Ron Ely’s TARZAN
Episode 41. THE PRIDE OF A LIONESS
Review By Charles Mento
“Tarzan?”
“Yes, he’s the sort of fellow that makes everything his business. A very irregular type.”BTW before we start the episode is THE PRIDE OF A LIONESS, not THE PRIDE OF THE LIONESS as reported all over the internet. It may be that the original title was with the THE instead of the A but on screen it is THE PRIDE OF A LIONESS. Which sounds better. This episode’s direction is tight and well done.
One of the first things to hear about this episode is that, while the main theme at the start is the Nelson Riddle theme, the “incidental” music, all of which for this series in any episode is anything but incidental, is NOT by Nelson but credited to William Loose and it sounds like it. It’s just as good but very different. Loose did the music to TARZAN AND THE GREAT RIVER and TARZAN AND THE JUNGLE BOY as well as the puppet “real-mation” series episodes DAVEY AND GOLIATH and a host of other credits. His TARZAN music is brilliant and lively. Add that to this is the first time we see Tarzan himself in the tree house (and it is attacked, briefly as he and Jai sleep in it!) and that Ron has his hair slicked back in some scenes (really just one, when he is looking out at Jai from the jail cell and navigating his own escape using rope and Rocky), resembling Jock Mahoney AND that some of the stock footage looks a bit less like Ely and more like Mike Henry (I can’t prove that though), and there’s an ambiance of the old here. Not that that’s a criticism as this episode REALLY works well. We even get the baby elephant that’s not named here but more than looks like Tanto. He big elephant Jai brings to Tarzan’s jail cell is named Rocky.
BTW, in that scene, Jai approaches Tarzan’s jail cell from outside a stone building…and is wearing a pair of leather skin boots that are unlike anything I’ve seen him wear in the series. In subsequent shots just after the first shot, we see him wearing his more traditional sandals. Jai seems to be getting bigger, too, growth spurting. Cheetah appears here only briefly to laugh at Jai later on. At the very end when Tarzan tells Jai he has something better planned for him than the taxi service that he now out of business from: school. Tarzan and Cheetah seem to think this is funny, the cads.
Okay, the guest stars are all brilliant here. Helen Hayes as Mrs. Wilson (not sure we learn her first name) is wonderful as a mother who does not want her son, Richard Wilson (acted by her REAL LIFE son James MacArthur, who would go on next year to be even more famous than his Disney movies in HAWAII 5-0), to follow in his father’s footsteps. His father served as doctor to the M’Gambi people and that is when either Mrs. Wilson decided to leave him or he her. It seems SHE left him because she is very familiar with the small village and knows the district rep, the evil and greedy, grizzled Mr. Harrington, whom she tries to bribe into deporting her son (back to New York). She doesn’t start the trouble but adds to it but by episode’s end, she realizes she was wrong after some earlier moralizing from Tarzan and some strong backbone by her own son. She even shoots the main villain in the leg and we see him almost bleeding to death.
Speaking of the main villain, other than giving up too easily in the end…although to be fair all his men were beaten, surrounded and/or wounded or dead, this villain is a very strong one to pit against Tarzan. His name is Zwengi and he is played by the great Geoffrey Holder. Holder has the distinction of playing one of the ONLY James Bond male villains who DOES NOT die or get killed (in the wonderful LIVE AND LET DIE), a few years after this. He has an on screen presence that requires to look at and listen to him. He also has a physical menace to him, rather than just being one of a long list of ju ju/witch doctors who oppose traditional medicine and/or Tarzan and his friends. I wish he had escaped to return to fight against Tarzan again. He joins up with Harrington, enlisting his aid (oddly by breaking into his bedroom and threatening him with a knife) to legally go against Tarzan. Tarzan is to be killed legally by him, a first for this show and is imprisoned when he goes to Harrington’s office to confront him about being attacked in the tree house.
Holder also narrated CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.
Zwengi also uses a dwarf minion, which also gives this both a Doctor Who vibe (particularly the later TALONS OF WENG CHIANG) AND a James Bond vibe, not to mention, not for the first time in this show, a Hammer Horror vibe. And I mean a strong Hammer Horror vibe (think the old woman heroine of THE DEVILS but others as well including the SHE movies).
We don’t see how the fire the dwarf starts on the medical building is put out (maybe the elephant?). We also don’t see what happens to the man that is wounded that is the nurse’s husband though Mrs. Wilson aids her son in giving him plasma. They have to abandon the building. Also: is it my imagination or is this nurse…a white woman in black face and black paint? I hope not.
That would never be done today. Another thing that might never be done today is…the entire plot. Tarzan and Richard both blame Mrs. Wilson for leaving her husband and not staying with her husband to support HIS work here when she didn’t want to stay. They feel she was wrong and should have the guilt, not the father. And she all but admits that by episode’s end. Today, it would the husband who is presented as the awful one, abandoning his wife’s wishes for following his own. Who’s right?
Another thing that would not be done today is…the African villains…enough said? I mean there is a trend here to show them collaborating with an equally greedy and evil white man so there’s that. But it also does seem big, tall white Tarzan has to save the African old men from the African bad men who are stronger and younger and who work for Zwengi. But then again, this IS Tarzan and his show so what do you expect?
Some of the battle scenes, though well done, seem…like stock from some of the battle scenes in season one, especially the DEADLY SILENCE part one battle scenes. OH, and this print of the episode I saw here on the DVDs is VERY dark in some places.
Other things that remind me of Hammer: a sick child almost dies in the first few minutes and a few minutes after that the doctor (Mr. Wilson, the father) is shot dead with an arrow. We see the burial chamber of the tribe and Wilson’s grave (which had a cross on it). There are paintings on the walls. One of them looks suspiciously like SPIDERMAN! The entire first 15 minutes or more seem like a horror movies as Zwengi uses his “charms” to get animals from the people. One lady seems almost faceless and we never see her talk but hear her unlikely voice as she pleads with him ---he won’t “help” her because she is poor and has nothing to give him.
We also never learn HOW or WHEN Tarzan got Harrington ousted from his job. AND there seemed to be no guards on duty at Tarzan’s cell to hear Jai and Rocky’s LOUD rescue of Tarzan, who’s shouting orders to Rocky and giving orders to Jai.
Jai’s parts are obviously important here but he seems like a walk on part now, for some reason. He enters a scene, leaves it, stands and watches it, as if he’s not in the full scene and then re-enters it again later!? As ever, Manuel performs admirably.
This episode is a strong one, an entertaining one and doesn’t seem to hold back from strong content. It also has the three very good guest stars. Davis Roberts plays Kanzuma and the man also has a long list of credits including MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, DAKTARI, STAR TREK, WHAT’S HAPPENING, and MOD SQUAD. And the original movie WESTWORLD.
Sadly, as with most episodes, most of the guest stars, have passed on.
This is a fast paced, entertaining episode, mixing action, horror, and emotional content. It’s well done.
Almost forgot: the shot of Helen Hayes on an elephant is worth seeing this episode for that alone. AND it really is her!
We also have scenes to this episode, the credits (old or new theme, I can’t tell them apart anymore!), then some action, THEN the ep titles.
Dr. Wilson has a black man helping him in the beginning of the ep.
I have to admit the huts and buildings are all beginning to look the same in every ep.
Did the man who killed Dr. Wilson with a dart get brought to justice?
Wait. Tarzan is taking animals to where? Some of them are with carriers in boxes with air holes? Tarzan carries the lion cub on his own, free.
When Jai first meets Mrs. Wilson, WHAT is the kid behind them doing? Feeling the inside of the clay pot?
Just before Mrs. Wilson (I wish we knew her and her husband’s first names!) meets Tarzan, it appears he’s checking out food/fruit at a stand and saying something like, “How can you charge these prices for these…” something? Is Tarzan buying stuff?
I feel as if this is the ONLY time we see TARZAN in the treehouse in all 57 eps.
The attack on the treehouse: when the two men with spears hover over Jai and Tarzan who are supposedly sleeping, there is a still pause and then a commercial break and then the still ends and the action continues…but the fight is brief. And sort of badly edited. The warrior holding Jai seems to GIVE Jai back to Tarzan before being beaten. Tarzan throws both men out of the treehouse…to their probable deaths.
As ever Ron’s Tarz calls Jai, “Son.” But for some reason it sounds more as a politeness instead of a father calling a son, “son.”
Harrington is the rep but not the district commissioner. Harrington says, “You’re finally going to learn a lesson at last,” which might prove he’s had run ins with Tarzan in the past. Confusedly, Tarzan tells Kanzuma (were they running out of names to call the chiefs?) once the battle is over, that he should bring Zwengi to the NEW district commissioner. It was as if the writer could not decide if Harrington was or was not the district commissioner? And how would Tarzan know there was a new commissioner when he just escaped from Harrington’s jail? Did the script take something out? Not care? Then he says after tomorrow Harrington will not be with them anymore. How was he planning on getting rid of him?
As Jai walks with Mrs. Wilson just before leaving to the M’Gambi village, a very small boy seems afraid of Cheetah but then holds his hand out to him.
One thing I like about Jai, rather than being unaware of his shortcomings, when Mrs. Wilson asks, “Do you think you can protect me?” he answers, “I can try.”
Jeepers, one of the Arabian men walking behind Jai and Mrs. Wilson is exceedingly handsome.
What happened to the dwarf in the battle and after?
I will applaud the series for trying something different, again. Not sure it worked at all, though. Despite having Ethel Merman in this, she’s really not that bad, certainly not as stiff as she was in BATMAN’s third season as Lola Lasagna (of course, that show is completely different than TARZAN other than having Nelson Riddle do a lot of its great music and btw Riddle is back for this episode). Merman plays Roseanna McCloud, the surviving wife of a man who led a group of what Tarzan calls “good people” into the “promised land” of wherever this takes place.
Ron Ely’s TARZAN
Episode 42. MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON Pt. 1
Review By Charles MentoOne major problem Tarzan had at the beginning AND in this episode is WHERE it is supposed to take place. Last episode and many recent episodes established Tarzan’s land as Africa. This, clearly, doesn’t. Again. Captain Bates tells Tarzan, “This isn’t the jungle, Tarzan…” And it hardly looks like it other than the fact that there are some lions lying around looking tired and drugged near some water. There are flat lands, what looks like a forest in a park somewhere and hills and of course one gorgeous shot of mountains as Hank (the blond boy who can’t be more different from Jai if he tried and played by cute boy actor Johnny Jensen) and Chigger (played by Perry Lopez, another Irwin Allen actor) as the two wander from the group looking for something Tarzan told them to.
Seemingly having left Irwin Allen cast and staff behind, this episode brings them ALL back with a vengeance. We have: Jackson Gillis as writer and Harmon Jones as director and: Perry Lopez (VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA-SAVAGE JUNGLE), Harry Lauter (TIME TUNNEL-BILLY THE KID and PIRATES OF DEADMAN’S ISLAND and VOYAGE-DEADLY WATERS, LAND OF THE GIANTS-THE CREED and of course who has been in TARZAN in THE BLUE STONE OF HEAVEN parts one and two and TRACK OF THE DINOSAUR), and Strother Martin (LOST IN SPACE-BLAST OFF INTO SPACE and who has also been in TARZAN in STEAL THE RISING SUN). Phew.
As you might have guessed, this two parter has a huge cast. Sadly, TARZAN is more interested in guest name stars now AND as ever more interested in its villains and “bad guys” than the good guys. All the bad guys are heavily characterized over the “good people” of the Pilgrims. Sigh.
Martin played O’Keefe, a basic coward with a rifle who works for the other bad guy, the con artist swindler trader “guide” Whitehead (Lauter) who also had a heavy set aide working with him and ALSO had a short Hispanic man holding a gun on Tarzan who also steals Mrs. McCloud’s money. O’keefe is killed by the OTHER villain in this, Likui, played strongly by William Marshall, who makes this third appearance in the show.
As if that is not enough bad guys (and I suspected erroneously that Bates would turn out bad, too, as TARZAN himself suspected), the wonderful and now scary Rockne Tarkington appears again, this time as a young chief. I’m unclear if Tarkington’s character has a name AND, more importantly, IF he has links to Likui, who it seems is part of the con deal given to Merman’s group by he and Whitehead! Phew. Get all that.
The group of natives is called the B’wali? Even Tarzan runs from them and dives into the water to escape their spears, though they don’t seem to be spearing him to kill him or too diligently…because he’s hiding in water in a lake of some kind and they don’t get him. Sigh. Not that I want Tarzan dead but…that scene, though visually stunning and exciting, seems not to make too much sense. They do manage to spear O’Keefe in the back several times. Tarzan has never been to the mountains of the moon himself.
There are also army men that seem to be hired by Whitehead to help McCloud’s group and are led by Bates. They seem to be “good guys” most of them. One even looks like TALL BOY from the early season one episodes. He helps Tarzan open the fence so that the ape man can go in and befriend a wild horse so he can ride it can catch up to McCloud’s group.
Ah, yes, McCloud’s group. Mrs seems to be from bridge clubs as noted by one of her group later on when he’s trying to convince her not to turn back.
Chigger is played by Perry Lopez who seems to have come from “some war” where he killed people (Vietnam?).
Esau seems to be the only one with any sense, though he does threw the convicts’ (oh, yes, there were MORE villains at the very start) rifles into the water----when they could have used them----Esau hates guns. Victor Eberg plays him and is uncredited.
There is a pregnant African American woman, who’s name, I did not catch but will try on the second watch through when I cap this. SHE has already had her husband die on the road.
There’s a short haired woman whose name also eluded me. We seem to be lured to thinking that she will be a main character. She handles a rifle well. She also is the one who tells Tarzan that they all adopted orphan blond boy Hank.
Hank seems ready to replace Jai in this story as Jai is nowhere to be seen or mentioned. Hank does seem to care about Tarzan and Tarzan cares about Hank and they get somewhat physical as Tarzan and Jai do. Yet…Hank helped Rosanna steal the army’s guns and goes off to try to catch a wild horse (where he’s nearly killed by a native).
There are also some other older men and at least one older woman. And a blond girl who seems VERY close to Chigger who offers Rockne’s native raisins as a token of “love” and peace and shockingly, this leads to Chigger…unexpectedly getting speared in the back! Chigger did so after Rockne’s native stole her headwear or kerchief! What a thing to die for!
Not sure which woman is Flo or which one is Millie but I’ll try to find out. I still can’t get over Chigga dying. He seemed set to be our POV character and one that would learn from his mistakes or get some message learned on him by Tarzan. But no, he has a spear in the back by episode’s end!
With so much going on, you would think this would be a very fast paced episode but there are times it feels like there’s a lot of filler, maybe because this is a two part episode.
Lots wrong here. Back to where this is. We’re never told. It doesn’t seem like Africa and does not look like it. Yet there are lions. Tarzan hasn’t seen a spear like the one thrown at and hitting O’Keefe’s shoulder early before O’Keefe is killed (was the Hispanic villain/man Tarzan knocked out also killed?). Bates tells him where they are isn’t the jungle. The town Sunrise is deserted AND looks like an old west town. Whitehead seems to be using a covered wagon to transport goods to Marshall’s character?
What is unclear is what Marshall’s tribe (which Whitehead says is mostly killed off but is he lying?) wants. They seem to want to be left alone to their land and yet they also seem to con people into coming so they can get goods and/or money?
It’s also very hard to feel much for the stupid Pilgrims either. Most of them do not say much if anything. There are about 14 of them and we don’t really get to know most them well and the one, Chigger, that we do, is very dead by episode’s end. Hank is a kid who, at first, wears his button down shirt so it is mostly open at the bottom and we see his bare stomach and navel (?)! The short haired woman that is seen mostly with him seems to have a good rapport with McCloud and the pregnant woman and so they’re likable, sort of. And the blond girl with Chigger is a good person and nice. I can understand them wanting to be in a promised land and wanting love and peace. This is also at the height of the hippy movement so this might come from that. There is a song played over the title credits sung by a man (I BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND with guitar?). This gives it a BLESS THE BEASTS AND THE CHILDREN vibe which would come later.
Point is that it’s hard to identify and like this group, any of them. They make mistake after mistake after mistake. They don’t listen to Tarzan at all nor do what he says to do in order to stay alive. He isn’t even all that upset with them.
McCloud, after her husband is killed in his jeep…by a rhino set out on them by the convicts who seem to be shooting in the area just to scare the animals into a frenzy (these convicts seem to be hired by O’Keefe and / or Whitehead to do this but did they expect McCloud to be killed by this?) maybe just to kill or stop the travelers. The convicts, all shirtless and most shoeless, give up easily after confronted by Tarzan, who also shoots a rifle up in the air to scare them off (a first?). We also see Tarzan drive a jeep and that never feels right. At one point Chigga seems to name McCloud’s first name as Fred, the husband of Rosanna. Fred, who died of course.
McCloud, at first, just wants Tarzan to lead them home. And then…both of them seem to forget that and move on to the town Tarzan knows is deserted and she knows is housing the army men sent to help them. O’Keefe sabotages their gas and oil, forcing them to walk to the town. Tarzan tells the group to hide behind a small hill and trees. They do not listen. They forge ahead and this leads to Chigger being killed. THEN, they abandon the town when Tarzan is out trying to find more info and stop O’Keefe, the Hispanic man, and befriend Marshall’s tribe. Tarzan sort of fails at all three. The group steal the army’s vehicles AND guns. So you see that the group is not only gullible but plain old stupid and dumb. It’s hard to care about them when they are THIS dumb. They head right toward the area that Marshall told Tarzan that he will kill everyone if they do that.
As if they are not dumb enough, even after Chigga is killed, they forge ahead without heeding Tarzan’s words and without Tarzan himself. How stupid are they?
Merman gets to lead a song of WHEN THE SAINTS COME MARCHING IN when they first arrive at the town.
Ely’s sporting the scratched shoulder wound and scarring. Whitehead’s plan? Take the money from the Pilgrims and then stop them from getting up there and give the supplies he hasn’t ruined via other men to the B’wala? The B’wala now know how to use horses and are no longer afraid of them.
At Sunrise, there’s another army man who isn’t in charge but he might be second in command and has a brimmed hat and is supervising the command of the wild horse. He appears first putting on his shirt while the bugler blows a horn.
BTW I found this info: Mountains of the Moon is a 1990 biographical film depicting the 1857–1858 journey of Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke in their expedition to Central Africa, which culminated in Speke's discovery of the source of the Nile River and led to a bitter rivalry between the two men.
I also found this on one of the actresses’ fan pages:
Sabrina is Milly, part of a religious sect travelling across Africa to their promised land, The Mountains of the Moon. Assailed by ne'er-do-wells, they are saved by Tarzan (who seems inordinately skilled in karate and judo for a jungle-raised chimpman).It is hard to accurately say when this film is set - they drive trucks from about 1940, wagons from about 1840, horses from around 1640, but their "Peace and Love" mumbo-jumbo is very 1967.
https://www.nylon.net/sabrina/pages/movie-MountainsOfTheMoon.htm
The site calls anything without Sabrina boring. Sigh.
Okay so this is Africa, maybe central Africa or east Africa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_of_the_Moon_(Africa)
There are also ties to SHE.
All in all, this is a rocky episode. There are many characters and that’s not a bad thing but most of them are not likable and/or villains. There’s filler. There’s a literal lack of setting info. And even the action this time feels wrong somehow, not that there is a lot of action this episode. There is a shocking death of a good guy. The visuals look excellent (though some of those are stock footage). Tarzan looks, for the first time ever, genuinely at a loss for words when Mrs. McCloud lies to the group and doesn’t tell them her husband is dead!
Somehow without seeing part two yet, this feels like a bad episode or an episode trying badly to be something different and mostly succeeding but Tarzan feels out of place in it and he seems to be failing the group and making his own mistakes, too. Merman is not bad, though. Nor is the rest of the cast. They’re just playing either villains or idiots. It IS refreshing not to have Bates turn out to be evil.
There is no Jai and no Cheetah.
I may have gotten ahead of myself as Chigga is killed in episode two of this story and not here. Rockne only appears briefly in the cliffhanger at the end.
The knife used by the native to almost kill Hank looks a lot like TARZAN’S knife prop and Tarzan ISN’T wearing a knife when he saves Chigger from having to kill the native. Tarzan throws THIS knife down and away but still hasn’t his own in its sheath!?
When first haunting O’Keefe, how does Tarzan do what he did with his voice and not appear? Is he God?
TARZAN OF THE MOVIES talks about episodes filmed in Guatemala and Mozambique. Not sure if those ever happened but if so this episode is a likely suspect for one or both of those.
The first song is by Johnny Cash but it sure doesn’t sound like Cash did this version for the episode:
"I'm Bound For The Promised Land"
On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.I am bound for the promised land,
I am bound for the promised land;
Oh who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the promised land.O'er all those wide extended plains
Shines one eternal day;
There God the Son forever reigns,
And scatters night away.I am bound for the promised land,
I am bound for the promised land;
Oh who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the promised land.No chilling winds or poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore;
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death,
Are felt and feared no more.I am bound for the promised land,
I am bound for the promised land;
Oh who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the promised land.When I shall reach that happy place,
I'll be forever blessed,
For I shall see my Father's face,
And in His bosom rest.
Ron Ely’s TARZAN
Episode 43. THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON part 2
Review By Charles Mento
“We better do what Tarzan says.”
Hank, from the mouth of babes.“Perhaps love is a land you never reach.”
“Maybe that’s what love really is, always trying over and over. The reaching and trying.”Gosh what are Tarzan and Rosie talking about?
I really want to like this story, I really do. I’m just not sure I do. It does try to do something different and the truth is that NO other TV show that has regular characters has the suspense that this episode does. The death of Chigga early on in this episode and the picking up of guns by the “peaceful pilgrims” is so stunningly shocking that…I felt that anything could happen and everyone, even little blond boy Hank, could be killed. The blond girl that was sort of with Chigga shoots and kills Rockne’s character (is he named?). BTW Rosanna and Hank had the guns hidden in their wagon the entire time…maybe if they shot Rockne’s character early on or used the guns early on BEFORE the native B’wala (is this a real tribe…and for that matter, are any of the tribes in TARZAN real?) killed Chigga or had their own guns thanks to the evil and cowardly Whitehead (white head? Really?), maybe Chigga would still be alive. They could have just shot in the air to scare them away. It’s just another move by a script that makes us feel almost no sympathy for the peaceful pilgrims OR the native B’wala or anyone really. Even Tarzan seems to fail. He gets shot at again and hit…Whitehead seems to say he greased him, when he should mean grazed him? Or did I hear it wrong?
There’s something about the natives circling the pilgrims’ mock up fort that’s very movie and TV show Western – like and not sure how I feel about that. Rosanna even brings up the “poor Native Americans” in her land, America. I used to have sympathy for the Native Americans and I still do but then I learned about what they did to some of their captives and what rituals they did to their animals in what amounts to slow torturous death due to religious beliefs and thus, now feel that they, like all the rest of the human beings on the planet, are from a culture that’s …basically disturbed and sick in the head.
In any case, something that would NEVER be done on TV today is having a white man (Tarzan) tied up on a post using his feet to literally beat down a black man into the dirt face down. Did this guard die? His face is covered, too, and I wonder if he is the same “stunt man” or extra who knocks Tarzan out in the next episode JAI’S AMNESIA. Now, that’s a fun episode where as this is a sort of downer. BTW WHAT the hell is with Ely’s feet? They looked bone white and his toe nails looks…heinously white and covered with either white dirt of some kind of fungus. And ewl.
Also: after beating the man down with just his feet, he then karate chops him in the back near his neck!
Rosanna ultimately goes to the chief to give herself up to let Tarzan and her people go. From there it gets a bit more predictable, something that…I have to admit it was not before this. I mean how was this going to be resolved? The white gang basically shot and killed several of the tribe’s young warriors…whom, I thought had guns of their own and yet can’t seem to shoot straight or even throw spears at the white group.
Even so, the show seems to cheat as we see, shockingly, the pregnant woman, who was also shooting and killing tribesmen, get shot. I really thought she was dead from that shot.
THEN, a few scenes later we hear a baby cry and see the black woman happily delivering a baby as if she were never shot. What?
The wild horse gets away from Tarzan when he stops to look at Whitehead’s “supplies” which are guns. WHY? It seems that there is no reason for him to have left the group yet again while they make another stupid move that even Hank knows is totally wrong…in fact, ONLY Hank knows is totally wrong, even though he helped Rosanna STEAL the guns from the army.
Hank even says, “We better do what Tarzan says.” Yet the adults do not. Even after Chigga dies, the blond girl and the others don’t do what Tarzan says and go hide. Instead, they dig in and plan to move forward into the land. Of course, things work out thanks to another few speeches by Tarzan and surprisingly Rosanna herself but it was she who admits that SHE alone was wrong to advocate shooting and killing. Is she dumb or what? Again, it’s hard to feel anything for any of them, except maybe Esau, who also takes up a gun and starts shooting and killing.
With so many natives killed (how many? We see maybe two bodies but surely more than that were shot and fell?), is it reasonable for the chief to then suddenly make amends by suddenly believing Tarzan and Rosanna? One moment everyone is out to kill everyone else on the opposite side and the next Tarzan gets the chief to believe him that it is all Whitehead’s fault. BTW what happens to Whitehead’s chubby partner? I don’t believe we even see him driving his stagecoach wagon when Whitehead is in the wagon and someone is driving!? Did he get taken away, too? AND would the chief, who was so murderous in the last episode, really let Whitehead go and not kill him? And the Pilgrims would live in peace. It might he horrid but would the chief eventually kill the Pilgrims who come to live with him on the land they now share and he’s willing to share? What made this chief change so much? Tarzan? Is the chief dumb enough to sign something he doesn’t know what it is and believe Whitehead?
I’m also struck by how this might be an indictment of the Israeli’s marching into Palestine and claiming a new country of land that is theirs by right and a Promised Land of love and hope…while lifting up guns and killing. It also reminds me of the movie EXODUS which is about those events, sort of. Of course, this being 60’s TV, it all works out better than the real life events worked out and which make news headlines even today and not in a positive way.
The army BTW (not sure what army or where they are from? Bates seems American) is ready to shoot and kill, even when the chief seems to be seeking peace (the sergeant---who seems to be Latino or Spanish and is played by a Latino or Spanish actor I’ve seen before, says, “He’s mine!” but Bates, with a clearer head stops him from killing the chief) and talk.
Esau seems to be praying at one point but the show (and most 60s shows) seems to be afraid to full on admit that (though the Robinsons in LOST IN SPACE in the unaired pilot and the scenes lifted from it for the fifth episode do give thanks on their knees---well, all were on their knees except Don---was he Jewish as they do not kneel to God, I think).
Ely’s never been bad before but his telling Bates to sit down and talk is…not his best work, shall we say. It feels as if he doesn’t believe in what he is saying…for the first and maybe only time in the series and…who can blame him. This episode is so off kilter in so many ways it must have been hard to believe in it at all and yet…
…and yet there is something about it. The ending of the song again and the images of the Pilgrims, even dead Chigga, over the land that they will occupy and share with the now benign chief (and he really does change completely and Marshall’s face and aura, I guess is a better term, seem to be of a totally different character!) smacks of peace and a peaceful ending to something that could have ended much more tragic, though with Chigga and so many tribe men dead it sort of is TARZAN’S first tragedy.
Again there is no Jai and no Cheetah.
Tarzan’s fight with Whitehead is exciting but that’s down to the choreography, Ely and the other actor as well as the exciting music. Almost all the music other than the lyrics of the two songs are tracks from other episodes, Nelson Riddle episodes as well as other episodes and other composers including William Loose.
I don’t understand why Tarzan agrees to fight Whitehead with his hands tied behind his back (he will be more right?) but maybe to give the audience the idea that it might be a more fair fight or might be over less quick? It’s ludicrous. We see blood on Whitehead’s forehead. The fight is impressive because Lauter takes some real kicks or at least it looks like it.
The reprise is over SIX minutes long! And the episode still seems to run a bit short.
If you watch closely Rockne’s character (named in the credits as only Young Chief) is about to open fire on the pilgrims when the blond girl kills him (the Pilgrims all seem versed in how to shoot rifles!). It’s odd that we rarely see “young chief” with Marshall’s character at all. Are they even from the same tribe? The masks the tribe wears are some of the creepiest in the series.
Would this have worked out had Tarzan not been here? Probably not. If the Pilgrims followed his advice they’d leave and not bring help to the natives (sigh, again another white man fantasy?) who have had their numbers dwindled (from either war or white men killing them or both?).
It’s hard to like this episode but it’s also hard to hate it, too. It’s different and had a certain something that the others do not, yet it could be one of the worst episodes. It’s just that I’m not so sure.
The very end of the faces of Chigga, the blond girl, the short haired girl, Esau, the African American girl (who had her baby and was smiling in the midst of all out war and killing and destruction along with the short haired girl and Rosie), Hank, and Rosie superimposed over the land is an odd one. Then, we see Tarzan on a horse and it just ends. While we hear that song again.
This was the weirdest episode yet and there are quite a few contenders for that title.
It’s possible that the blond girl is named Millie played by Sabrina (no last name?). There is also Flo (the short haired girl) played by Jayne Massey and Kai Hernandez playing Juayva –the pregnant black woman. There are lots of uncredited actors appearing here including the Sergeant and the chubby driver for Whitehead. You have to be Sherlock Holmes to track down the rest of the cast credited on IMDB but not in the episode.
For a while I was dreading this two parter almost as much as the Supremes episode but it wasn’t that bad. Certainly had a lot of slow parts and a lot of clichés with Tarzan being shot but just “greased” and him taming the wild horse (though we never saw that in this series) and Tarzan being knocked out in part 1 and being off somewhere else when Chigga is killed and Rosie makes mistake after mistake. WHY did Tarzan have to follow the wagon Whitehead was in…he ALREADY KNEW it was probably guns!?
BILL HILLMAN
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