Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959).....We never really kept up much with Tarzan movies through the 50's and 60's.....never much of a fan and the quality of the movies ranged from okay to cheesy to terrible...
This particular movie stands out among the rest in the character's filmography,, since it's widely acknowledged as one of the most well-made, well cast and a genuinely fine addition to the Tarzan canon........or as some reviewers have put it, 'a Tarzan movie for grown-ups'......
We found it a remarkably quick, to-the-point and brutal little movie, practically minimalist in its storytelling.
Our Lord Of The Jungle here is Gordon Scott, yet another handsome body builder with enough camera-presence and verbal competence to speak in brief, but complete sentences......(so there's no fractured, "Me Tarzan, you Jane" monosyllables on display...)
The big guy goes almost immediately on the hunt for a vile quartet of villains who've been murdering people left and and right in their violent quest for a hidden long lost diamond mine.
And what a top-notch rogue's gallery the film lined up.......Anthony Quayle as the ruthless soldier of fortune in charge, a young Sean Connery as his dumb punk minion-goon, Niall MacGinnis as an oily Peter-Lorre type who knows where the diamonds are and Al Mulock as the captain-driver of their getaway boat.........(all cinema buffs remember Mulock as the guy who threw himself out a window after his final appearance as one of the three gunslingers in the "Once Upon A Time In The West" opening)
Also along for the ride - delectable Euro-babe Scilla Gabel as....uh...the gang's resident moll, we suppose......(though Connery's the only one among them with enough hot blood to take any interest in her....)
Tarzan himself ends up aided and abetted by a vivacious adventuress-pilot (Sara Shane), but that's one tough bunch they're up against and everybody, even the Big T, ends up a little worse for wear before it's all over.
Grisly deaths aplenty ensue, regularly spaced out through the 88 minute running time and the movie delivers the expected brutal smackdown between Quayle and Scott. (Scott comes off as such a well spoken, gentleman-ly Tarzan that it looks positively jarring when he starts vine-swinging and doing that signature triumphant yodel....)
If you plan to take in only a few of the old classic Tarzan movies, don't forget to include this one on the list......3 and 1/2 stars (***1/2).
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