Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Overlooked Films: TARZAN OF THE APES (1918)


Here's the very FIRST Tarzan movie, released just six years after the novel appeared in All-Story Magazine. This film, which portrays the first half of the novel (concluded in the 1918 movie The Romance of Tarzan) is said to be the most faithful of all the screen adaptations.

The ERBZine website has a lot of great info HERE. Among other things, it says:
NFC (National Film Corporation) hired eight acrobats to play apes for which costumes made from goat skins and elaborate masks were constructed. Additional ape costumes were made in Morgan City and twenty Young men from the New Orleans Athletic Club were hired to augment the "apes" brought from California

On with the show!





2 comments:

Rick said...

I saw this show altered by a group who produced the TV production of FLICKERS. I was on base in Iceland where we received free entertainment for being so far away from home back in the late 60's. The movie was sliced and spliced with the audio changed into one liners. Elmo Lincoln was hilarious with his Bullwinkle the Moose voice overlay.
Now i'll have a chance to see the real production. Thanks.

Cap'n Bob said...

I've always heard that Elmo Lincoln was the first screen Tarzan but it seems to me that Gordon Griffith deserves the honor.