Ron Ely’s TARZAN-33-THE VOICE OF THE ELEPHANT

 

Ron Ely’s TARZAN-33-THE VOICE OF THE ELEPHANT

 

“The boy’s persistent. I like that.”

 

“I still don’t understand. If you had made them let Tanto go in the beginning, none of this would have happened.”

 

For a series with so many elephants, it’s odd that this is the first time the name comes up in a title.

 

True story. Not sure what it was about the show but my parents made sure I never knew it existed for the longest time. I was very young in 1966, probably five or almost six. About that time, I was introduced to my father’s one and only Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller (whom his brother resembled A LOT and even acted like) and was allowed to see the TARZAN movies on TV, mostly the ones with Boy, starting with TARZAN’S NEW YORK ADVENTURE. I guess they felt I was too young for some of the themes and violence in Ely’s TARZAN. As I grew up, the Tarzan movies were on constantly on UHF stations and every weekend, sometimes twice on both Saturdays and Sundays. I eventually saw every one of them. BUT Ely’s Tarzan, which was rerun on cable stations constantly on the weekends in the 1980s almost up to the 1990s, eluded me until…

 

…A UHF station that came on, TV-67 I think it was reran TARZAN with Ron Ely, totally UNCUT with barely 30 seconds of commercials for each break. They also ran LAND OF THE GIANTS, LOST IN SPACE, PETER GUNN, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (the only one to survive going into the 1990s since it has the most episodes but then they started cutting the episodes), 12 O’CLOCK HIGH, and others, all uncut and with limited breaks. As you can imagine they were popular but didn’t last long.

 

It was on this station that I saw my first Ron Ely TARZAN and maybe not the whole thing as it was on very late (10 or 11) and/or I had the dreaded and horrid Catechism classes (which also made me not see most TIME TUNNEL episodes for AT LEAST TEN YEARS) in which I was made to fear God and hate organized religion, which made me fear God and feel bad about myself.

 

In any case, this gave me a false idea of the show. Jai, in the first few minutes is seen FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE SERIES, though I did not know that, in a huge treehouse. Manuel, in these scenes, looks amazed at the tree house and the wooden elevator, so much so that it seems as if Jai never saw these things himself. I also wonder that this treehouse wasn’t a leftover set from the early movies as it looks NOTHING like the other episodes of Tarzan nor does the back lot forest shown around it. It’s an odd scene for this series and most unlike the show but it gave me the impression that this was what the show was like: Cheetah playing hi jinks with Jai’s paint set in the treehouse, an elephant, and a shirtless little boy running around until the elusive Tarzan eventually shows up to save him from events and danger. Of course the show had a little of that but this was the very first time (and maybe ONLY?) time we see this treehouse.

 

I checked TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN and TARZAN’S NEW YORK ADVENTURE and this treehouse interior and exterior looks almost exactly like those with a few less dressings and trappings.

 

Oh, and Jai has a spelling book for some reason. Does Tarzan teach him? Is he going to some kind of school? Who knows? In any case, just as he steps in the paint he seems to be on the left side of the treehouse (we only see this room?) and when he tells Cheetah that is his spelling book he seems to be on the right side with the window (one of the many) behind him. Then he chases Cheetah from the left side.

 

Oddly, Jai has long hair in most of these scenes and then later when running after Cheetah we get stock footage of him calling after Cheetah and he looks younger and has shorter hair! Later, of course, which is more common, we see stock of early season one footage of Ely with darker hair, shorter hair, swinging on vines, swimming, climbing a tree, and running.

 

There’s only one thing wrong with this fine episode: in the climatic ending Tarzan beats down ALL three villains one at a time, which is fine but when two of their henchmen attack, firing rifles and killing two random villagers who go after either Arthur Brady (John Doucette who played Ulysses in THE TIME TUNNEL-REVENGE OF THE GODS) or his accomplice Matusi (the always good Percy Rodrigues who has a long list of credits including THE STARLOST, the same character in two episodes of the 1970s telepathic series THE SIXTH SENSE, and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, among many others). Tarzan is ignored by these two men who seem to run one way and Tarzan runs past them to chase Matusi, Brady, AND their other henchman the muscled good looking and this time bloodthirsty Ramahit (played with malice by the almost semi regular Rockne Tarkington and he’s great here as well).

 

SO….let’s get this straight: the main reason the villains’ plan to sell stolen goods (this time stuff that natives MIGHT need such as food and other goods like medical supplies) is Tarzan. The two men run past him after shooting two random men who were trying to hold Matusi and let Tarzan live? These two rifle men create more mayhem than anyone at Tanto, the elephant’s trial and yet they are just allowed to run…don’t seem to kill anyone that we know of or care about…or are shown…and seem never to be captured or stopped? WHAT?

 

The entire climax stops when Tarzan, separately and quickly beats down all three: Brady gets a beat down, well deserved since he sort of ordered the death of innocent Hendricks (Robert MacDougal) who found their cave of loot…and Brady is beaten down several times; he easily catches a spear thrown by Ramahit (and then doesn’t use it to stop him so it makes me wonder if NBC or the studio was unhappy with previous episodes where Tarzan killed with a spear and forced them NOT to make him kill here, though he does flip two men into a pit with a lion in it but maybe the network didn’t want spear deaths any longer?) and Tarzan punches him out quickly…far too quickly…I would have liked to see these two fight longer; and then amazingly, Tarzan uses a log that Matusi wielded on him to choke Matusi and breaks the log on his neck, probably killing him.

 

Refreshingly, Murray Matheson, who usually plays a sinister type, here…isn’t. He’s thoroughly amused by Jai and likes the boy, immediately accepting his challenge to become the voice of Tanto, the elephant as his lawyer in the sham trial that accuses Tanto of killing (trampling) the victim. The facts come out later, horrifyingly that Tanto was forced somehow by the villains to trample over the already dead body of  Hendricks.

 

Another first here is that Jai is totally disappointed in Tarzan’s inability to stop the tribe from putting Tanto on trial. It’s a new area for the show and the writers and it works well here, is handled delicately and expertly.

 

Maurice Marsac as Major Domo has the challenge of being comic foil to Cheetah who distracts him long enough for Jai to get in and try to find Murray’s character Judge James Lawrence. Some of it, like Cheetah squirting him in the face is even funny. Question: he calls Cheetah a monkey. Is he? I thought he was a chimpanzee. The scenes of Jai with Domo and with James are wonderful. Since James is not a regular when he separates from Tarzan, I fully expected his character to be killed but, refreshingly, he is not. Oh, and Cheetah blows off a raspberry at Domo, at least I hope it is just that as much as I hope the spray Cheetah uses is a pool squirting from a fountain!

 

 

I do believe the rock fall when Tarzan pushes the boulders out from the cave so he, Jai and James can escape is also stock footage. For once, the stock footage does seem to be used well in just about every scene and there’s a lot of animals here: Cheetahs, lions, leopards, panthers, antelope, zebra, bulls, a rhino, birds of all kinds, bats in the cave, hippos, and more.

 

Since Jai is soured at Tarzan’s efforts of lack thereof, he has to direct his friends, including James and another native (Belita, one of the only non-chiefs in the series who is not a bad guy or son of a chief to talk all but briefly) to guide Jai toward James’ help at the Golana Government House (which looks nothing like the previously named Golana Gov’t House although we do see a kind of pool). This leads Jai to go to the gov’t HQ. It’s also odd, in this series, to see so many well dressed, more mainstream 1960s people there.

 

The soundtrack is adequate and almost reaches for that theme music incorporated into the episodic themes and hits that but doesn’t reach the greatness of the next episode’s soundtrack which is awesome. BTW at times, especially when Jai arrives at Golana Gov’t House and when Tarzan fights natives, the music comes dangerously close to sounding a lot like some of BATMAN’s more familiar soundtrack tracks.

 

The muscular extra who is in many episodes rough handles Jai so gets a kick from a Tarzan who has his hands tied behind his back.

 

The plot is a good one if a juvenile one and an outlandish one at that. One bit left in has…Jai vaguely refer to something eluded to but not really discussed much, if at all, “I don’t care what his mother did…” meaning that perhaps Tanto (wonder why they didn’t use the Tantor name? Perhaps rights issues with either Burroughs or the Weismuller movies?) was blamed for being rogue like his mother and maybe his mother killed men? It’s an odd line or maybe I missed something.  

 

After killing Hendricks, Matusi talks of a boat to Jamjau that the man expected to be on. The goods were stolen supplies, food, med supplies and precision instruments. There’s an attempt to make the chief, in the end, kind and gentle but he’s a rather dopey leader from the start, all the same, believing this elephant could kill someone. It is he who tells Jai he has the blood of a rogue elephant and must be destroyed before he is fully grown. Tarzan shows up at just the right time so Jai should be grateful for that! Tarzan also has to talk this chief into admitting the law is not just for working elephants (Matusi’s lied that it’s not) and to present some basic facts to this lame, bloodthirsty and dumb chief.

 

Later, however, after they find Tanto but not Jai or Jim, Tarzan trusts Matusi to bring Tanto back to the village! I guess he still didn’t suspect him?

 

The villagers are equally nasty or just uninvolved as none of them want to evoke the trial so Tarzan has to but of course this is a plot device to drive a slight wedge between Tarzan and poor Jai.

 

To get to the village, Judge Lawrence, who BTW is one of the…NO, THE nicest person we’ve met in all of the series so far, has to follow the river path north. Does that mean to get there, Jai followed the river path south? The Judge was taken with Jai on sight and amused by him.

 

Jai tells Jim that Tanto wouldn’t hurt anyone, not even a spider!

 

There’s also stock of Jai on an elephant that looks almost nothing like Tanto. The stock elephant looks larger and does not have the harness Tanto wears. Jai’s hair is shorter there, too, and he looks younger.

 

BTW in this episode, most of the time, Jai’s hair is so long it looks like it covers almost his entire neck and in some scenes as he turns his head, almost hits his chest!

 

Why would Cheetah wake up Tanto’s guard?

 

Unlike other young heroes such as JOHNNY QUEST or later THE RED HAND GANG, Jai doesn’t care why the crooks are doing what they are doing and doesn’t care why they are there, he just wants to protect and clear Tanto.

 

For once, Jai stands vigil over Tarzan’s unconscious self and wipes his brow with water, however short it is! Being that Jai was not very happy with Tarzan at the moment, this was touching, as always.

 

Some of the music when they are trapped in the cave and looking for the way out that Tarzan unblocks sounds like music we’ve heard before, possibly in either MAN KILLER or TIGER, TIGER or some other episode or all three (?). And yet the music as Tarzan does the unblocking is pure Nelson Riddle. BUT I don’t understand: if Tarzan unblocked the exit one way, why do the trio seem to be back in the cave with the supplies when they go through it? Even odder is that while Tarzan fights Ramahit, Jim pulls Jai back to an outcropping of rock they were seen hiding behind BACK IN THE CAVE!? when Tarzan was unblocking the exit (?) and then they were just behind him in that scene!?

 

I thought I spotted the boy extra in this episode, too, when Jai first looks at Hendrick’s body. There is a boy behind him, taller, and possibly the boy who almost overtook the scene in THE ULTIMATUM, I believe or some other episode with his legs spread and his hands folded.

 

As ever Ely moves like a great ape throughout. Also: I noticed Jai’s protective hand motion near Jim, much as Tarzan’s protective hand motions to Jai happen frequently. It’s a physical acting that’s impressive and often overlooked by audiences. Tarzan seems to get Ramahit but then as the trio escape, we shift to outside and an elephant stampede? What?

 

Tarzan still calls Jai son at times. He also holds his chin and pats his head at times. All of which cements their relationship visually across the entire series and is charming. At 44 minutes in, during Jim’s defense of Tanto and speech from the POV of Tanto, Jai’s part in his hair changes sides!

 

The fight scenes in this episode are some of the best of the series.

 

During Jim’s defense, he calls the treehouse, Jai’s. Just how did the villains force Tanto to trample over the body? There’s some soft evidence that Brady is not a killer at first glance or at least that he didn’t really want to kill anyone.

 

As you can see I’ve detailed a lot about this episode and pointed out everything but only because I’m very fond of it and think it’s very entertaining and one of my favorite episodes. One thing I don’t get is how they could mess up the ending the way that they did. With two rifle wielding men present, Tarzan goes after the weaponless Brady first! The two men are ordered by Ramahit to shoot…but who does he order them to shoot? The guards going after Brady. Then, the two men run. To where? No one seems to go after Tarzan with the rifles or guns…instead, Ramahit throws a spear at Tarzan? Why? Where do the two men…and for that matter the other four men with guns that are on Ramahit’s side it would appear GO? Do they get caught? Where are they running to? Does the plot with the hijacked goods end or do the surviving men get away and sell the stuff? Again, as in other episodes, we’re not told really and it’s frustrating.

Why doesn’t Tarzan spear Ramahit? He’s done it before. I can take that perhaps it’s because he’s a hero but then why not have a huge fight with the man? I guess they already did that in the storeroom of the cave? I also did not realize this but Jai basically watches Tarzan kill Matusi IF that log snapping over the man’s neck does kill him.

 

Jai apologizes to Tarzan that he was angry at him and thanks him for saving Tanto’s life. Cheetah rides an elephant that does not look a  lot like Tanto. Jim gives Jai a book about law. Jai thanks him. Apparently Jai can read. The chief tells Jim that his eloquent description of what Tanto saw convinced him and the Elder of the Council to believe Tanto was innocent even before Tarzan brought in Brady (who confessed he saw Matusi kill Hendricks).

 

What are those green things stuck on Tanto in the very last few moments? The last moment is stock of Tarzan, Jai, Cheetah and Tanto from another episode leaving.

 

Okay, this is probably the longest review and detailing and it’s because I really love this episode in almost every aspect. I think it’s a step up from recent episodes and tries at horror and/or mystery. It is also a sort of amalgamation of old style Tarzan (Johnny, Lex) with the newer (Jock, Gordon, Henry) and this show’s specific joy with the Boy figure getting into his own adventures (Jai, of course) with a sort of Cheetah who is just an animal but also a bit more than that but not something that’s going to get them out of everything. The fights when compared to the fights in Johnny’s TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN, which I just saw a bit of due to looking for the tree house, are similar and no less or more than those (love Kimba vs Boy, too, though there Cheetah IS an out for Boy—Kimba almost killed Boy!).

 

One more thing I must note: Manuel Padilla Jr. again: he has a huge range to conquer here and he proves he’s more than up to the task. If worried about Tanto, angry at Cheetah or Tarzan, apologetic to Tarzan, thankful and joyful to Jim, or fearful and frustrated with the villains, Manuel is more than convincing, more than adequate and a master at making us believe in his outlandish character of Jai, even among well dressed civilians who looked like they wandered in from some other show and from another country at the base.

 

Well done, TARZAN and Jai. Would have loved to see James return in another episode.