Bowl of Serials: Tarzan the Tiger Episode 10

Bowl of Serials delves into the world of movie serials in cinematic history, one episode at a time.  First up, Tarzan the Tiger, a 15 episode serial that ran in theaters weekly between 1929 and 1930.  The episodes starred Frank Merrill (Tarzan), Natalie Kingston (Jane), Al Ferguson (Werper), and Kithnou (La) and were directed by Henry MacRae.

In the last dramatic installment, Tarzan's duplicitous friend Werper teamed up with the high priestess La to hunt down an amnesiac Tarzan and Jane. For their part, the jungle couple had been heading back to the Temple of Apor to find the treasure when they came upon a deer stuck in a bog. Tarzan freed the animal, but they were set upon by a lion.

The lion as it turns out was not interested in the humans. He takes off through the forest after the deer. Jane is upset about the near miss. Tarzan doesn't remember that Jane is his wife, but he does like her. He offers her the jewels to make her smile and fashions a crown for her head from some branches.

Meanwhile, La is growing restless to find Tarzan. She threatens Werper, but he assures her they will find their prey that day.

Tarzan sets out to find food for Jane and asks a monkey to watch over the woman. He unleashes the jungle yell to ask for help, but only succeeds in attracting the attention of Chulk, the brother of the ape Taglat, whom Tarzan killed in episode 4. Chulk heads off for revenge.

Werper, La and their entourage find and capture Jane. Werper demands to know where the jewels are, but Jane won't say. The tie Jane up and throw her in the forest.

La waits for Tarzan to return and again offers to make him king of Apor. The apeman refuses and demands to know where Jane is. La lures him to a nearby hut and her men capture Tarzan in a net.

Chulk finds Jane and carries her off. What does the ape have planned for Jane? And how will Tarzan escape this time?


I must say I was excited leading into this. The bad guys had teamed up. The good guys were together. It felt like we were heading to the endgame.

Instead, everyone gets split up again and we get the introduction of another random animal rival of Tarzan. For all the apeman's talk of jungle friends, he sure seems to have a lot of enemies.

I wish Tarzan's relationship with his jungle world was better developed. Sometimes, the animals are anthropomorphized, harboring grudges and hatching plots. Other times, the animals are... well, animals. The idea that Chulk a) cares what happened to his brother enough to plot revenge, b) knows who killed Taglat despite not being there, and c) somehow figures out that Jane has a connection to Tarzan is on its face silly. I'm willing to go with it, but the world needs to be more consistent in how its creatures act.

Hopefully, we can finally tie up some of the threads over the next couple of episodes so we can get focused on a Tarzan vs. Werper climax.