Ron Ely’s TARZAN-19-CAP’N JAI

 

Ron Ely’s TARZAN-19-CAP’N JAI

 

There’s a tradition among movies and some TV shows of putting kids, teenagers, even young children in dire danger, even death and having their comrades shot and killed as in the wildly sinister and violent movie EYEWITNESS (aka THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF) and the Ray Milland Italian based film THE STUDENT CONNECTION (aka EYEWITNESS TO MURDER---https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-student-connection-ray-milland-aka.html).

 

The forgotten movie with John Carradine THE HOSTAGE has a small boy taken by horrible criminals in a truck. And COHEN AND TATE are two murderers who have Harley Cross, a small boy, in their sights. And though there are no deaths in LET’S KILL UNCLE, one of William Castle’s later films, the prevailing attitude is anti-Disney.

 

Thing is this episode starts out all jolly and even has the accompanying Disney like music to boot, all happy go lucky as if this will be a Jai filler episode where Jai gets into some slap happy mischief. Truth is: it’s deadly.

 

First, Dutch lies to Jai about one Joe Hatcher being his brother and that he will not harm him. Dutch Jenson actually doesn’t kill Joe here but his partner, the Swedish (I think) Cookie (yes, this man’s name is Cookie and he wears glasses like a lot of evil crooks and killers in TARZAN movies) shoots him in the back. While we don’t actually see any bullet holes get made, we do, later see a blood hole on the man’s back! While we’re on it, six natives work for Joe on an old plantation.

 

When Joe is attacked by Dutch, Zanto, and Cookie in the main house, the six come running with machetes and the like. Dutch seems to knock one out (or kills him?) and Zanto out and out shoots another down (again, we see no bullet hitting or marks but it’s strongly implied and the man does down, that much we do see). After Joe runs out of the house, Zanto and Cookie soon follow. What happened to the other four natives? Were they killed, too? Or knocked out or what? We’re never told.

 

Frankly, throughout Dutch is an unlikable character, even at the end. I never really took to him. He lies to Jai, fakes writing a long note that Cheetah will carry to Tarzan (who appears only at the start and the end), and has plans to abandon Jai when Jai’s ankle or foot is hurt helping Dutch get out of a hole in a pit where a treasure was: one that the four men stole together and that Joe ran away to hide from the other three. Jai helped the three men get their travel truck from its side and led the men right to Joe Hatcher, so he’s responsible really. In a VERY odd scene, Joe stumbles out, shot in the back and falls near Jai, who bends down and holds the man’s back for an instant until the commercial break…but then when Dutch arrives and begins talking as if Joe is just sleeping and but then reveals Joe is dead and deserved it, Jai doesn’t look a bit worried or upset! WT? With blood on the man’s mouth and Dutch just rolling the body over in front of Jai as Jai watches, unperturbed!

 

Maybe the station issues a notice that Jai was not to be in too much anxiety or distress? I do know Irwin Allen was issued several notices about such things regarding Will and Penny on LOST IN SPACE---ridiculous things: the kids could not be alone with Dr. Smith or the Robot or both (both were then killers); the kids could not show much fear at all, even against monsters, which were not to be too scary; and the mother was not to be put in peril around her children; then later…the mother was not to be put in ANY dangerous situations as it would upset the kids! There were other things, too, but you get the idea in regard to Jai’s distress.

 

Speaking of distress, this episode looked like a difficult one to make (not that the other looked easy to make!) and Manuel’s tiredness is probably a mix of good acting from him and REALLY being tired and strained to the max physically but this tough looking shoot and climbing, holding onto Dutch, etc. Manuel looks really ill in one shot or two when he’s riding Dutch’s back piggy back style after Jai has hurt his ankle. He looks like he’s really sick and tired and buries his face in the actor’s back. He also looks like he’s in real pain. And then a vined thin tree hits him as it snaps back from the actor playing Dutch into Manuel.

 

 

 

Jai looks like he’s had a hair cut and for some reason, to me, he looks younger in this episode. Was this episode a hold over from earlier filmed?

 

On his way home, Cheetah encounter a lion just like Cheetah in movies like TARZAN FINDS A SON. Dutch is similar to characters on shows like FLIPPER (who befriend the young boy and try to con him or do con him), LOST IN SPACE (Dr. Smith, several pirate characters) and LAND OF THE GIANTS (Mr. Fitzhugh), who lies to young boys (usually boys) and con them. I guess this is based on Long John Silver, a villainous character who cons Jim Hawkins in TREASURE ISLAND but the two share a bond that makes both likeable.

 

It seems Cookie, Elroy Dutch Jensen, Zanto and Joe were all ship mates. Dutch talks of settling down in Java once he’s rich. They robbed diamonds from a diamond mine company in South Africa. Joe left to make it look like he was running a plantation where he found diamonds while diamond mining. I’m not sure it’s every disclosed how long ago this happened but it seems like at least seven years back? Maybe longer?

 

In the end, Dutch knocks Zanto off the cliff into the spring of algae to his death and then…Cookie has Jai’s hand in his hand, threatening to throw Jai over the cliff if he doesn’t get the diamonds. In order to free Jai, Dutch throws the diamonds to Cookie who tries to catch them and he falls to his death doing so. Thing is he lets go of Jai’s arm and hand to do so…but how did Dutch know that would happen? He was risking Cookie  taking Jai off the edge  with him.

 

The tarantula that crawled up Dutch when he was helping Jai get out from the pit was…unnerving. We don’t see what Dutch did to it and he says something like BLOODY SPIDER!

 

As ever, the locations are beautiful and exotic as Jai and Dutch climb, crawl, and use a dugout to get to where they have to go and yet we are in another cave set…and that’s a good one, too. The episode looks like a million dollars, especially as the two reach the top of the mountain. The view down is spectacular.

 

So…Manuel can hold down the show when Ely is taking off, I guess. I wouldn’t want this every week though because the relationship between Jai and Tarzan, at least for me, is what drives the show and Tarzan is the star. Though when Jai is not in it, it feels as something and someone VERY IMPORTANT is missing and he is.

 

Joe quotes Robert Browning but here is the whole poem:

poem written by Robert Browning when he was in Italy:

 

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

 

"Oh to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower

- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower."