Tarzan, the ape man

Movie
German title	Tarzan, the ape man
Original title	Tarzan the Ape Man
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1932
length	99 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	WS Van Dyke
script	Cyril Hume , Ivor Novello
production	Bernard H. Hyman , Irving Thalberg
music	George Richelavie
camera	Clyde De Vinna , Harold Rosson
cut	Tom Held , Ben Lewis
occupation
Johnny Weissmüller : Tarzan Maureen O'Sullivan : Jane Parker Neil Hamilton : Harry Holt C. Aubrey Smith : James Parker Doris Lloyd : Mrs. Cutten Forrester Harvey : Beamish Ivory Williams : Riano
synchronization

Tarzan the Ape Man , also known as Tarzan, the ruler of the jungle and Tarzan, the man from the jungle (Original title: Tarzan the Ape Man ), is an American adventure film from 1932. It is based on the novel Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs . The premiere took place on March 25th in New York City .

action

James Parker is a big game hunter. He travels through Africa in search of the great, legendary elephant cemetery. His daughter Jane accompanies him with her fiancé Harry Holt. The expedition is disrupted by a white monkey man. Tarzan has lived among monkeys in the jungle since he was a child. He kidnaps pretty Jane to his house high up in the trees. The girl is initially afraid, but then finds confidence in Tarzan. She realizes that he doesn't speak a word of English and teaches him the first few words: "I Tarzan, you Jane."

Tarzan eventually brings Jane back to her father and fiance, but Jane's thoughts remain with Tarzan. When Jane and her father and Harry Holt are kidnapped by pygmies , Tarzan comes to the rescue. With his elephants he freed the English. Jane, who fell in love with Tarzan, decides to live with Tarzan in the wilderness far from civilization.

background

Tarzan the Ape Man is the first Tarzan film by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the first Tarzan film with the Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmüller in the title role. In 1922 he was the first person to swim 100 meters under a minute. There had been a few Tarzan films before. Weissmüller was to play the role until the late 1940s, but the series ran with other actors such as Lex Barker into the 1970s. However, at that time the films were already classed as B-films .

Weissmüller was joined by Maureen O'Sullivan , who has just risen to star , the experienced Neil Hamilton and the character actor C. Aubrey Smith . The film was produced for around US $ 600,000 and grossed an outstanding US $ 2.5 million at box offices worldwide.

Tarzan's famous monkey scream was heard for the first time in the film. The sentence “Ich Tarzan, Du Jane”, which Johnny Weissmüller never said in the original, is also famous in German-speaking countries. The original dialogue shows an even lower ability to speak:

• Jane: "Jane."
• Tarzan: "Jane."
• Jane: “And you? You? "
• Tarzan: “Tarzan! Tarzan! "
• Jane: "Tarzan."
• Tarzan: "Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. "

Censorship in Germany

The film was approved by the censors on August 2, 1932 and started on January 9, 1933, before the Nazi seizure of power in Berlin. A year later, at the request of the Württemberg government, it was again submitted to the film inspectorate , which wanted to make an example. On March 2, 1934, the latter decided that a “film that puts the purely instinctual in the foreground tends to show that a jungle man, even a monkey, is capable of the most noble emotions and worthy as a spouse population-political tendencies of National Socialism [contrary] ". In the justification it was further stated: "The demoralizing and brutalizing effect [...] is illuminated by the fact that at the point where a sympathetic little monkey hurries awkwardly from a roaring panther with horrific death cries, the audience laughs and laughs at the creature's deathly distress continued to squeal with pleasure [...] ”. This decision marked a turning point in Nazi censorship policy, which now became more and more unpredictable.

Reviews

"Thanks to the imaginative and imaginative design, the film is better than all later films in the genre," said the lexicon of international films . Cinema found the film “splendidly staged, the actors do their best” and wrote: “The first sound film Tarzan hit like a bomb, although the dialogues were rather sparse. The swimming superstar Johnny Weismuller was not stingy with bare skin and great stunts. The audience and critics were thrilled to see how the lord of the jungle turned a wild elephant horde into a flea circus in no time at all. ”For the TV magazine Prisma , the film“ [e] in an indestructible classic of the adventure film ”. Although there were already a number of Tarzan films in the silent film era, "this is at least the definitive sound film version".

German version

The dubbed version used today was created in 1972 under the direction of Lothar Michael Schmitt for ARD.

role	actor	Voice actor
Tarzan	Johnny Weissmüller	Thomas Danneberg
Jane Parker	Maureen O'Sullivan	Heidi Treutler
Harry Holt	Neil Hamilton	Joachim Hansen
Mr. James Parker	C. Aubrey Smith	Siegfried Schürenberg
Riane	Ivory Williams	Panos Papadopulos

Web links

• Tarzan the Ape Man in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Tarzan the ape man at rotten tomatoes (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See document of the film inspection agency from March 2, 1934 in the DIF archive (pdf)
2. ↑ Tarzan, the ape man. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .  
3. ↑ See cinema.de
4. ↑ See prisma.de
5. ↑ See synchrondatenbank.de