Tarzan And The Leopard Woman (1946) – Review

After nine outings for Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan in as many years, you had to believe that the writers at RKO Studios were running a little low on ideas as production forged ahead on a tenth movie. By this point, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ rugged adventurer had squared up to all manner of evil tribes, cruel hunters and even the Nazis, whilst constantly having to rescue either Boy, Jane or both considering which one was feeling more foolhardy at any given moment. Oh, and let’s not forget the constant capering of Cheeta, whose burn-the-world sense of humour was also a constant source of danger triggering tomfoolery.
The point is that the Tarzan movies had already tapped every bit of originality it could use – hell, Tarzan had even gone to New York at this point – and yet, while Tarzan And The Leopard Woman was undeniably more of the same, a couple of minor adjustments managed to keep this tenth movie swinging just fine.

Since Jane Porter had finally returned in the last movie after a two-fold absence, Tarzan seems to be catching up with lost husband time as we rejoin the jungle dwelling clan as they’re out for a quick spot of shopping in Zambezi. However, his domesticated outing is soon marred by the news that numerous townsfolk have been turning up mauled to death by what looks like leopard attacks and despite Tarzan’s misgivings, the local commissioner does what every blustery white dude from that time period would do in this situation – slaughter every leopard in the surrounding area and beyond.
However, while everyone congratulates themselves for murdering a whole bunch of large, spotty, kitty-cats, the real menace still lurks in the shadows. You see, the real culprits are a cult who worship a leopard God and who want to end the Western domination of Africa by any means necessary and take to wearing hoods and capes made out of leopard skin in order to achieve their goal. Led by the buxom Queen Lea and backed up by Ameer, an embittered doctor who got his medical training from the very people he despises, they soon realise that Tarzan will no-doubt soon see through their little ruse, so the queen’s young brother, Kimba, is sent to spy on the jungle lord by infiltrating his family.
At first, Jane is excited to have a helper around her jungle home who actually is willing to help with the dishes, but soon it becomes apparent that Kimba has something of a creepy attachment to Tarzan’s wife thanks to some uncomfortably long stares.
Can Tarzan thwart the nefarious Leopard cult as they do everything thing they can to end the noble colonization by the West? *rereads that last sentence back* Heeeey wait, hang on a second…

So while we get another movie that essentially sees a tribe violently opposing British when a simple delve into history suggests that if they were to drop all that talk of harvesting human hearts, the Leopard Cult wouldn’t technically be in the wrong, Tarzan And The Leopard Woman has something just as tough as the complexities of human history to overcome: the fact that after nine films, what else is their left to say about Tarzan? The answer is, unsurprisingly, not much; and yet the 10th outing of Weissmuller tenure under the loin cloth manages to dodge some of the samey dangers of an overworked franchise with the odd spot of smart writing
For a start, the majority of Leopard Woman’s story is pretty much the standard kind of stuff we’ve been seeing for the past decade any beyond – an evil force starts causing a rumble in the jungle that Tarzan has to figure out while simultaneously saving Boy or Jane from fully avoidable dangers as Cheeta lopes on for some rather tired comic relief. However, this time around, the movie actually plays with the basics a little to actually give some of the other characters something more to do than occasionally scream for Tarzan to clean up their shit at the last minutes. The main reason for this is the character of Kimba, a child antagonist and brother to the Leopard Queen, who ends coming off like a evil version of Johnny Sheffield’s Boy that finally gives Tarzan’s adopted son a purpose other than simply needing saving ever twenty minutes. Similarly, Kimba’s presence has a positive effect on Brenda Joyce’s Jane too as the fact he has something of an unhealthy fixation on her creates some legitimate Single White Female/The Good Son kind of vibes as he spends a lot of time just standing around staring at her. In fact, the moment Boy fights Kimba once this ruse is up is the first ever real indication (other than the fact that Sheffield’s voice has alarmingly dropped a could of octaves) that Boy could one day take over Tarzan’s mantle the way that any one of the numerous Robins could conceivably replace Batman.

While the villains are not really much more than just a variation of any other evil cult or tribe we’ve seen before, they still have clear, understandable plan (kill everyone) while also having quite the striking looking wardrobe as its acolytes run around in animal-skin capes and cowls looking for all the world like a leopard-print Batman with homemade Wolverine claws. The queen is also predictably easy on the eyes, but its refreshing that this latest disposable female isn’t spending all of her time trying to seduce Tarzan – although that’s probably because our vine-swinging, croc-wrassling hero spends the first third of the movie being something of a hen-pecked husband.
While it’s certainly amusing to see Tarzan taking time out of a shopping expedition to wrestle a hairy backed dude named Tongolo the Terrible, or be nagged by his wife to fix their broken shower, it does tend to cut into our hero’s action time to the point that every other character now has more to do than the main character. Christ, even Cheeta gets to wade in, temporarily putting aside a running joke involving a stolen snake farmer’s flute to save the day on numerous occasions – although, let’s be thankful he only bonks Kinga on the head with a stick and doesn’t go into full, face-eating mode like the chimp from Nope…

Cartoonist Gary Larson once drew a strip that saw an ape named Chippy catching “the perfect vine” that saw him whizzing through Tanzania and most of Mozambique without him having to do anything at all as it seems to me that, at this point in its history, the Tarzan franchise is doing such the same – speeding from adventure to adventure with minimal effort. However, while the movie finally makes Tarzan’s supporting cast more integral to the action rather than having them simply be endangered wallflowers, watching Tarzan’s gradual shift from jungle warrior, to house husband and back again is more than a little strange.

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