Bowl of Serials: Tarzan the Tiger Episode 7

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.
 

So where'd we leave off? Werper had just sold Jane into slavery when Tarzan came busting into the slave market riding Tantor the elephant.

The merchant who purchased Jane mounts a camel and takes off with her, with Tarzan in hot pursuit.

Werper tries to sneak away, but his men catch him demanding their share of the jewels. They open the bag and discover it's filled with gravel. Score one for Jane. All but one of Werper's men leave him in disgust.

Meanwhile, Tarzan catches the merchant and kills him after a brief fight. Our hero is still suffering from amnesia and thinks Jane stole the jewels. Jane is trying to explain herself when a gunshot rings out. Werper and his henchman have caught up to them. The couple escape into a nearby cave.

Tarzan moves a rock in front of the entrance and Jane gets to work helping Tarzan recover his memory. He seems close for a moment, but then it fades.

However, the peril for our heroes isn't going anywhere. The muzzle of a gun slides into view by the entrance to the cave. And is that a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness?


Oh Tarzan the Tiger, why must you tease me?

It really felt like we were about to put the amnesia plot behind us. It's so cliche I just hate it.

We do get some bad guys making some smart decisions. They see Werper, realize he's a fool, and seek greener pastures. And Werper actually figures out that if he tries to shoot Tarzan from a distance, he won't be immediately thrown out a window.

It feels like we are repeating a lot of the same beats. Hopefully the next episode will get us moving again.

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Simple Question, Difficult Answer: Best Actor of the 1920s

You know the drill.  The poll can be found in the sidebar.

Who do you think was the best actor of the 1920s?

• John Barrymore (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Beau Brummel)
• Lon Chaney (The Phantom of the Opera, The Unknown)
• Charlie Chaplin (The Gold Rush, The Kid)
• Douglas Fairbanks (The Mark of Zorro, The Thief of Baghdad) 
• John Gilbert (Bardelys the Magnificent, Flesh and the Devil)
• Buster Keaton (The General, The Seven Chances)
• Emil Jannings (The Last Laugh, The Last Command)
• Fritz Rasp (Metropolis, The Love of Jeanne Ney)
• Rudolph Valentino (Beyond the Rocks, The Sheik)
• Conrad Veidt (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Beloved Rogue)
• Other (include in the comments of this post)

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Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

An empty theater sits, awaiting its next audience. The seats of the chairs lower in unison, inviting the crowd to watch the scheduled movie. The patrons file in and take their seats, the lights lower and the projector springs to life to show...

Dawn is approaching in the city. Its denizens begin to stir, its streets come to life, its machinery starts turning. We see people at work and at play. Committing to one another through matrimony and breaking the bond in divorce. Being born and dying.

It could be any day in any city, but a lone cameraman is there, moving through the crowds and buildings, climbing and flying to document every tick and movement of the metropolis.



I am sure director Dziga Vertov had never heard the term "meta" in 1929, but he certainly understands the concept. At its core, Man with a Movie Camera is a film about an audience watching a film about the camera man creating the film that they are watching. Mindbending stuff.

To make the film more enigmatic, it is clear we are never actually seeing the footage shot by the cameraman being followed on screen. As he is pulled across a waterfall on a platform, he looks to be getting some great footage. But it never appears on the screen. We are only following him.

The set up and premise are challenging (in the best possible way), but the beyond its scenario, the film has to be good to be meaningful. Despite its meta trappings, Man with a Movie Camera is essentially a documentary about life in a city, cinematic ground previously covered by Berlin: Symphony of a Great City.

Except Man with a Movie Camera aspires to so much more. Every frame, every shot is meticulously considered and it's juxtaposition always has a point.

Some of it is obvious. We cut between a wedding and a divorce proceeding. A live birth and a funeral procession.

But others are more whimsical. Opening and closing window blinds intercut with a blinking eye. A seamstress working thread with a film editor cutting film.

The images make you think. About mortality. About the body as a machine. About the possibilities of film. And if a scene doesn't speak to you, another moment is coming hard upon its heels.

For its time, Man with a Movie Camera is revolutionary for its fast editing and cerebral approach. I can't say it was entertaining, but days later I'm still turning individual scenes over in my head.

****1/2 out of *****

Photo from Silent Volume

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Blackmail (1929)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Anny Ondra, John Longden and Sara Allgood 
Produced by British International Pictures

Detective Frank Webber is taking his girl Alice out for a night on the town.  Frank manages to sneak the couple into a posh and exclusive night spot, but Alice seems distracted.  He asks if she'd like to take in a movie later.  She demurs before accepting.

Then a man in a light-colored suit enters the restaurant.  Alice notices him and backs out of her date with Frank.  Frustrated, the detective storms out of the restaurant, but pauses outside the entrance to contemplate his next move.  He seems ready to reenter the building.  When he sees Alice leaving arm-in-arm with the other man.

The man, an artist named Crewe, walks her home, pointing out his flat as they go.  He asks if she'd like to stop up and after a little protesting Alice agrees.

Once in the man's apartment her eye is drawn to a painting of a clown pointing his finger out from the canvas and laughing.  Crewe gives Alice an impromptu art lesson, drawing a slender woman's figure on a cartoonish face she created.  He offers to draw her modeling a dress he has on hand.  She slips into it while he plays the piano.  When she's dressed... he forces her onto the bed.

Alice screams and fights back, but it's no use.  Desperately, she reaches for anything she can find.  Her hand falls on a knife next to a plate of cheese.  There is a struggle hidden behind a curtain. When the confrontation ends, a dazed Alice emerges from behind the curtain.

Panicking, she quickly wipes all evidence of her presence from the room, walks home and slips into bed before anyone notices she is gone.

The next day, Crewe's landlady finds his body and calls the police.  One of the officers is Frank.  He surveys the room and notices Alice's glove on the floor.  Instead of turning over the evidence, he pockets it and goes to speak with his girl.

As Frank starts to confront Alice about her night, the couple are interrupted by petty criminal Tracey, who has Alice's other glove from the murder scene.  He's willing to forget they were there for a payoff.

Can Frank and Alice turn the tables on Tracey?  And can Alice live with her crime?



Amidst all that is going on in film at this point (stilted melodramas and a messy transition to sound), it is fascinating to see Hitchcock's first real talkie arrive. And it's a classic Hitchcock set up. Boy like girl. Girl likes other boy. Girl kills other boy after attempted rape. Boy helps girl cover up crime. Stir in a healthy dose of paranoia and you are ready.

What surprises is Hitchcock's immediate mastery of sound and all of its possibilities in film. There is an amazing sequence with Alice, at the height of her paranoia, listening to another person describe the crime. It's a normal conversation, but gradually the words start to blur and become muffled until all Alice can hear is the word "knife." And the word is shouted like punctuation at the end of a sentence.

More than that (and very unlike the recently reviewed In Old Arizona), Blackmail is a film that revels in its silent moments. The director already seems to grasp the tension created when we hear nothing, when we are holding our breath in anticipation along with the characters on screen.

The other truly notable element of Blackmail is its imaginative camerawork. The camera floats through walls and floors to follow characters up flights of stairs. It finds the small details of every scene: here, a spinning hubcap; there, the tinkling bell above the shop door. We see the characters in extreme closeup, often seeming to challenge the audience directly.

All that said, it's far from a perfect film. The editing, a signature of later Hitchcock work, is too disjointed and choppy in parts. We careen from shot to shot, sometimes with little purpose and sometimes for too short a moment for it to have purpose.

The acting is okay, with the exception of Anny Ondra's Alice. She overplays every emotion in a movie that needs a bit of understatement.

Knowing where Hitchcock is going later in his career only adds to my admiration for Blackmail. Like the pencil drawing in the film, we get hints of genius, but it's unfinished and unrealized here. Still, it's a fascinating watch if only to see the word "Hitchcockian" begin to be defined.

***1/2 out of *****

Photo from The RD Horror Project

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Bowl of Serials: Tarzan the Tiger Episode 6

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 we lost saw the amnesiac Tarzan, he had been captured by now-deceased slaver Achmet Zek's men after being betrayed by his former friend Werper over a satchel of jewels.

His captivity lasts all of ten seconds as he begins beating Zek's men and throws Werper out the window.

He is about to exit, but realizes he can't leave Jane behind. Even though he can't remember her, Tarzan feels Jane is a friend.

The couple head toward the hut where Tarzan was orphaned and adopted by an ape. Jane tries unsuccessfully to help Tarzan regain his memory. After some effort, Tarzan heads for the treetops to sleep, leaving Jane in the hut with the jewels.

Werper and his men find the hut and Werper convinces Jane he instill her friend. He "pretends" to capture her and takes her to the slave market.

Tarzan awakens and finds the hut empty. Enraged because he thinks Jane has betrayed him, he teams up with Tantor the elephant to track her down.

Werper convinces Jane to be sold as a slave and commits to being the highest bidder. Of course, when the moment comes, he does not bid and Jane is sold.

Moments later, Tantor destroys the gates to the market with Tarzan on his back. The elephant stampedes through the square scattering slaves and slaver's alike. What happens next? Tune in next week...


I like the tale they tell here. We get some natural exposition about Tarzan's history. We get Tarzan actually getting an assist from one of his jungle friends. We get Werper going full-on baddie.

Unfortunately, we get Jane being a rube.

"Sure, guy who betrayed me moments ago, I'll totally pretend to be your prisoner. What? You want to sell me as a slave, but buy me yourself? I can see no flaw in your plan?"

The sad thing is from a story perspective, there's no reason for Jane to trust Werper. If she had not trusted, she still would have become a prisoner and been sold as a slave. The script choice serves only to make her look like an idiot.

Still, it's keeping my interest. Wonder what will happen next?

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Bowl of Serials: Tarzan the Tiger Episode 5

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 we last saw Tarzan and Jane, they were captured by the priestess La and her Sun Worshippers, and Tarzan (still suffering from amnesia) was about to meet the business end of a spear. Tarzan's false friend Werper returned to Greystoke to find a suspicious Achmet Zek waiting for him.

The Sun Worshipper hurls the spear at Tarzan from a few feet away and... misses! High and to the right. No sooner does the spear lodge itself in the tree when Zetks men arrive and recapture Jane. A fight ensues and Tarzan rescues La.

La, now believing Tarzan loves her, declares he shall not be harmed. The priestess' necklace reminds Tarzan of the jewels he hid in the forest.

He sets off to find the treasure and discovers Werper has stolen it. Enraged, he seeks out his former friend and sees him in the distance being chased by Zek.

Werper and Zek fight. Werper kills the slaver and escapes from Tarzan back to Zek's camp where Jane is being held.

Werper plots to sell Jane as a slave, but is betrayed by Zek's second-in-command. Werper kills the man, but Tarzan arrives, crashing through the roof to reclaim his jewels.

Zek's men arrive and see their leader dead. Werper claims Tarzan murdered him and is captured. What fate awaits our hero next?


This episode represents the best and worst aspects of this serial so far. The pace really picks up. Zek is taken off the board. Werper is revealed as a bad guy. Tarzan reaches a temporary resolution with La. It ends at an intriguing moment. All good.

But then there's the spear missing Tarzan. You want your hero to earn his escape, not stumble into it. When Tarzan is angry, he starts breaking sticks, uprooting trees and throwing boulders. He looks ridiculous doing it, like my four year old throwing a tantrum. And when the animals "help" him? It consists of him running by a tiger, pointing as though he is speaking with the comatose animal, and running off. Silly.

Still, I'm happy about the forward movement here. I'd be happier if the amnesia subplot fizzled out, but I'm not holding my breath there.

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Off-Topic: Tips for Making a Great Film Podcast (from a Humble Listener)

Off-Topic features post that deviate from my normal 100 Years of Movies marathon.  Topics can be anything in the world of film.

I am a podcast addict.

I listen to podcasts constantly. While 90 percent of them are film-related, I also listen to some news, television and science podcasts. I have some I listen to religiously, looking forward to each new episode like others may anticipate an episode of The Walking Dead or Grey's Anatomy. Some sit on my iPod and are heard when I get a chance. And some others get sampled and discarded after a couple of episodes.

That's a long-winded way of saying I have some thoughts on what separates the good from the bad in the world of podcasting. I will say right up front that I am not a podcaster myself and cannot offer any opinions on equipment or software (though there is plenty of information about that on the web).

Without further ado, my top ten tips for great podcasting:


1. Go into it with a mission.
I have abandoned a number of podcasts that were frankly aimless. If you just want to talk about the latest release with your friends and beam it out, that's fine. But unless your name is Roger Ebert or A.O. Scott, most people aren't going to care. Try to come with some hook. Maybe you focus on a particular obscure genre of film. Maybe you do a more detailed scene by scene analysis of movies than anyone else. Maybe you challenge your cohost to watch a particular film and review that. Give yourself something to stand out from the crowd.

2. Have a format.
This should be a nobrainer but it's often not. Are there segments to your show? Is someone the host? Are you going to give spoilers (definitely announce that in advance)? Be sure to set an agenda.

3. Treat every podcast like its the first (because for someone it will be).
This is a big pet peeve of mine. Look at that mission and your format. Now come up with a short, punchy explanation of what your podcast is. There are bonus points if you can make it entertaining. Repeat that introduction to your podcast before every episode. EVERY. EPISODE.

There is nothing more frustrating as a listener than to hit play on their first episode of a podcast (which may actually be the 12th  or the 112th released ep) and hear three people just start talking. Sure, I can stick around and figure out your format and mission over the next three episodes. But unless you're immediately entertaining, you're going to lose me to someone else's podcast.

4. Limit the number of participants.
Another pet peeve and potentially controversial for some. My ideal is two or three speakers. You can get away with four, but that's pretty much the upper bound for not creating confusion for the listener. I'm listening while I run or drive my car. I do not want to be worrying about whether it's Tom or Joe speaking right now.

If you have more than four people who want to be involved, there are practical ways around that. The AV Club's Reasonable Discussions podcast will include different people in different segments to keep the numbers down. The LambCast rotates amongst a dozen or more members, only retaining its host from episode to episode.

5. One at a time and include any guests.
Again, a common sense one but do not talk over each other. It's frustrating and annoying for listeners. It's okay for one of the participants to interrupt the speaker, but don't make your point until you have the floor. I have dropped podcasts out of frustration with this issue.

On the opposite side, if it's you and your best friend hosting with an occasional guest, realize your natural chemistry may lead you to exclude that guest. Make efforts to include everyone. It should not be a two person conversation where you ask someone else's opinion at the end.


6. Expletives? Just shut the $&@? up.
Another potentially controversial stand, but expletives in podcasts should be used sparingly. It's okay to use it to underline a point (as in "I $&@!?@$ hated this movie!"). But if every other word out of your mouth is on George Carlin's list? I stop listening.

Now, I am no prude, but I have two reasons for feeling this way. First, it frankly sounds immature. I want to get the opinions of people I take seriously as a reviewer. And if you have to rely on expletives to get your point across, you sound less professional. Second, and more practically, I am a parent. I do most of my listening in the car. I do not want to worry about what will come out of the speakers when I press play. If you revel in your explicit tag on iTunes, realize you are immediately limiting your potential audience.

7. Prepare.
This is one that never fails to shock me. If you are going to talk about say Prometheus, have a plot description ready to at least refer to if not read. If you are going to read listener emails, don't openly comment that you can't find them on your computer. Listeners do not want to hear you stumble through items that should be readily at hand.  Mistakes are fine, but when it becomes a trend...

8. Audio quality and presentation matters.
Another pet peeve. If you listen to your podcast and it sounds like one of the participants is in another room, that's a problem. One that needs to be fixed.

In the same vein, the way you sound makes a difference. You need to articulate words, speak clearly and not pepper your discussion with "like" an "um."

9. Focus on the task at hand.
Look, you and your podcast partner may have been best friends since kindergarten. He may have introduced you to your wife. For the time you are recording, focus on the purpose of the podcast. I'm not saying don't have a personality and don't have a brief conversation about what's going on in your lives. But if you are eight minutes into recording and still haven't gotten into the point of the podcast? Your listeners are frustrated.

10. Content.
It's last because it's a forgone conclusion, but your podcast needs to inform or entertain or preferably both. I have laughed out loud listening to a podcast and I have also seen a movie in a new light. Make sure you have something to say.

Feel free to add your thoughts or additional tips in the contents below.

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