First and Only Weekly Webzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive |
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First and Only Weekly Webzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive |
Tarzan's Revenge (1937, 70 min.), starring Glenn Morris and Eleanor Holm, was one of the least-liked Tarzan movies, despite the fame of its athletic stars and its strong musical score by the Austrian-American composer / music director, Hugo Riesenfeld (1879-1939). Morris, in his sole Tarzan appearance, is rarely seen. His real fame goes back to the 1936 Berlin Olympics when he won a decathlon medal and swept Hitler's favorite director, Leni Riefenstahl off her feet. She mentions the bizarre blouse-ripping incident with Morris in her memoirs.
| Director: D. Ross Lederman
Writers: Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters) ~ Robert Lee Johnson ~ Jay Vann CAST
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Producers: Sol Lesser ~
Barney Briskin
Original Music by Hugo Riesenfeld Music Supervisor: Abe Meyer Cinematography by George Meehan Film Editing by Gene Milford ~ Bert Jordan Art Direction by Lewis J. Rachmil Assistant Director: Wilbur McGaugh Sound Engineer: Terry Kellum Wardrobe: Jerry Bos Production Company: Principal Productions Inc. Distributor: Principal and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation Black & White ~ 70m ~ Mono (RCA High Fidelity Recording) Production Dates: October 1937 - November 1937 Filming Studio Location: 20th Century Fox Studios, Los Angeles, California, USA Copyright Holder: Principal Productions, Inc.; 7 January 1938; LP8030 Release Date: January 7, 1938 7 reels ~ 35mm negative and print ~ Spherical ~ Aspec Ratio: 1.37 : 1 |
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Glenn Morris (1912.06.18-1974.01.31) born on his
family's homestead farm near Simla, Colorado was a U.S. track and field
athlete. He won a gold medal in the Olympic decathlon in 1936, setting
new world and Olympic records. He attended Colorado A&M and played
football as well as track and field. He was also an occasional actor, he
portrayed Tarzan in Tarzan's Revenge.
German filmmaker and documentarian Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) claimed in her memoirs that during and after the 1936 Olympics, she had an affair with Morris, which she ended because of a very disparaging report about him that was given to her by a graphologist. Morris' success at the 1936 Olympics resulted in a brief flurry of fame, including a New York City ticker-tape parade and a statewide Colorado celebration. Morris was the fourth Olympic athlete to play Tarzan. He appeared in only one Tarzan film, Tarzan's Revenge (1938), an inexpensive independent film produced by Sol Lesser and released by Twentieth Century Fox. Reviews for the film cited both the silliness of the production and the exaggerated acting of the theatrically untrained Morris (though Variety called him "a highly acceptable Tarzan"). After only one minor additional film role, in the 1938 comedy "Hold That Co-ed," Morris left the movie business forever. Morris played four games with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) in 1940 before injury curtailed this new career, then worked as an insurance agent. During World War II, he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in the Pacific, commanding amphibious-assault landing craft. Reportedly wounded, Morris was treated for psychological-trauma issues and spent several months in a naval hospital. He was married from 1937 to 1940 to Charlotte Edwards, whom he had met in college. At age 61 in 1974, Morris died of congestive heart failure "and other complications" at the veterans hospital in Palo Alto, California, and was buried in Skylawn Memorial Park in nearby San Mateo. In 2003, author Mike Chapman wrote “The Gold and The Glory: The Amazing True Story of Glenn Morris, Olympic Champion and Movie Tarzan”. |
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Eleanor Holm (1913,12,06-2004,01,31):
At
the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Holm won the gold medal in her
favourite event, the 100-metre backstroke. "I was hardly dry at those Olympics
when I was whisked from one studio to another — Warner Brothers, MGM, Paramount
— to take screen tests," she told the New York Times in 1984.
In 1932, she was one of the 14 girls named as WAMPAS Baby Stars, including Ginger Rogers, Mary Carlisle, and Gloria Stuart. One of her first assignments at Warner Bros. was to join a trainload of actors and Busby Berkeley chorus girls on a barnstorming trip across the country in early 1933 to publicize the movie musical 42nd Street and to show support for the newly elected president Franklin D. Roosevelt at his first inauguration in Washington, DC. Holm appeared in only one Hollywood feature film, starring opposite fellow Olympian Glenn Morris in the 1938 film Tarzan's Revenge. Tarzan's Revenge has received negative critical responses, with the film described as "preposterous from beginning to end" and "absurd." Lead actor Morris was described as "an irredeemably awful actor" whose jungle yell is "so ludicrous as to be laughable." On November 10, 1939, she married her lover, impresario Billy Rose, who had divorced first wife Fanny Brice. At the 1939 New York World's Fair she did 39 shows a week at Rose's "Aquacade", co-featured with Tarzan swimmer Johnny Weissmuller and, later, Buster Crabbe. In 1966, Holm was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. She died of renal disease in Miami, Florida, on January 31, 2004 at the age of 90 |
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The Leni Riefenstahl-Tarzan Connection. Riefenstahl was Hitler's official propaganda film maker. She was assigned to record the 1936 Berlin Olympics on film. Once the prologue and opening ceremonies had been completed (nearly 1,900 feet of film stock), Leni spent the remainder of the games personally looking over select major events. Stars of track and field, like the famed Jesse Owens, were well documented in the filming as he took four gold metals and two world records at the games. During this period, she had become romantically involved with Glenn Morris, who was an American decathlon gold medallist. The affair soon ended as he left Berlin directly after the games. She edited the material into the film Olympia. |
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Olympia, Part II: The Festival Of Beauty (1938 - 96 minutes)
Riefenstahl's remarkable look at the XI Summer Olympiad continues as the
cameras take in the events around the stadium and in the Olympic village,
while following competition in swimming, equestrian, soccer, the Pentathlon
and Decathlon and more, including the closing ceremonies.
Leni Riefenstahl http://courses.washington.edu/ger371/riefenstahl/biography.html |
SCREEN CAPTURES
Click for larger images
Ref: Archive.org
Related ERBzine Features:
The
Revenge of "Tarzan’s Revenge"
By Quentin N. Castle
www.erbzine.com/mag41/4147.html
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