The most famous cinematic version of the Tarzan films was made during the depression era. It was a series of films starring Johnny Weissmuller, an athlete who was known for many world records in the swimming sector. This series of films, which included twelve films released in the years 1932-1948, has, apart from the Disney version, stood the test of time more than any other version, including the one of Burroughs himself, the way in which the masses of human beings all over the world have seen the image of Tarzan. However, the figure displayed in this series is actually different from the author's perception.
The first films of this cinematic series were produced by MGM. The contract signed between the company and the bourgeois confirmed that the "CT" has the right to create original scripts based on the figure of Tarzan and the characters that are close to him. As a matter of fact, according to the contract, "MGM" was forbidden to create a screenplay that was written about the case of Burroughs's novels, and the contract also determined that bourgeois would read the scripts to make sure that they were not based in one way or another on his work. The reason for these contract conditions lies in the fact that in those years, Burroughs was personally involved in producing other films on Tarzan, and was not interested in creating a competition between the two productions (Behelmer 1987, 43).
As a result of the restrictions imposed on "MGM", and perhaps due to the desire to present a simpler and more understandable figure, the image created by the company's screenwriter differs in its characteristics from the literary Tarzan. This Tarzan was not an intelligent rebel who was wandering from the jungle to England and America, and his image did not characterized by in the identity of the double-- an Apeman who is also a Lord – the central one in Burroughs’s books. The ambivalent attitude toward the human world and the animal world has also disappeared. In the first film in the series, Tarzan the Ape Man (Tarzan of the Apes, 1932), although Tarzan was introduced as an integral part of the animal world, but in the following films in the series changed this approach.
As opposed to the literary Tarzan, who pursued the dangers and adventures, Tarzan was presented in films starring Weissmuller as a passive figure: he got into adventures and dangers not on his initiative, responded only if he or his relatives had been attacked, and most preferred to remain uninvolved and not leave the small area where he had ruled. The matter of Tarzan in the wider world and in it very small, and the vocabulary of his little words in the English language stressed her mental limitations. In this respect, in the Western culture, Tarzan needed the constant choreographer of gin (and later films for the guidance of his son, boy). Tarzan lives in the Mutia Escarpment (which firstborn appeared in Trader Horn), which is part of the "Matul Mumara", a remote and distant area in Africa, which is not marked on maps, and in the first few films in the series did not come out of the boundaries of this area.
Weissmuller's Tarzan went missing the constant struggle between the attraction to the overdeveloped West and the need to stay in the world where the character was raised, so instead it hints that the character belongs to the world of jazz. To a large extent, Tarzan was presented as a "childish" figure (so the Western culture used to describe the tribes "noble savages"), which does not reveal much interest in the duties of the West". This is manifested in the long sections that were devoted to the movies to spend the leisure hours of Tarzan and his family: they dealt mainly with swimming in the river and games, and the occupations of practical character were not nearly as well described. However, it may be because it is the attempt to present Tarzan's world as a kind of utopia, a paradise in constant danger of extinction by cultural representatives, who invade it in each of the series films. In the movies no attempt was made to explain who Tarzan was and how he got introduced to Jane. It is possible to assume that the filmmakers assumed that most of the spectators had read the books or saw previous films in the series. However, it is possible that the reason for the lack of clarity regarding Tarzan's origins is that the films were intended in advance for distribution outside the United States mainly: In order to enable various nationalities to identify with the image of Tarzan preferred that producers to omit his aristocratic British origins and turn into "any person" whose origins are unclear.
In the films there was also no reference to the features emphasize the proximity of Tarzan to animals, such as his and his auditory ability, so prominent in the books of Burroughs. It is possible that the reason for this may be difficult to display visually in the film or, as with regard to the ability to see it, in the fear that the closeness between Tarzan and animals will harm the viewers' ability to identify with the character. In contrast, the features and behaviours given to visual expression have been greatly demonstrated in movies, even though they were barely mentioned in Burroughs's books. This is the case regarding the special way of Tarzan to move through the jungle (wooden jumps and ropes disguised as lianas) and his roar, which was a central feature in the eyes of the audience.
Other characters from the books of Burroughs, such as the heroic warrior Mugambi and the people of the noble Waziri, who are minions in the hands of Tarzan, have not appeared in the films. Most of the blacks in Weissmuller's films were presented as Cannibals savages or as white-submissive servants on their safari. The blacks were also filled with these roles in Burroughs's books, but they didn't limit them. The producers may have assumed that the display of gay blacks, of Tarzan's friends and not his enemies, will not be kindly accepted among the American audience until the 1960s. The only character that appeared on the side of Tarzan is in books and in movies is his partner, Jane. In the transition to cinematic processing, the figure from John Porter from Baltimore in the United States became Jack or James Parker from London who in England (in Maureen O'Sullivan's Jungle). Jane was presented in intelligent films from Tarzan, at least in all the laws of Western culture, which she had to explain to the benighted villagers and animals (in books, on the other hand, Tarzan never needed that kind of explanation, and is quite intelligent to learn everything on his own.) Jane remained living with Tarzan, but unlike in the books, she never married him. It seems that the reason for this marriage is inherent in these marriages: the British origin of Tarzan was omitted, as stated, from the films, and his ethnic and cultural origins remained vague, and the marriage could have been a resistance among the white viewers, who did not see the "blend" of any kind.
It is interesting to note that in the first films in the series, mainly in the second film, Tarzan and his Mate (1934) Jane was presented as a "female Tarzan", with a special roar of her own (compared to the books of Burroughs, in which she was described as a refined lady who fainted near danger). However, the image of a free and liberal woman who enjoys her sexuality and the life of freedom in the jungle did not answer, apparently, on the demands of the conservative American censorship of the 1930s, and so in the later films the image of a more conventional lady was made: she and Tarzan lived an idyllic family life in a tree house; She did not come out nearly the limits of her home, and her role amounted to the care of the household and concern for the safety of the men's heroes; Jane was the adoptive mother who was continually caring for her adopted child, and the sexuality that characterized her character in the first few films disappeared completely.
This "home" has been increasingly evident in the image of Tarzan, and it seems that the relationship with Jin "had" him. In the second film, Tarzan was presented as a model family who spends most of his time in his family's bosom. In Burroughs's novels, the "domestication" of the hero's character by his wife, and perhaps so he found it not to include Jane in most of the series books, and describe the adventures of him far from the influence of his wife and family duties.
It is possible to assume that censorship is responsible for this prisoner, Boy, the adopted son of Tarzan and Jane, who appeared from the fourth film in the series, Tarzan Finds a Son (1939), was presented as a adopted child. The writers were probably interested in adding to the film the son of Tarzan and Jane, who also appeared in the books of Burroughs, but because in the films Tarzan and Jack lived a fairly liberal lifestyle, the writers had to give up the presentation of a biological child and replace it with an adopted child. Boy was from the Greystoke family, Tarzan's family in books (but not in the movies, as mentioned), and like Korak, the literary son of Tarzan, played a role of "Tarzan's Trainee". The image of Cheeta, the chimpanzee, who lived with the couple in their home, is a complete novelty of the films, and it seems that its main function increases the comedy effect.
The first films in the series had a permanent feature model: the remote area in which Tarzan and his family lived an idealistic life of playing and endless swimming, penetrating a white safari, some "good" and some "bad". The bad guys plow different schemes that may harm Tarzan, his family, or the area of his residence. They kidnap Jane or her and Boy, but on their way back are perceived by one of the many cannibals tribes near the residence of Tarzan. Cannibalism is meant to be sacrificed to the victim, but at the last moment Tarzan appears in the head of an elephant herd and saves the "good ones", while the "bad guys" are killed by Tarzan or by cannibals. This model is preserved in all the first five films in the series. And yet it is completely different from the underlying formula of the books of Burroughs, where Tarzan wandered from place to place, and had adventures in lost cities. However, in later films in the series, produced by Saul Lesser, and not by "MGM", the tales of the plots, and as in the novels of Burroughs there is a link with the wider world and even visited various lost kingdoms.
The great success of Weissmuller films led to the first of the films produced by them, in the 1940s and 1950s, kept the image that was created in them. In these films, starring Lex Barker and Gordon Scott, a master of Tarzan as a savage who is almost incapable of speaking, lives in a tree with Jane, with his adopted son named Tartu (who only appeared once) and a chimpanzee named Cheeta. However, the characters in the film have been in touch with Western culture and have fulfilled various tasks for the British Government in Africa. The character that Barker created was a little more domesticated than Weissmuller, and the character that Scott's age was even more domesticated. In the Tarzan films produced in the 1960s, starring Jock Mahoney and Mike Henry, the figure of Tarzan was in a closer way to Burroughs, though the plots were original, with no connection to the books. In these films, Tarzan was presented as a sophisticated secret agent like James Bond, travelling around the wandering world – especially in Asia and South America – and protects the good from the Forces of Evil (Anez 1989, 147).
However, these films did not win the nostalgic success of Weissmuller films. The character may have lost his credibility in a world in which he had been interrogated, and it turned out that there were not much lost cities, no fanatical priests and no beautiful girls. It is also possible that because of the frantic developments of many African countries, who have not yet received their independences until then, to the presence of whites in the continent, the filmmakers could not present a white man who controls the animals and the indigenous brown and dark brown tribes. However, television proved to be a fertile ground for secret agent Tarzan, so in 1966, Ron Ely subsequently played him quite intelligently.
In 1999, a new and popular version of the story of Tarzan was released, this time a cartoon film by the Disney Company. The image of Tarzan in the "Disney" version is very different from the character created by Burroughs and the characters presented in the various cinematic versions. Disney's Tarzan answered the Politics of the RINO and DINO rivalry, as well as of the New Age Travellers: He primarily avoided eating meat while living in harmony with the animals, but mostly received an understanding of the 3rd generation feminist critic. Blacks did not appear at all in the "Disney" version in its majority except for the spinoff tv series, apparently to refrain from presenting themselves as savages, and to place the black community in the United States out of the stereotypical block, albeit without much success. This version is very far away from the books of Burroughs and has become a great success, since it matched Tarzan's character to the moods of the late 1990s.
