First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Web Pages in Archive
presents
Volume 3110
INTRODUCTION Several years ago, I was having breakfast with a group of men at a hotel in South Louisiana. Seemingly out of the blue, one of the men said that he had lived in Morgan City, LA for a while and that this little town on the coast of Louisiana was where the first Tarzan movie was made in 1918. This grabbed my attention because as a child I had loved the Tarzan movies on television and at the movies. But, I became hooked into the story when he said that for the production, live apes and monkeys were brought in to add realism to the silent motion picture. When the production finished, the monkeys would not get back into the cages so they were left behind. The question of whether there were monkeys or apes still living in the jungle swamps around the Atchafalaya River basin ate at me for a long time.
Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle
The Trailer
OVERVIEWOne night while killing time on the internet, I wondered if there was any information available to answer the monkey question. Naturally, when you do a web search for anything about Tarzan, you immediately go to a website hosted by Bill Hillman. Through www.erbzine.com I found a wealth of information about the 1918 silent motion picture "Tarzan of the Apes." I was pleasantly surprised by the treasure chest of history that surrounded that film.
Several things came together to encourage me to decide to spend my time and money to produce a documentary film about that old film. First, for a number of years I had written or illustrated or designed covers for a lot of books for various publishers (see www.albohl.com.) One of the books is a high school or college age textbook that teaches how to learn every form of cartooning imaginable and how to find work in the area of cartooning anyone might be interested in. That book is called Guide to Cartooning. One of the numerous concepts for a book or animated TV series I came up with was entitled "Tales from the Bayou." It is a series of morality-based stories for children similar in feel to Chandler’s "Uncle Remus" or Disney's "Song of the South." One of my principle characters was a monkey named Mon-kay who was thought to have been a descendant of the monkeys left behind by the Tarzan movie.
Guide To Cartooning
is a high school and college textbook
that is a complete cartooning course in one book.
Mon-kay is one of the main characters
for the book and animated TV show concept
created by Al Bohl.The next thing that happened was that through an aggressive tax incentive program that the state of Louisiana put together, the movie industry converged on the state. Well over 100 movies have been shot all over the state and more are on the way. Not only was the 1918 Tarzan movie the first feature film shot in my state but as far as I have been able to access from my research, it was the first feature film shot on location in the U.S.A. The industry had come full circle.
Finally, my daughter Allison entered the school of visual arts at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. She blossomed into a tremendous filmmaker by the time she graduated. In 2007, Allison, Connie Castille and Charles Richard who make up the Cinematic Arts Workshop at ULL were named Louisiana's Filmmakers of the Year for their film "I Always Do My Collars First." It tells the story of the domestic lives of four Cajun women. Their second documentary about Cajun living entitled "Raised on Rice and Gravy" won best short documentary of the year at the 2009 New Orleans Film Festival. Since graduating from college Allison has been involved with a whirlwind of film and photographic projects. When I told her of my idea to produce this Tarzan offering, she signed on with all her heart. Words can't express the joy I feel being able to work along-side her on this project.
Why These Updates
From the moment we decided to make this documentary about Tarzan a reality, I have found people everywhere who are interested in this project. I sent just one or two emails to people like Bill Hillman and suddenly I had a lot of Tarzan fans writing to encourage me. Dick Spargur allowed me the privilege of showing a little of our rough footage we had amassed for the documentary at the 2009 Dum-Dum Convention in Dayton, Ohio this past summer.
A big part of the fun of sharing the vision was the stories about the people we'd met and the places we had been. I have always loved watching the behind-the-scenes special features of DVD movies and so I decided it would be fun to tell the story-within-the-story and introduce to you the wonder and colorful experiences we have encountered in this adventure of producing Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle.
I greatly appreciate the generosity of Bill and Sue-On Hillman for making it possible to bring these stories to you.
AUTHOR and ILLUSTRATOR bio | portfolio | current projects |
ALLISON BOHL'S Award Winning Film |
| . | . |
ERBzine Spotlight on Al Bohl |
Dayton Convention Presentation |
|
Allison Bohl's latest documentary 
King Crawfish |
the soon-to-be released: 
Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle |
|
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Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle HERE www.tarzanlordlajungle.com/Order.html |
TARZAN: LORD OF THE LOUISIANA
JUNGLE FESTIVAL 2012
1. INTRODUCTION
AND CONTENTS
Click for full-size preview collages
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Thus
far all the funding for the Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle
project has come from my own pocket. Also, my daughter Allison has donated
her time and talent to help make this project possible. I am waiting to
hear from several grants I have applied for and further down the road I
will be looking for corporate sponsorship.
