A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Tarzan has appeared on screen in nearly a hundred films, mostly made in the thirties, forties and fifties; they were often shown on television during my childhood and were a favourite of mine. Edgar Rice Burroughs' character was originally a British aristocrat abandoned in the jungle as a baby and raised by a tribe of apes, but these aspects of the story were often omitted from the later films. The basic set-up is that Tarzan lives in the African jungle with his wife (or girlfriend- the question of whether they actually possess a marriage certificate is discreetly avoided) Jane, their unimaginatively named teenage son Boy and their more imaginatively, but confusingly, named pet chimpanzee Cheeta. (If they had had a pet cheetah, would they have called it "Chimpanzee"?) This particular episode came out early in 1945, so includes a patriotic sub-plot involving Jane's return from England, where she has been working as an army nurse. As its title suggests, this movie concerns a tribe of Amazons living in a mountain fastness not far from Tarzan's lair. The Amazons have a rather unusual society; all of its members are female (again, the question of how they reproduce is tactfully avoided), and all are young and attractive apart from their elderly Queen. A group of explorers turns up in search of Palmyria, the lost city of the Amazons. Tarzan, suspecting their motives, refuses to assist them, but Boy, believing he is aiding the advancement of science, is happy to do so. It is left to Tarzan to sort out the problems which result when some of the explorers try to steal the Amazons' treasures. The film is, officially, set in Africa, but the film-makers do not seem to have been aiming at realism, at least not of the zoological variety, because the creatures inhabiting this particular jungle include Indian elephants, South American monkeys, Australian cockatoos, deer (native to Eurasia and the Americas but not Africa) and Canada Geese (North America). In fact, the only continent not represented here is Antarctica, and that is possibly only because no penguins were available at the time. Even some of the authentically African animals we see, such as lions and crowned cranes, are natives of the continent's savannas rather than its jungles. Another strange thing about the film is that nearly all the cast are white. Tarzan, Jane and Boy are white, as are all the explorers. Even the Amazons, drawn partly from Greek mythology and partly from the pages of a "Wonder Woman" comic, are all Caucasian. The only black characters we see are a few servants and bearers. In fact, although the film is set in sub-Saharan Africa not a single black actor has a speaking role. I knew that Hollywood operated an unofficial colour bar in the forties, but I did not realise that it went quite as far as that. Before he became the cinema's best-known Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller was an Olympic swimmer and won five gold medals in that sport. Truth to tell, if acting had been an Olympic sport he would not even have been a contender for a bronze medal, but he was cast more on the basis of his impressive physique than of his acting skills, and might have made more of an impression had he been able to deliver his lines in normal English. (Tarzan always speaks a sort of broken pidgin English, although Jane and Boy always speak normally). Moreover, his acting is no worse than that on display from a lot of his fellow cast members. Despite some dodgy acting, dodgy zoology, banal plots and some covert racist assumptions, I have always had something of a soft spot for these old Tarzan films, doubtless based on my childhood memories. They have a certain innocence about them, taking place as they do in some idealised never-never land where good always triumphs over evil and the big man will always come swinging through the trees to sort everything out and put everything right. Although they were probably not made exclusively as children's entertainment, they have the sort of charm and sense of moral rightness which will always appeal to children, and to those adults who still remember their childhood with affection. 5/10

I remember watching old Tarzan movies as a child, so I decided to check this movie out and see if they were as good as I remembered. What a mistake! This movie was boring beyond all belief. It was like watching Ozzie and Harriet in the jungle. The title is "Tarzan and the Amazons", not "An Intimate and Tedious Look at the Minutia of Tarzan's Family Life".On the plus side, the time that was spent in the Amazon's hidden city was good. The matte used to depict the craggy mountains in the distance was mysterious and nicely done. The sets that show Tarzan traveling through those mountains showed the harshness and isolation of the area. The city, with its strange god and creepy priestess, was interesting. The big problem was that these sections only added up to about a third of the movie, while the boring family scenes took up the rest. The producer really dropped the ball on this one. There was so much potential wasted here. It could've been an imaginative romp through a strange world, but they chose to constantly show Cheetah fishing and acting like an idiot, and Boy sweeping the tree-house, and... Plus, the big dramatic ending seems totally rushed, and happens in a flash. If you blink, you'll miss it. It's like they said to themselves, "Oops, we spent too much time on the family stuff, we're at 1:15, we better cut it off now. No one will notice." Well, I guess they were right seeing how many "10" votes this lame movie got. Do you people actually think this deserves to be up there with Citizen Kane, the Shawshank Redemption, and the Godfather?This is a lame movie with zealous and stupid fans. Don't waste your time with either...

After a brief hiatus from the series, the character of Jane returns now in the form of the statuesque Brenda Joyce. Johnny Weissmuller's starting to get visibly older and the same may be said for Johnny Sheffield as Boy, who's voice is now changing and growing deeper. Still, this is a solid entry where a hidden civilization consisting of beautiful women (their queen is old Maria Ouspenskaya - the gypsy woman from THE WOLF MAN) begins to take action when greedy men stumble upon their secret domain, previously only known to exist by Tarzan. Good action, thrills.*** out of ****

TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS is closest in 'style' to the earlier MGM/Johnny Weissmuller 'Tarzan' films (offering a crocodile fight, a 'classic' safari with many more black extras than in any other RKO 'Tarzan' feature of the era, far above-average production values), and is most famous for introducing American Brenda Joyce as the new 'Jane', back from the war. Joyce, 33, blond and wholesomely beautiful, lacked Maureen O'Sullivan's intellectual 'spin' to the role, but worked well with the 41-year-old Weissmuller, while providing a mother figure for 'Boy' Johnny Sheffield that the predominately 'kid' audience could relate to.With a cast of terrific character actors (including Henry Stephenson, Maria Ouspenskaya, and Barton MacLane), and a plot involving a 'lost' city of women (guaranteed to arouse male hormones), the end result is one of the best-remembered RKO entries, and great fun to watch!