With the endless obsession and speculation about who has played James Bond or Batman, movie fans would do well to realise that this sort of thing has been happening for decades – take Tarzan for example. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ vine dangling ape lord had had a sizable amounts of Doctor Who-style face lifts ever since Johnny Weissmuller vacated the loin cloth back in the late 40s, and much like the different iterations of Bruce Wayne and 007, each new actor was required to bring something new in order to stop Lord Greystoke becoming as stale as a month old banana.
Thus, in 1966, the mantle of Tarzan passed to actor Mike Henry, a former American football linebacker, who was required to give us a more slick version of the classic hero on the behest of producer Sy Weintraub. Weintraub had been slowly bringing Tarzan into the modern era with every movie he watched over since 1959 and wanted him to be more of an educated, loner as described in the original stories, rather than a heroic savage who spoke like a cartoon caveman. However, with a noticeably strong Bondian influence at play, did Tarzan And The Valley Of Gold take things too far?
As the last few films had portrayed Tarzan as a globe hopping trouble shooter that used his mighty brawn to mop up villainy in such places as India and Thailand, we find Tarzan clad in a suit and tie and flying a commercial airline in order to answer a summons for help that’s come from one of his old acquaintances in Mexico. It seems that a wealthy, international criminal named Augustus Vinero, whose trademark is crafting watches and jewelry crammed with explosives, has set his eye on trying to locate the fabled valley of gold and he doesn’t care who he has to slaughter to get it.
After narrowly avoiding an early assassination attempt by *checks notes* crushing a man to death with a giant steel coke bottle, he heads on to meet with his contact only to find that he his wife have been murdered and a small orphan boy named Ramel has been kidnapped.
But what’s so special about this little boy? Well, for a start, he apparently knows the secret location of the hidden city, so he’s going to have to act like a living, breathing satnav for Vinero in order to keep his young life – but with the aid of a cadre of wild animals including Dinky the chimp, a lion named General and Ramel’s pet leopard, Tarzan gives chase.
However, once he catches up, the king of the swingers is going to have his calloused hands full as not only does Vinero have his array of glittering boom-jewelry, he has troops, tanks and a big bald bruiser named Mr. Train on his side who would all happily render a city full of nuns into a smoking crater is given the order.
Thankfully, Tarzan, Ramel and Vinero’s former squeeze, Sophia, get to the Valley of Gold first, but to our hero’s dismay, he finds it’s jam packed with pacifists who’s positive attitude is going to be a fat lot of good against the salvo of a tank…
While Tarzan And The Valley Of Gold certainly has its flaws, there’s a real sense that Wientraub was pushing extra hard at this point to get his particular vision as the opening moments feel more like something out of Goldfinger than anything we’d seen from the jungle bound franchise before. Where previous installments saw other Tarzans leaping out of biplanes into lakes and swimming to the bank dressed in only a loin cloth and a hunting knife, Valley Of Gold has Mike Henry’s adventure arriving into Mexico clad in a dapper suit and sitting contentedly in a widow seat on a commercial flight. This, alongside that fact that the opening credits feature Saul Bass-style credits and swaggering lounge core theme, means that the film feels more Flemming than Burroughs for its first third. However, while this shift in image does wonders for anyone tired of the usual Tarzan tropes (I’ll say it again: he crushes a man to death with a giant fucking Coca Cola bottle), it doesn’t exactly help Henry much as his very basic acting style doesn’t quite lend itself to the gentleman spy act he’s being required to play. However, while you can take the man out of the loin cloth, you can’t take the loin cloth out of the man, and once the actor is allowed to peel himself out of that suit and climb into something a little more adventure-friendly, Henry’s physicality manages to iron over amy acting wrinkles.
While he admittedly never bothered the likes of Weissmuller or Gordon Scott (primarily because I couldn’t get the thought of him playing the idiot son of Buford T. Justice in Smokey And The Bandit), Henry makes quite a successful version primarily because he looks like he just strode barefoot out of the pages of a Boy’s Own adventure magazine. Tall and built like a complete unit, the man even has a lantern and the brylcreamed hair of a 1950s Superman and once he’s in his “uniform” (interestingly, his words, not mine) he looks virtual perfect.
However, in a clear case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, once Valley Of Gold shifts gears into a more traditional Tarzan adventure, it inevitably has nothing much more to say other than supply the standard action beats. Sure, Robert Day manages to cram in classic aspects from the series without actually including them (not Cheetah or Boy, but an incredible simulation), but both Ramel and the unfortunately named Dinky don’t bring anything new to the party apart from nostalgia. However, some major credit has to given to some innovative action as Henry cuts a mean figure whether wielding a humongous machine gun or taking out helicopter with a bolo made out of a pair of grenades with the pins pulled. It’s so comic book, is untrue and he later even comandeers a tank with explosive results which is even more impressive when you realise that it’s all done with real tanks, real extras and real Aztec temples.
While Henry may indeed be as wooden as the trees he swings from, that doesn’t stop Tarzan And The Valley Of Gold from being a decently entertaining time, even if the final battle with the hulking Mr. Train is little more than a sweaty test of strength that doesn’t even reward us with a snappy kiss-off line (what, no: “He went off the rails.” or anything?) and Vinero’s karma-heavy demise doesn’t even require Tarzan’s participation. Still, as a basic level entry to the franchise, this film has just enough cool stuff to ensure that it’s almost worth its weight in gold.
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