Bowl of Serials: Tarzan the Tiger Episode 11

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.

 When last we saw Tarzan, he had just been captured by the high priestess La (who wants to take him as her mate) and his former friend Werper (who is after a treasure and Tarzan knows the location). Worse, Tarzan is still suffering from memory loss from an earlier accident. Meanwhile, Jane has been kidnapped by Chulk, an ape seeking vengeance for his brother's death at the hands of Tarzan.

La's men throw Tarzan into a spike-lined pit. Inexplicably, the apeman misses every spike. La demands Tarzan pledge his love, but Tarzan says he wants Jane.

Chulk is trying to untie Jane so he can give her to Werper. A monkey friend of Tarzan has been following our heroine and her captor and goes to enlist Tantor the elephant's help.

Back at the pit, La's men grab their spears and prepare to impale our helpless hero when Tantor charges in and makes the save. Tarzan escapes with the animals and learns from the monkey that Jane is in danger.

Chulk is still working to free Jane when Tarzan arrives. A fight ensues and Tarzan kills the ape. The reunited couple takes off for the temple to try and recover his memories.

They find a lion with a fresh kill and chase the predator off. The animal carcass becomes useful for distracting some crocodiles as Tarzan and Jane cross a river.

As they near the temple, Tarzan goes off on a reconnaissance mission, leaving Jane who quickly is quickly found by a couple of the bad guys.  How will she escape?



If watching Tarzan serials is charted against the five stages of grief, I've reached the last stage: acceptance.

It's maddening that the amnesia plot line is still going. It's frustrating that Jane gets captured by another ape and Tarzan makes the save, a complete repeat of events from seven episodes ago. It's ridiculous that Chulk has a revenge plot built around facts he couldn't possibly know (because he's an ape and I doubt he thinks a lot about Werper's motivations).

You know what? At this point, that's what this is and I'm okay with it. I had higher hopes at the beginning, but I have come to accept that Tarzan will have amnesia until at least chapter 14. Tarzan will continue to inexplicably leave Jane alone. Arbitrary animals will attack to pad this story out.

We did get an awesome new wrinkle this time around with Tantor and the monkey proactively saving their human friend. For all of the jungle friend talk, there was little actual evidence thus far that Tarzan had any real allies.

Still, it is becoming tedious to watch a different variation on the same subplots over and over. I've given up on being surprised. Just get me to the end.