The Allegoric Hegemony

The third and last of Mike Henry’s Tarzan movies, Tarzan and the Jungle Boy, sends Tarzan into the jungle to help rescue a boy (a very young Steve Bond) who’s been lost for years.  One of two brothers fighting for rulership of their tribe doesn’t want the boy found because of what’s he’s witnessed.

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Tarzan is once again summoned from Africa to South America where it’s apparently cheaper to film.  This time, a claw weilding cultist is threatening, enslaving, and murdering people along the river.  With the help of a riverboat captain (Jan Murray), the captain’s orphan sailor (Manuel Padilla, Jr.) and a lady doctor (Diana Millay), Tarzan tracks the baddies through the jungle and brings the vaccine the natives need.

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Ape man meets secret agent man in this 1966 re-work of Tarzan.  Ex NFL linebacker Mike Henry arrives on the scene to fill out the loincloth in a helicopter and carrying a brief case.  He then defeats his first bad guy by crushing him with a giant bottle of coke.  Rather than the jungles of Africa, Tarzan swings through South America to find a lost civilization and defend it from Bond-like villian Augustus Vinero (Star Trek TOS’s Anan 7, David Opatoshu).  Tarzan and the Valley of Gold modernizes the ape man and has him communing with the animals and machine gunning baddies.  Oh yeah, he takes down a helicopter with a make-shift explosive bola.  Not a bad movie if you just want some mindless entertainment and primo eye candy.

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Virginal Jane Parker (Bo Derek) journeys to Africa in 1981′s Tarzan the Ape Man looking for the father who abandoned her and her mother.  In addition to dear old dad, Jane finds plenty of danger and a hot ape man (Miles O’Keeffe) to rescue her when needed.  John Phillip Law also has a part as the official expedition photographer who can’t keep his shirt on.

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Dar comes to the rescue of a psychic being pursued by King Zad who wants to use her powers for his own evil ends (what else?).

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George of the Jungle 2 brings back the clumsy, swing challenged ape man but this time without Brendan Fraser (the narrator tells us the studio was too cheap to get him back).  Instead Christopher Showerman takes a turn in the loin cloth as he tries to rescue his beloved Ursula and son Junior from his conniving mother in law and Ursula’s ex-fiance, and save Ape Mountain from being bull dozed into oblivion.  While Showerman brings an awesome body, the picture lacked something from the original whether it was the script or lack of Fraser.  But at least they kept the theme song.

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Dar and Tao try to help a village whose young men have been disappearing to an island full of women.  Demon killer women.

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Dar finds the Tao has once again gotten into trouble.  This time he’s run afoul of tree top dwelling “Manlinks.”

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[Tao gets ready to leave his  muscle buddy reunited with his long lost girl when once again baddies attack and Kyra must sacrifice to save the Beastmaster.

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The Sorceress manages to return Shiraq (Daniel Fitzgerald) to hunky human form temporarily until the Ancient One finds out what she’s been up to.  Then to muddy the waters, the Ancient One releases Kyra back to King Zad, which prompts Dar and Tao to do the rescue thing.

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