Enid Markey, Thomas Jefferson, and Cleo Madison. The movie was the second Tarzan movie ever made, and is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' original 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes. It adapts only the second part of the novel, the earlier portion having been the basis for the preceding film Tarzan of the Apes (1918). Less popular than its predecessor due to much of the action taking place in the wild west rather than Africa, the film has not been preserved, and no prints of it are known to survive today.
Tarzan and the Slave Girl is a 1950 American adventure film directed by Lee Sholem and starring Lex Barker as Tarzan, Vanessa Brown as Jane, and Robert Alda as big game hunter Neil. The fourteenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, the plot involves a lost civilization in Africa, a strange illness, and an evil counselor manipulating a prince into kidnapping large numbers of local women.
Tarzan's Peril is a 1951 film directed by Byron Haskin and starring Lex Barker as Tarzan and Virginia Huston as Jane, and featuring Dorothy Dandridge as "Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba." The fifteenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, some of it was shot in Kenya, making it the first Tarzan film to be filmed in Africa, though the majority of its location shooting was done in the United States. Critics praised the convincing integration of the African and American footage. The film is frequently shown under the alternative titles Jungle Queen and Tarzan and the Jungle Queen, and was followed by Tarzan's Savage Fury in 1952.
Tarzan's Savage Fury is a 1952 film directed by Cy Endfield and starring Lex Barker as Tarzan, Dorothy Hart as Jane, and Patric Knowles, serving as the sixteenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man. While most Tarzan films of this series in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s presented Tarzan as a very different character from the one in Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels, this movie does make some allusions to the novels. It was shot in Chatsworth, California's Iverson Movie Ranch. The film was the last to be directed by Cyril "Cy" Endfield in the US. Finding himself one of Hollywood's film-makers blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee he moved to Britain. The film was co-written by Cyril Hume, who'd contributed substantially to the "Tarzan" series back in its bigger budget MGM days. At 81 minutes, this is the longest Tarzan film since Tarzan's Secret Treasure in 1941. The film was followed by Tarzan and the She-Devil in 1953.
Tarzan and the She-Devil is a 1953 American film directed by Kurt Neumann and starring Lex Barker as Tarzan and Joyce MacKenzie as Jane. The seventeenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, it also features Raymond Burr, Tom Conway and Monique van Vooren, who plays the "She-Devil."
The Adventures of Tarzan (1921) is a 15 chapter movie serial which features the third and final appearance of Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan. The serial was produced by Louis Weiss, written by Robert F. Hill and Lillian Valentine, and directed by Robert F. Hill and Scott Sidney. The first chapter was released on December 1, 1921.
Tarzan and the Amazons a 1945 American adventure film starring Johnny Weissmuller in his ninth outing as Tarzan. Brenda Joyce plays Jane, in the first of her five appearances in the role, and Johnny Sheffield makes his sixth appearance as Boy. Henry Stephenson and Maria Ouspenskaya co-star.
Tarzan is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer.