Edgar Rice Burroughs’ memorable creation, Tarzan, came to the screen in the person of Elmo Lincoln in 1918’s Tarzan of the Apes. Here we get the youth of the jungle lord and his growth to maturity and his finding of love. Both Lincoln, as the adult Tarzan, and Gordon Griffith, as Tarzan in childhood, give …
Read the full post →“<em>Tarzan of the Apes</em> (First National, 1918)”
Paul Dumont, a French Foreign Legion officer (Ralph Byrd) on his way out to introduce the troops to parachuting, finds love aboard ship, only to learn later that he has fallen for his best friend’s fiancée, Helene (Lorna Gray), making life a misery for him. When a failed attack on a Legion encampment results in …
Read the full post →“<em>Drums of the Desert</em> (Monogram, 1940)”
Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) becomes involved with a safari out to capture footage of wild animals and must stay with them, despite his condemnation of some of their behavior, because an unknown member of the safari had murdered a geologist and had stolen both diamonds and a map to a diamond mine. The contriving necessary to …
Read the full post →“<em>Safari Drums</em> (Allied Artists, 1953)”
Tarzan (Lex Barker) works to resolve a situation in which members of a tribe suffering from plague are kidnapping women from neighboring tribes to sacrifice in the hope of averting the sickness. There’s a new Jane in this one, Vanessa Brown; this would be her only outing in the role. Barker is lithe and fit …
Read the full post →“<em>Tarzan and the Slave Girl</em> (RKO, 1950)”
The third issue of Argosy All-Story Weekly for the year 1926 included the first installment of a new serial, Wild Paradise, by Kenneth Perkins; it’s a western adventure concerned with an Arabian stallion. Other serials in the issue include The Vanishing Professor (Part 2 of 4), There Goes the Bride (Part 4 of 5), and …
Read the full post →“<em>Argosy All-Story Weekly</em>, January 16, 1926”
Ivory is the aim of the bad guys in this Jungle Jim outing, in which the man of few words is sought out by an anthropologist hoping he will guide her to the forbidden Land of the Giants, whose territory also is the target of those after the elephants as well. The “giants” don’t seem …
Read the full post →“<em>Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land</em> (Columbia, 1952)”
A rollicking film, full of friendly hijinks and malevolent enemies, Gunga Din leans heavily on the appeal of the three sergeants at the center of the action — played by Victor McLaglen, Cary Grant, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. — with their good-natured pranks and mutual loyalty and love, but the whole is given depth and …
My pulp magazine focus this year is on Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1926, ninety-five years ago. My aim is to read all the issues I possess (currently around 18) in the week that corresponds to the week the issue would have been available, bearing in mind that the date on pulp magazines was the date …
Read the full post →“<em>Argosy All-Story Weekly</em>, January 9, 1926”
After Johnny Sheffield was dropped from the Tarzan movies, he was signed by Monogram Pictures for a series of films bringing the children’s book character Bomba, the Jungle Boy, to the screen (at the same time, Johnny Weissmuller moved to Columbia to play Jungle Jim). Bomba and the Jungle Girl finds the young jungle dweller …
Read the full post →“<em>Bomba and the Jungle Girl</em> (Monogram, 1952)”
Ed Fury played the character Ursus in three sword-and-sandal movies, with Ursus in the Land of Fire (original title: Ursus nella terra di fuoco). Here, the strongman is leader of the shepherd people, whose territory is targeted by the ambitious Hamilkar, a general who, together with the lady Mila, has designs that go beyond merely …
Read the full post →“<em>Ursus in the Land of Fire</em> (1963)”
