Following ERB's death in 1950, the Tarzan industry
continued apace. After 16 years, the now rotund Weissmuller had passed
the loincloth on to others as the Tarzan movie franchise embraced colour,
African location shooting and even internationalism as the ape-man visited
foreign climes. Burroughs's books had not continued to be part of that
industry: maladroit administration of his literary estate had seen them
largely fall out of print. However, that all changed in 1961 when a Californian
parent complained (incorrectly) to a school library that Tarzan and Jane
were living in sin. The tsunami of publicity created when ape-man tomes
were briefly removed from shelves saw a Burroughs boom. Worldwide book
sales between 1962 and 1968 exceeded sales in all the previous years combined
-- and this despite him having been one of the biggest-selling English
language authors of the first half of the 20th century.
In 1966, the ape-man made the move to television in one
of the first action series shot in colour. Ron Ely's Tarzan patrolled a
generic jungle with adopted son Jai. The all-American Ely was hardly what
Burroughs had had in mind and jungle beasts were so little seen that at
time Tarzan could just have been a cop without trousers, but it was highly
popular.
The end of the Ely series marked the beginning of the
end of the ape-man's dominance of popular culture. Relatively clean-cut
characters like Tarzan had begun to seem out of place in the insurrectionary
'60s, something which the occasional racism toward natives in Burroughs's
work didn't help. Additionally, Africa was less mysterious and therefore
less interesting than it had been. There were still Tarzan comic books,
graphic novels and the never-ending comic strip, a Tarzan pseudo biography
by science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer, a book series positing an
adopted son of Tarzan named Bunduki by JT Edson and in 1976 a Saturday
morning animated series from Filmation that was surprisingly faithful in
parts to the Burroughs template. However, the only Tarzan cinema releases
in the '70s were a pair of spliced Ely two-part TV shows and a brace of
Spanish-Italian productions of questionable legality.
In 1981, the value of the property was dealt a further
blow by Tarzan The Ape Man. A Tarzan film seen through the eyes
of Jane (Bo Derek) was not necessarily a bad idea, but the script was appalling
and the direction laughable. Wasted (and silent) in this farce was Miles
O'Keeffe, by common consensus the best-looking cinema Tarzan of all. Matters
were redeemed a little by Hugh Hudosn's epic Greystoke (1984) which,
though flawed, was the most conscientious attempt yet to film the story
as Burroughs wrote it.
MONKEY BUSINESS
There was sporadic activity -- another movie, two TV
shows (Tarzan: The Epic Adventures took the character into the realm
of sword and sorcery), digital games and more comic books -- before in
1999 Disney brought the ape-man back to the big-time with the large-budget
animated feature film Tarzan. Its quality and success meant that
even Burroughs fans could forgive the liberties it took (Tarzan is raised
by gorillas). A spin-off animated TV series and a 2006 broadway show --
also from Disney -- consolidated that success.
Despite such occasional spikes in his popularity, it must
be admitted that the ape-man can never again attain the cultural supremacy
he occupied in more innocent and less technological times, when swinging
on a pretend vine while emitting Weissmuller's holler was a universal worldwide
rite of passage. As oldest surviving Tarzan actor Denny Miller says of
today's fantasy heroes, "They're astornauts and spaceship guys. The youth
of today are no longer [into] cowboys or Tarzans." There have also been
massive changes in attitudes of Africa, race, hereditary peers and conservation
that may well pose greater threats to the ape-man's existence than lions,
sinister safaris or homicidal high priests. However, the word "Tarzan"
remains a byword for 'strong-man' seven decades after Webster's dictionaries
first included it; tracts Burroughs sold off from his Californian ranch
Tarzana grew into a town of that name that continues to thrive; in this
centenary year, Andy Briggs continues his series of YA Tarzan novels; a
Jane-oriented retelling of the Tarzan legend by historical author Robin
Maxwell is on the schedules (Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan);
and there's talk of new films to be directed by Craig Brewer.
Can you hear that unearthly cry emanating from the depths
of the African jungle? Battered, scarred and less visible he may be, but
for a long time yet, Tarzan will be placing his right foot upon the necks
of his conquered adversaries and unleashing the victory cry of the bull
ape.
Sean Egan is the author of
Ape-Man: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to
100 Years of Tarzan,
published by Telos.
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