''Tarzan's New York Adventure'' (also known as ''Tarzan Against the World'') is a 1942

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

adventure film from Metro Goldwyn Mayer, produced by Frederick Stephani, directed by

Richard Thorpe Richard Thorpe (born Rollo Smolt Thorpe; February 24, 1896 – May 1, 1991) was an American film director best known for his long career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Biography Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, Richard Thorpe began his ...

, that stars

Johnny Weissmuller Johnny Weissmuller (born Johann Peter Weißmüller; June 2, 1904 – January 20, 1984) was an American Olympic swimmer, water polo player and actor. He was known for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century. H ...

and

Maureen O'Sullivan Maureen O'Sullivan (17 May 1911 – 23 June 1998) was an Irish-American actress, who played Jane in the ''Tarzan'' series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She performed with such actors as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, William ...

. This was the sixth and final film in MGM's ''Tarzan'' series and was the studio's last Tarzan feature until 1957's '' Tarzan and the Lost Safari''. Although ''Tarzan's New York Adventure'' includes scenes set in New York, as well as the customary jungle sequences, it is yet another Tarzan production primarily shot on MGM's back lots.

Plot

A cargo aircraft lands atop Tarzan's escarpment in Africa, looking for animals. While trapping lions, the three men aboard meet with Tarzan, Jane, and their adopted son Boy. Watching Boy's tricks with three young elephants, Buck Rand, the head of a circus in the United States, realizes that Boy would be a great act. When they are attacked by natives, who set a large jungle fire, it appears that Tarzan and Jane have perished in that fire. The men take Boy aboard their plane and they take-off, as the natives look on in wonderment. The chimpanzee Cheeta is able to awaken Tarzan and Jane before they are burned to death. Cheeta tells Tarzan that Boy left with the men on the aircraft. Tarzan, Jane, and Cheeta track across the jungle and, flying across the Atlantic, eventually end up in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Tarzan is befuddled by the lifestyle and gadgetry of civilization and displays his quaint,

noble savage A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an " other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. Besides appearing in m ...

ways. He complains about the necessity of wearing clothing, commenting that an opera singer that he hears on a "noisy box", "Woman sick! Scream for witch doctor!", and expressing his wonderment at taxi cabs. Tarzan also comments that various African-Americans he sees making a living throughout New York City are from this or that tribe back in his and Jane's African home. Tarzan and Jane attempt to get Boy back by legal means. A judge asks Tarzan what he considers to be the important things that he needs to teach his adopted son. Unfortunately, the circus retains an unscrupulous lawyer, who tricks Jane into admitting that Boy was not born in the jungle and is not her actual child, provoking Tarzan into attacking him in the courtroom. Tarzan makes a daring escape out a window onto a ledge, and a rooftop chase by the police immediately follows. This eventually leads to Tarzan being forced to make a spectacular 200 foot high dive from the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East Rive ...

into the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...

to avoid being arrested. Tarzan locates the circus where Boy is being held and enlists the aid of the elephants, who have been chained by their ankles to stakes. He calls to them with his jungle yell, and they take their revenge on their tormentors by tearing free from the chains and destroying the circus. In the ensuing bedlam that follows, Tarzan is able to rescue Boy. Before their return to Africa, the judge grants Tarzan and Jane full legal custody of their adopted son.

Cast

as Tarzan *

as Jane *

Johnny Sheffield Johnny Sheffield (born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan, April 11, 1931 – October 15, 2010) was an American child actor who, between 1939 and 1947, portrayed Boy in the Tarzan film series and, between 1949 and 1955, played Bomba the Jungle Boy. ...

as Boy * Virginia Grey as Connie Beach * Charles Bickford as Buck Rand, circus owner * Paul Kelly as Jimmie Shields, pilot * Elmo Lincoln as circus roustabout *

Chill Wills Theodore Childress "Chill" Wills (July 18, 1902 – December 15, 1978) was an American actor and a singer in the Avalon Boys quartet. Early life Wills was born in Seagoville, Texas, on July 18, 1902. Career He was a performer from early chi ...

as Manchester Montford * Cy Kendall as Colonel Ralph Sergeant *

Russell Hicks Edward Russell Hicks (June 4, 1895 – June 1, 1957) was an American film character actor. Hicks was born in 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army in France. He later became a lieutenant Colonel in the Cali ...

as Judge Abbotson * Jackie the Lion *

Howard C. Hickman Howard Charles Hickman (February 9, 1880 – December 31, 1949) was an American actor, director and writer. He was an accomplished stage leading man, who entered films through the auspices of producer Thomas H. Ince. Career In 1900, Hickman ...

as Blake Norton, Tarzan's lawyer (credited as Howard Hickman) * Charles Lane as Gould Beaton, Sargent's lawyer *

Miles Mander Miles Mander (born Lionel Henry Mander; 14 May 1888 – 8 February 1946), was an English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist. He was sometimes credited as Luther Mile ...

as portmaster * Anne Jeffreys as young woman * William Forrest as inspector at airport *

Willie Fung Willie Fung (3 March 1896 – 16 April 1945) was a Chinese-American film actor who played supporting roles in 125 American films between 1922 and 1944. Like many Chinese actors working in Hollywood during the era, he often played Japanese charac ...

as Sun Lee, the Chinese tailor *

Marjorie Deanne Marjorie Deanne (January 28, 1917May 21, 1994) was an American film actress. She appeared in over 25 films between 1938 and 1943. Born Clara Pauline Boughton, modern viewers will recognize Deanne for her appearances in several Three Stooges fil ...

as cigarette girl * Eddie Kane as Eddie, the headwaiter * Mantan Moreland as Sam, the nightclub janitor * Dorothy Morris as hat check girl

Production

With the working title ''Tarzan Against the World'', film production began on December 17, 1941, continuing to January 28, 1942, mainly on the MGM backlot/ranch. Additional scenes were shot in early February 1942. Popular mythology claims that Johnny Weissmuller did his own high dive stunt in ''Tarzan's New York Adventure''. In the film, an escaping Tarzan jumps 200 feet from the top of the Brooklyn Bridge, but according to ''ERBzine'' and research on Edgar Rice Burroughs, the shot was filmed by cameraman Jack Smith on top of the MGM scenic tower on lot 3, using a dummy plunging into a tank of water. ''Tarzan's New York Adventure'' was the last in the series for MGM, and Maureen O'Sullivan's last motion picture until 1948. She wanted to devote more time to her seven children. Of interest is the uncredited appearance (as a circus roustabout) of Elmo Lincoln, who in 1918 was the first actor to star as Tarzan. Three real aircraft of the era are prominently featured in ''Tarzan's New York Adventure'': "G-AECT", a

mockup In manufacturing and design, a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size model of a design or device, used for teaching, demonstration, design evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup may be a ''prototype'' if it provides at lea ...

of a Lockheed 12A with a single tail, is used for the African flying scenes; later a

Boeing 314 Clipper The Boeing 314 Clipper was an American long-range flying boat produced by Boeing from 1938 to 1941. One of the largest aircraft of its time, it had the range to cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. For its wing, Boeing re-used the design fro ...

(daytime) and a

Martin M-130 The Martin M-130 was a commercial flying boat designed and built in 1935 by the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore, Maryland, for Pan American Airways. Three were built: the '' China Clipper'', the ''Philippine Clipper'' and the '' Hawaii Cli ...

(nighttime) carry Tarzan and Jane as they fly across the Atlantic to New York City.

Reception

Box office

''Tarzan's New York Adventure'' earned $1,404,000 in the US and Canada and $1,315,000 elsewhere during its initial theatrical run, making MGM a profit of $985,000.

Critical reception

Film critic Theodore Strauss at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said the change of outfit did nothing to change the obvious. "With an African yodel and a tailor-made suit, our old jungle friend is back in ''Tarzan's New York Adventure'', currently chilling the veins of reviewers and 12-year-olds at the Capitol. Although we're not quite certain that the small-fry approved of Tarzan's temporary conversion to decidedly dapper duds of the sort more commonly seen at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, he probably will be forgiven. In Tarzan's case, clothes do not make the man". In a recent appraisal of ''Tarzan's New York Adventure'',

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...

noted some redeeming factors; "... an amusing entry. Tarzan's first encounter with indoor plumbing is truly memorable".Maltin 2009, p. 1369. The film

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

reports an approval rating of 100%, based on , with the film receiving a rating average of 7/10.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Maltin, Leonard. ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2009''. New York: New American Library, 2009 (originally published as ''TV Movies'', then ''Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide''), First edition 1969, published annually since 1988. .

External links

* * * * *
''Tarzan's New York Adventure'' history
at ERBzine.com {{Tarzan movies 1942 films 1942 adventure films American adventure films American black-and-white films American sequel films 1940s English-language films Films directed by Richard Thorpe Films set in New York City Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Tarzan films 1940s American films