Ron Ely's TARZAN-9-THE DEADLY SILENCE part II

 

Ron Ely’s TARZAN-9-THE DEADLY SILENCE part II

 

“Take Cheetah. Cheetah will be your ears.”

“No, Cheetah talks too much.”

 

 

The narration is gone, maybe for good. It was gone last episode, too.

 

More excellence however: makers of this show, the reprise is over 8 minutes long! It’s 9 min and 8 seconds long with the 50 seconds of opening credits/theme song! That’s an awful lot to go back to!

 

I also noticed that during the reprise some things are different and edited differently. For one, Tarzan in the “cliffhanger” looked up and saw a huge predator bird flying away with prey in its claws and this is when he realized he was deaf. This is not in the reprise. The shot of this predator is used later in part II as Tarzan uses a baby antelope as his ears (how dare he!?). There’s some evidence that the antelope wanted to help Tarzan.

 

IN the reprise is a close up shot of blood that came off Tarzan’s head and went onto the jungle dirt/leafy floor. In the cliffhanger, this is quickly darted away from, if shown at all. Some stuff seems missing and some dialog might be different, too. Some shots of the birds looks different, too.

 

Another odd change is that in the cliffhanger, he looks down just before passing out a second time and sees blurry forest. In the reprise (part II), he looks down and sees colorful butterflies. What was that?

 

There’s also lots of birds in both versions. Part of me wonders which version of this they used in the theatrical release that was made from these two episodes.

 

There might be other changes I missed, too. The reprise goes into a commercial and then comes back with more reprise!

 

What a jerk the Colonel is. After touching Tarzan’s blood on the ground, he wipes it off on Chico’s shirt by the shoulder. What a jerk.

 

Most is made of Tarzan’s slight new fear of not having his hearing. He jumps when a monkey of some kind leaps on his shoulder AND faces down a lion, thinking it smells blood AND it’s not afraid of him without his hearing. He’s wrong and it moves on. Ely is excellent, as always, this time in conveying Tarzan’s fear!

 

The show’s always had great music but at about 24 min and 45 seconds in, one of my favorite pieces of soundtrack music comes: it’s not here in full, I don’t think, but it gives the feeling of traveling through jungle or unknown terrain as well as peaceful movement AND at moments, tension. It comes just after Jai says, “I’ll be Tarzan’s ears.” It’s used a few more times in the series.

 

For some reason, Jai carries a red handkerchief with yellow-ish spots. True to form, Jai sends Cheetah away to safety but ignores Tarzan’s order to do the same and he gets grazed by a rock or wood that shattered when a bullet hits a tree or rock…or he’s grazed himself. Tarzan uses the rag to wipe Jai’s eyes when Jai first finds him and before being grazed. He also spots it in Marshak’s hand and realizes Jai is in danger, being left by the idiot Colonel and, against his will, Marshak. The Colonel gave some dumb excuses for Marshak to leave Jai. What a jerk!

 

Oh and as Marshak takes Jai from Tarzan, Jai has a wardrobe malfunction and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

 

Chico’s sinking in quicksand reminds me of the 1940s, 50s and 60s TARZAN  movies and showing his rifle sink in after him is nasty! I like that Tarzan left Chico there but his two dopey comrades couldn’t save him. 

Okay, so…Tarzan has a knife in Marshak’s back and all the while can’t hear him and Marshak tries leading him into a trap where the Colonel will shoot him. Marshak sort of doesn’t want Jai to die so he throws Jai into Tarzan and runs. Is this his way of escaping? For some reason, the entire climax feels …just wrong on a few levels.

 

Jai tells Tarzan that Marshak saved him from the Colonel but that’s not entirely true. Marshak left Tarzan a few times and had to be recaptured. He left Jai in a cave for Tarzan to find and he betrays Tarzan’s whereabouts at least twice.

 

The biggest feeling of failure is that…Tarzan never faces off against the Colonel at all. It is Marshak who had a huge fight with the Colonel and the Colonel dies when he falls after a huge scuffle with Marshak and hits his head on a rock. Really? One huge villain and Tarzan doesn’t get to fight with him again in the finale? And then Tarzan just lets Marshak go? Was Marshak that much of a “good guy”? I say no. The whole ending feels like a let down, despite a really good choreographed fight between Marshak and the Colonel (who’s real name is never revealed as far as I can recall). Then, letting Marshak go and HAVING JAI LIE about it to the authorities just feels wrong. I don’t think Marshak did all that much to win Tarzan’s favor of letting him go. In fact, the only reason his fight happened with the Colonel was because the Colonel was mad at him that he didn’t follow orders. If the Colonel had been okay with it, Marshak would have easily and willingly kept up his fight against Tarzan.

 

The whole ending is wrong IMO. Marshak says he has no “beef” with Tarzan but he did. He was actively trying to kill Tarzan. I wonder if he’s in any of the future episodes and if the Colonel’s sister has him killed. I almost hope so!

 

In any case, this episode is good but not as good as the first part!