TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS (1947)

This penultimate entry in the popular series is one of the more enjoyable of the later efforts. Johnny Weissmuller is obviously overweight for the role of the Lord of the Jungle but not disastrously so and Johnny Sheffield, now a handsome teenager, as boy, makes his last appearance in the series before being snapped up by Monogram Pictures to star as BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY. Brenda Joyce has replaced Maureen O'Sullivan in this the second of her three outings as Jane (and the only one which attempts to duplicate the romantic playfulness of the O'Sullivan films.) The plot is pretty standard with Tarzan taking on unscrupulous animal trappers trying to stock up post World War Two zoos but a boost is given by the gorgeous Patricia Morison as animal trainer Tanya who, we are told, is "the toast of Europe" and the ever villainous Barton McClane. Bizarrely, despite being set in Africa with all the usual African animals, all the negro natives have disappeared and been replaced by obviously Anglo actors dressed in what look like Malaysia costumes, just as two years later in TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS we find an African tribe looking and behaving like South Sea Islanders. But for the truly bizarre look no further than the final scene with the chimp Cheetah descending from an airplane by parachute while applying lipstick! Direction by Kurt Neumann is efficient and I have to inform Cerpts that his obsession with Weismuller's nipples gets no support in this film. His nipples are normal, Cerpts, live with it! Rating ***

Patricia Morison