User Reviews

Former stunt man and "Range Rider" TV star Jock Mahoney makes a rather scrawny ape man in "Tarzan Goes to India." Apparently, producer Sy Weintraub felt like Tarzan should no longer be as brawny as Gordon Scott so he replaced Scott with Mahoney. Earlier, Mahoney had portrayed a villain opposite Scott in the 1960 production of "Tarzan the Magnificent." Actually, Weintraub flip-flopped on his attitude about the ideal Tarzan physique. After the lean mean Mahoney turned in his loincloth following "Tarzan's Three Challenges" in 1963, Weintraub hired muscular Mike Henry to replace him. A former Pittsburgh Steeler, Henry boasted a spectacular physique, too. Ron Ely took over the role for the NBC-TV series after Henry turned down the part and Ely resembled Mahoney more than either Scott or Henry. Happily, the one thing that neither Weintraub nor director John Guillerin changed was the way that Tarzan delivered his dialogue. In "Tarzan Goes to India," our barefoot protagonist speaks in English and usually in complete sentences.

This time around the resourceful Lord of the Jungle flies into India where a huge hydro-electric dam is under construction to end a drought as well as provide jobs. The chief problem is 300 elephants are at stake. You see, once construction is completed on the dam, the jungle behind the dam will be inundated and those elephants will drown. The price of progress and economic prosperity is high. Bringing electricity to the backwaters has to have an impact on either somebody or someplace and the elephants are the victims. To exacerbate tensions, the elephants are being led by a wild rogue elephant, and Tarzan has to kill that troublemaker. Somehow, this part of the plot got left on the editing room floor. Meantime, the villagers behind the dam are fleeting, too. Tarzan encounters another elephant that attacks the work camp, but this elephant has been dispatched to attack the camp by a youth, Jia the Elephant Boy (Jia), who Tarzan later befriends. Guillerin stages an okay elephant stampede, but the drama is like the Mahoney Tarzan, it is a little on the lean side.

Director John Guillermin has to monkey with the camera speed during the elephant attacks. As the dam construction foreman, veteran heavy Leo Gordon makes a solid villain for about 55 minutes before he meets his match. He abducts Jia, tries to ambush Tarzan in a three-way crossfire, and takes shots at a bull elephant. The elephant puts an end to him. Tarzan braves his share of dangers. He tangles with a cobra, a leopard, and the trigger-happy villains. Jock Mahoney has his moments, but not enough of them. He looks at home in the wilderness and he cuts a pretty impressive figure when he climbs aboard an elephant and rides the beast through the jungle. The shift in setting from Africa to India is a splendid change of pace and lenser Paul Beeson of "Mosquito Squadron" and "To Sir, With Love" captures the immense, rugged scenery.

The ape lord of darkest Africa gets a change of setting in this globe-trotting adventure yarn. The opening shot sees him literally dumped out of a bi-plane into a lake in India, but from then on the jungle antics are much the same as in previous Tarzan movies, as he battles evil developers and fights the odds by himself. Taking over the role from Gordon Scott (who had relocated to Italy to make a series of sweaty peplum epics by this time) is the lean and lithe Jock Mahoney (who incidentally had played the chief villain in Scott's previous outing, TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT), who, whilst pretty forgettable as screen Tarzans go, proves himself mildly worthwhile in both the acting and action stakes - but he's no Gordon Scott, because he just lacks the muscle and doesn't play to the camera in the same way.

The Indian locations are put to good use, and the movie is well-filmed and always colourful to watch. The film is aimed at youngsters with short attention spans which is why there is a wealth of easy action, including attacks by "rogue" elephants which are filmed in such a way that they resemble attacks by Godzilla or any other large monster, with screaming villagers fleeing for their lives and lots of destructive power. One scene, in which Tarzan dodges bullets from the enemy in a quarry, puts the boundaries of credibility to the edge (I can't believe the bad guys manage to hit both sides of the ground around Tarzan but not actually touch the guy himself) but its all clean fun. Tarzan also gets up to his old tricks by dodging deadly snakes and battling a ravenous leopard. Keep an eye out for the mondo-style sequences in which a ferret (?) ferociously fights a snake and two elephants battle it out, for real. No need to say which film genre those scenes remind me of.

Aside from Mark Dana, and Leo Gordon's dastardly evil turn as the villainous Bryce, the cast is mostly taken up by Indian actors and actresses who acquit themselves well with their roles - especially the singularly-named Simi's turn as Princess Kamara; quite charming. Unfortunately there's a sickeningly cute child actor called Jai around who rides elephants and is required to be rescued and looked after by Tarzan - not only does he drag the pace of the film down every time he appears, but he's really obnoxious too and should have been written out. Also, the sequence in which Tarzan and Bryce fight it out should appear at the end of the film, as its played as the climax, but instead there are another twenty minutes involving a march of elephants which, despite being visually impressive, just aren't really all that interesting. And try and avoid the sentimental ending unless you have a bucket to hand.

According to Pete Tombs' excellent Mondo Macabro book, Tarzan Goes to India inspired a number of low-budget Indian adventure films such as TARZAN AND HERCULES and TARZAN AND KING KONG. I can't help but wonder if these cheap quickies might in fact be more entertaining than the rather predictable and simplistic film which helped inspire them.

Poor Jock Mahoney gets saddled with "Jai the Elephant Boy" in this snorefest. Worse even is that this is the follow up to one of the best Tarzan's, "Tarzan the Magnificent". No spoiler here, one look at the cast list tells you that Leo Gordon is the main bad guy. Dumb Jock, looking all of about 130 pounds, after picking off one baddie with his bow and arrow, inexplicably drops his bow and sneaks up another armed baddie he easily could have skewered with an arrow. I suppose his reasoning was to trade this baddie for the captured Jai. But even the elephant knew Leo would blow this guy away to get to Tarzan. Leo gets dispatched an hour in and what follows is a herd of elephants going left to right... right to left ... left to right ... you get the picture. Worth watching once if you are a Tarzan fan but don't let this be the first one you watch!