For more than a year Jane and Tarzan lived happily with Chita in their treetop home. Jane learned to know and to love the animals and to speak their language. She fashioned dresses of soft skin to match Tarzan's leopard skin clothing. She taught Tarzan to speak a few words of her language. Together they swam in the shaded streams, raced along the trails and swayed in the branches of the trees.

Then, one day when they were returning home from a hunting trip, they heard the strange sound of gunfire and the growl of battling gorillas. Quickly Tarzan swung through the trees until he looked down upon a long safari of natives led by two white men, fighting an army of maddened gorillas.

Tarzan's cry rang above the noise of the battle. The guns were silenced and the gorillas stood motionless. Tarzan dropped rapidly to the ground. Sternly he ordered the animals back into the jungle and walked forward to meet the white men.
 

"Tarzan," cried one, rushing toward him, "Don't you remember me. I'm Holt. Harry Holt."

"Holt," Tarzan repeated, smiling, "Holt."

"And this is Martin, my friend," Holt explained.

"Martin-my friend," Tarzan repeated slowly. "Holt. Tarzan. Martin-my friend," he continued, pointing to each one in turn.

The three men looked upward as the leaves parted and Jane appeared on a low branch above their heads. Tarzan held his arms and the girl slipped down into them.

"Jane," Holt cried.

"Harry," she exclaimed in glad surprise. "Is it really you?"

Holt introduced "Martin-my friend" and the three chatted gaily as they walked to the camp of the safari with Tarzan stepping silently at Jane's side.

"Aren't you homesick, Jane?" Holt asked when they were sitting before the fire.

"Not a bit," the girl answered proudly, "I love Tarzan and I'm happy. I never want to go back to the other world. I guess that I belong to Tarzan and his jungle."

Then Holt told her that he had come back with Martin and the huge safari to find again the Burial Ground of the Elephants and to carry away the ivory.

"Tarzan is our only hope of finding the way," he said. "You will persuade him to take us there, won't you Jane?"

Jane promised. As they talked, Tarzan arose and quietly slipped away into the jungle.

"He has gone to build a house for us in the trees," Jane smiled. "We always have our little sky mansions wherever we go."

"And we have a brought a surprise for you Jane," Holt said. He pointed to a trunk standing beside his tent. Slowly Jane opened it and gasped at what she saw. There were lovely dresses, perfumes, powders, all the things which she had not seen for so long a time.

Holt persuaded her to go into the tent and put on one of the dresses. When she came back, wearing a trailing evening gown, Holt turned on a portable phonograph and Jane danced with Martin to its melodies.

"Doesn't this make you want to go back to England?" Martin asked.

"No," Jane answered, "I couldn't be happy away from Tarzan."

When Tarzan appeared noiselessly from the darkness, he stared with surprised fright at the phonograph. Suddenly he sprang upon it and slashed it with his knife. Jane, smiling, stopped him and explained to him that it was not a strange animal. Then he noticed her changed clothes and smelled the sweet odor of the perfume. With a smile he swung her up through the branches to the little house he had built high above the camp of the safari.

The next morning they started on their long, weary journey to the secret tomb of the elephants. Above the safari, in the treetops, travelled Tarzan and Jane to show the men the way. When Jane's lovely, trailing dress caught in the branches, she suddenly threw it away and put on her skin clothing. Tarzan smiled happily.

When they made camp that night the natives cut stout poles and tested them for strength under Martin's direction. Tarzan sat by the fire and watched with eyes which did not understand until Jane explained that the poles would carry the tusks of the dead elephants away from the Burial Ground.

"No," Tarzan said, "No!" He broke one of the poles in his steel-strong fingers and walked away from the camp.

"The elephants are Tarzan's friends," Jane explained to Holt and Martin, "I hadn't thought of that before. I know he will not like it if you disturb their resting place."

"But he must go with us, Jane," Holt pleaded. "We can't find the place without him. Please ask him to do it."

Tarzan refused to go on to the Burial Ground. Holt understood and was willing to turn back. But Martin insisted on pushing forward without Tarzan. As they talked, Saidi, their native gun-bearer, ran into camp to tell them that the elephants were grazing near by. Martin seized is gun and ordered the natives to follow him. He remembered Holt's story of the dying elephant which had led them to the Burial Ground.
Creeping through the bushes, followed by Holt, Martin came upon a peaceful scene, two grown elephants and a baby feeding beside a water hole. Before Holt could stop him, Martin fired, wounding one of the beasts. The injured elephant staggered into the jungle.

"Hurry, Saidi," Martin ordered. "Get the boys. We'll follow the trail. You brought me out here, Holt, with the promise of wealth in ivory. Are you  going with me or will you stay with Tarzan?"

"I'll go with you," Holt answered shortly.

As the two men started on the trail, Tarzan dropped from the trees in their path. Martin raised his gun. But Tarzan quickly grabbed it from his hand and broke it into two pieces. Then he seized Martin and held him above his head, poised to hurl him to the ground.

"Stop, Tarzan, please," Jane cried, running to his side.

Seeing her tears, Tarzan dropped the man to the ground. Martin scrambled to his feet and led the safari along the trail of the wounded elephant. Holt lingered for a minute, then followed Martin. The safari disappeared.
For many days Holt, Martin and the natives followed the wounded elephant until they stood, at last, in the hidden tomb. Their eyes glittered greedily at the sight of the piles of precious ivory. Martin ordered the weary natives to load the tusks on poles so they could be carried away.

As they finished tying the last tusk to the heavily-laden poles, the trumpeting of the elephants shattered the torch-lighted silence of the tomb. Tarzan's cry rang above the angry roars of the animals. A horde of the huge beasts surged through the entrance. Tarzan leaped from back to back, urging them onward.

Frantically the safari dashed for the narrow passage-way at the opposite end of the tomb. Again Tarzan's cry echoed against the rocky walls. Through the other entrance a second army of elephants thundered into the little valley. The trapped, terror-stricken men stood still. Martin pointed his gun toward Tarzan but Holt struck it from his hand.

Then above the clamor came the sound of Jane's voice, calling to Tarzan. He commanded the elephants to be quiet. Through the path which they opened for her, Jane rode into the tomb on the back of an elephant. She held little Chita in her arms. Tarzan followed her as she jumped from the elephant to the ground and ran to Holt and Martin.

"Don't you understand?" she asked them. "The elephants are Tarzan's friends. He loves them and they love him. He will not let you disturb their burial ground."

"Will Tarzan lead us safely out of here if we do not touch the ivory?" Martin asked, craftily pretending friendliness.

"Of course," Jane answered. Then she turned to Tarzan, "They understand now, Tarzan. They will go back. They don't want the ivory."

Tarzan smiled. He then sounded his call. This time it had a note of command in its gentleness. The elephants turned slowly and left the Burial Ground.

Martin suggested that they remain there for the night, so the safari made its camp in the quiet of the little valley. Tarzan, Jane and Chita slept in the soft moss on a ledge overlooking the silent tomb.

With the first rosy gray of the dawn, Tarzan slipped from his mossy bed, aroused the sleeping Saidi and told him in gestures that he would hunt meat for breakfast. As Tarzan disappeared through the entrance, Martin walked out of his tent. Saidi told him that Tarzan had gone to the jungle in search of fresh meat.

"I'd like to watch him hunt," Martin said, "But I won't disturb him. See, Saidi, I'm not even taking a gun." But as soon as he was out of Saidi's sight, Martin tightened his belt around the revolver which he had hidden beneath his shirt.

At the edge of the crocodile-filled stream, the two men came face to face. Suddenly a crocodile slipped from the river, its angry head turned toward Martin.

"Martin-my friend," Tarzan shouted in warning. At the sound of his voice, the crocodile slid back into the water. Tarzan plunged into the river. With a quick slash of his knife he wounded the animal and came hastily back to shore.

As he stepped from the water and smiled, Martin raised his revolver and fired straight at Tarzan's body. With a look of surprised bewilderment, Tarzan dropped his knife and fell backward into the river. Again and again Martin fired at the spot where Tarzan had sunk beneath the water. Then he flung his revolver into the middle of the stream.

Martin returned breathlessly to camp to tell of Tarzan's tragic death in a fight with a crocodile. "If only I had had a gun with me," Martin murmured sadly.

The sorrowing natives searched the underbrush along the stream and came back to camp, bringing with them only Tarzan's knife, mute evidence of the owner's death.

Sadly and silently, bearing its load of ivory, the safari started back toward civilization. Since Tarzan was gone, Jane did not care about the ivory. She walked slowly, leaning against Holt. Martin mercilessly whipped the overloaded natives forward.

But little Chita did not go with the safari. Jane, in her grief, did not notice the little small monkey's absence from her side. Along the riverbank ran the frantic Chita, calling to Tarzan. Suddenly her bright eyes saw a hand lying among the grasses. She parted the leaves. There lay Tarzan, unconscious and bleeding from a wound in his shoulder. Swiftly Chita ran through the trees, screaming for the apes. She led them to Tarzan. In their strong arms they lifted him and carried him to his treetop home.

Then little Chita returned to the safari and tried to tell Jane what had happened. But the heartsick girl was too numb with grief to notice the monkey's chatter.
As the weary, footsore safari struggled along the rough trail, it was suddenly stopped by a rain of arrows from the trees. The Lion Men, a savage, cruel tribe of jungle warriors, leered down upon them. The safari dropped the ivory and huddled together in fear. From the trees the savages roared their summons to the lions in the jungle. Slowly the underbrush around the terrified safari was filled with the tawny beasts.

Once more Chita crept away from Jane. Unseen, she fled into the jungle. Straight to Tarzan's house she hurried. He listened to her excited chatter, called together his army of apes and raced through the trees behind Chita.

With the coming of darkness the Lion Men and the lions charged the safari and the fighting was furious and desperate.
Then, ringing above the clamor of the battle, came the cry of Tarzan as he reached the fray with his army of apes. The apes fell upon the Lion Men in the trees in a desperate hand-to-hand fight.
Again Tarzan's call echoed through the night -- a weird call with a strange compelling note. It was answered by the trumpeting of his elephant friends.

Jane forgot all danger and rushed happily toward Tarzan whom she had thought was dead.

A Lion Man hurled a spear at her running figure. But Hold saw it and flung himself directly in its path.

As Holt fell lifeless to the ground, the spear in his heart, Tarzan leaped from the tree and seized Jane in his arms.

The Lion Men fled before the mad onrush of the apes. The lions, hearing the battle cry of the elephants as they rushed in a great herd to help Tarzan, gave up the fight and slunk away into the jungle.

Martin, in desperate fear of Tarzan, raised his gun and pointed it toward the tall figure in the leopard skin. As Martin pulled the trigger, an elephant seized him in his trunk and hurled him with bone-crushing force against a tree. Martin dropped to the ground and lay motionless. The bullet sped on until it buried itself harmlessly in a branch.

At Tarzan's words of quiet command, the elephants picked up the ivory and lumbered off into the forest, carrying it back to its resting place.

Then, hand in hand and smiling into each other's eyes, Tarzan and Jane with brave little Chita, swung through the branches to their treetop home where they would find safety and happiness.

---

Tarzan and His Mate ~ 1934 (01h:43m:57s)
Review of the MGM DVD Version from the Digitally Obsessed Site  by Nate Myers

Sequels are rarely superior to their predecessor, especially when the original is as much fun as W.S. Van Dyke's Tarzan the Ape Man. However, when watching Tarzan and His Mate, Van Dyke's movie doesn't seem to be as much fun as it used to. It now appears to have been the setup, and this Tarzan adventure is the punchline.

The on-screen duo of Weissmuller and O'Sullivan continues in this bigger and more risqué installment. So risqué, in fact, that the original director (Cedric Gibbons, MGM's legendary art department head) was replaced after three weeks with veteran Jack Conway (who goes uncredited here). The steam still sizzles decades after the movie's premiere, with Jane wearing a two-piece jungle bikini for the most part. For the most part, that is, because she and hubby Tarzan take a joy swim in the nude. Oh, yes, all is there for the audience to see (well, except for Tarzan). Breasts, butt, and even...um, Jane's frontal area get the big screen treatment. How MGM was able to sneak this out (eventually the Hays Office removed the scene completely) is flabbergasting to say the least.

Oh, wait, that's right! There's a movie here, not just an "immodest" swim scene. Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton), the longtime friend of Jane's father that was introduced in the previous movie, is returning to the jungle with his scavenger friend, the cruel and greedy Martin Arlington (Paul Cavanagh). They're on the hunt for the elephant graveyard and its piles of ivory. But there's one catch: they need Tarzan to lead the way—and he isn't too keen on the idea of grave robbing. Sound like a good ride that promises adventure and double-crosses? It is, and so much more.

Tarzan and His Mate plays like Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it is far more daring than anything in Spielberg's blockbuster masterpiece is. Aside from the nude scene and the sexually suggestive dialogue, Jane is a strong woman. She doesn't have Tarzan's strength to kill crocodiles with nothing but a knife, but she is one of the most feisty and intelligent heroines ever thrown into a jungle. Her vine swinging has come quite along way since the last movie and she vigorously holds off an army of lions. That's right, an army of lions. There's also an army of elephants and some amazing matte paintings. The technical accomplishments and special effects are impressive even to this day, though modern viewers will easily spot the techniques employed to create the exhilarating action sequences. It may not seem so to today's audiences, but the camera work present here is quite daring and kinetic for its time. However, the story and its telling are too fun for anybody to really care.

Adding to the movie's daring qualities is the fact that Jane and Tarzan, properly speaking, have never been properly married, yet still live together (though they refer to each other as husband and wife—perhaps Cheeta is a Justice of the Peace). Another great aspect of this installment in the Tarzan series is its thematic content. The script hits on Burroughs' themes of civilization destroying the individual's strength, suggesting the need for mankind to embrace and make peace with its animal qualities. Obviously, such themes are not deeply explored and do not provide serious food for thought, but it's enough to make this adventure movie just a little more substantive. In essence, Tarzan and His Mate is a classic.