Ron Ely’s TARZAN-43-THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON part 2

 

Ron Ely’s TARZAN-43-THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON part 2

 

“We better do what Tarzan says.”

Hank, from the mouth of babes.

 

“Perhaps love is a land you never reach.”

“Maybe that’s what love really is, always trying over and over. The reaching and trying.”

 

Gosh what are Tarzan and Rosie talking about?

 

I really want to like this story, I really do. I’m just not sure I do. It does try to do something different and the truth is that NO other TV show that has regular characters has the suspense that this episode does. The death of Chigga early on in this episode and the picking up of guns by the “peaceful pilgrims” is so stunningly shocking that…I felt that anything could happen and everyone, even little blond boy Hank, could be killed. The blond girl that was sort of with Chigga shoots and kills Rockne’s character (is he named?). BTW Rosanna and Hank had the guns hidden in their wagon the entire time…maybe if they shot Rockne’s character early on or used the guns early on BEFORE the native B’wala (is this a real tribe…and for that matter, are any of the tribes in TARZAN real?) killed Chigga or had their own guns thanks to the evil and cowardly Whitehead (white head? Really?), maybe Chigga would still be alive. They could have just shot in the air to scare them away. It’s just another move by a script that makes us feel almost no sympathy for the peaceful pilgrims OR the native B’wala or anyone really. Even Tarzan seems to fail. He gets shot at again and hit…Whitehead seems to say he greased him, when he should mean grazed him? Or did I hear it wrong?

 

There’s something about the natives circling the pilgrims’ mock up fort that’s very movie and TV show Western – like and not sure how I feel about that. Rosanna even brings up the “poor Native Americans” in her land, America. I used to have sympathy for the Native Americans and I still do but then I learned about what they did to some of their captives and what rituals they did to their animals in what amounts to slow torturous death due to religious beliefs and thus, now feel that they, like all the rest of the human beings on the planet, are from a culture that’s …basically disturbed and sick in the head.

 

In any case, something that would NEVER be done on TV today is having a white man (Tarzan) tied up on a post using his feet to literally beat down a black man into the dirt face down. Did this guard die? His face is covered, too, and I wonder if he is the same “stunt man” or extra who knocks Tarzan out in the next episode JAI’S AMNESIA. Now, that’s a fun episode where as this is a sort of downer. BTW WHAT the hell is with Ely’s feet? They looked bone white and his toe nails looks…heinously white and covered with either white dirt of some kind of fungus. And ewl.

 

Also: after beating the man down with just his feet, he then karate chops him in the back near his neck!

 

Rosanna ultimately goes to the chief to give herself up to let Tarzan and her people go. From there it gets a bit more predictable, something that…I have to admit it was not before this. I mean how was this going to be resolved? The white gang basically shot and killed several of the tribe’s young warriors…whom, I thought had guns of their own and yet can’t seem to shoot straight or even throw spears at the white group.

 

Even so, the show seems to cheat as we see, shockingly, the pregnant woman, who was also shooting and killing tribesmen, get shot. I really thought she was dead from that shot.

 

THEN, a few scenes later we hear a baby cry and see the black woman happily delivering a baby as if she were never shot. What?

 

The wild horse gets away from Tarzan when he stops to look at Whitehead’s “supplies” which are guns. WHY? It seems that there is no reason for him to have left the group yet again while they make another stupid move that even Hank knows is totally wrong…in fact, ONLY Hank knows is totally wrong, even though he helped Rosanna STEAL the guns from the army.

 

Hank even says, “We better do what Tarzan says.” Yet the adults do not. Even after Chigga dies, the blond girl and the others don’t do what Tarzan says and go hide. Instead, they dig in and plan to move forward into the land. Of course, things work out thanks to another few speeches by Tarzan and surprisingly Rosanna herself but it was she who admits that SHE alone was wrong to advocate shooting and killing. Is she dumb or what? Again, it’s hard to feel anything for any of them, except maybe Esau, who also takes up a gun and starts shooting and killing.

 

With so many natives killed (how many? We see maybe two bodies but surely more than that were shot and fell?), is it reasonable for the chief to then suddenly make amends by suddenly believing Tarzan and Rosanna? One moment everyone is out to kill everyone else on the opposite side and the next Tarzan gets the chief to believe him that it is all Whitehead’s fault. BTW what happens to Whitehead’s chubby partner? I don’t believe we even see him driving his stagecoach wagon when Whitehead is in the wagon and someone is driving!? Did he get taken away, too? AND would the chief, who was so murderous in the last episode, really let Whitehead go and not kill him? And the Pilgrims would live in peace. It might he horrid but would the chief eventually kill the Pilgrims who come to live with him on the land they now share and he’s willing to share? What made this chief change so much? Tarzan? Is the chief dumb enough to sign something he doesn’t know what it is and believe Whitehead?

 

I’m also struck by how this might be an indictment of the Israeli’s marching into Palestine and claiming a new country of land that is theirs by right and a Promised Land of love and hope…while lifting up guns and killing. It also reminds me of the movie EXODUS which is about those events, sort of. Of course, this being 60’s TV, it all works out better than the real life events worked out and which make news headlines even today and not in a positive way.

 

The army BTW (not sure what army or where they are from? Bates seems American) is ready to shoot and kill, even when the chief seems to be seeking peace (the sergeant---who seems to be Latino or Spanish and is played by a Latino or Spanish actor I’ve seen before, says, “He’s mine!” but Bates, with a clearer head stops him from killing the chief) and talk.

 

Esau seems to be praying at one point but the show (and most 60s shows) seems to be afraid to full on admit that (though the Robinsons in LOST IN SPACE in the unaired pilot and the scenes lifted from it for the fifth episode do give thanks on their knees---well, all were on their knees except Don---was he Jewish as they do not kneel to God, I think).

 

Ely’s never been bad before but his telling Bates to sit down and talk is…not his best work, shall we say. It feels as if he doesn’t believe in what he is saying…for the first and maybe only time in the series and…who can blame him. This episode is so off kilter in so many ways it must have been hard to believe in it at all and yet…

 

…and yet there is something about it. The ending of the song again and the images of the Pilgrims, even dead Chigga, over the land that they will occupy and share with the now benign chief (and he really does change completely and Marshall’s face and aura, I guess is a better term, seem to be of a totally different character!) smacks of peace and a peaceful ending to something that could have ended much more tragic, though with Chigga and so many tribe men dead it sort of is TARZAN’S first tragedy.

 

Again there is no Jai and no Cheetah.

 

Tarzan’s fight with Whitehead is exciting but that’s down to the choreography, Ely and the other actor as well as the exciting music. Almost all the music other than the lyrics of the two songs are tracks from other episodes, Nelson Riddle episodes as well as other episodes and other composers including William Loose.

 

I don’t understand why Tarzan agrees to fight Whitehead with his hands tied behind his back (he will be more right?) but maybe to give the audience the idea that it might be a more fair fight or might be over less quick? It’s ludicrous. We see blood on Whitehead’s forehead. The fight is impressive because Lauter takes some real kicks or at least it looks like it.

 

The reprise is over SIX minutes long! And the episode still seems to run a bit short.

 

If you watch closely Rockne’s character (named in the credits as only Young Chief) is about to open fire on the pilgrims when the blond girl kills him (the Pilgrims all seem versed in how to shoot rifles!). It’s odd that we rarely see “young chief” with Marshall’s character at all. Are they even from the same tribe? The masks the tribe wears are some of the creepiest in the series.

 

Would this have worked out had Tarzan not been here? Probably not. If the Pilgrims followed his advice they’d leave and not bring help to the natives (sigh, again another white man fantasy?) who have had their numbers dwindled (from either war or white men killing them or both?).

 

It’s hard to like this episode but it’s also hard to hate it, too. It’s different and had a certain something that the others do not, yet it could be one of the worst episodes. It’s just that I’m not so sure.

 

The very end of the faces of Chigga, the blond girl, the short haired girl, Esau, the African American girl (who had her baby and was smiling in the midst of all out war and killing and destruction along with the short haired girl and Rosie), Hank, and Rosie superimposed over the land is an odd one. Then, we see Tarzan on a horse and it just ends. While we hear that song again.

 

This was the weirdest episode yet and there are quite a few contenders for that title.

 

It’s possible that the blond girl is named Millie played by Sabrina (no last name?). There is also Flo (the short haired girl) played by Jayne Massey and Kai Hernandez playing Juayva –the pregnant black woman. There are lots of uncredited actors appearing here including the Sergeant and the chubby driver for Whitehead. You have to be Sherlock Holmes to track down the rest of the cast credited on IMDB but not in the episode.

 

For a while I was dreading this two parter almost as much as the Supremes episode but it wasn’t that bad. Certainly had a lot of slow parts and a lot of clichés with Tarzan being shot but just “greased” and him taming the wild horse (though we never saw that in this series) and Tarzan being knocked out in part 1 and being off somewhere else when Chigga is killed and Rosie makes mistake after mistake. WHY did Tarzan have to follow the wagon Whitehead was in…he ALREADY KNEW it was probably guns!?