Pretty Good

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Unfortunately, the Hays Code no longer permitted the lovely Maureen O'Sullivan playing Jane, to wear the skimpy jungle bikini she wore that barely covered the essential parts of her anatomy in the first two Tarzan/Jane movies her and Johnny Weismueller did for MGM. She is still gorgeous but the bikini is now some sort of jungle miniskirt.While the sex had been toned down, no shortage of action and violence in this. Good plot as once again Jane is being deceived by family and an evil white hunter, Captain Fry (John Buckler) who intends to capture Tarzan to put on display. Fry is thoroughly detestable and ruthless. Tarzan gets to battle it out with bloodthirsty savages and wild animals. His battle royal with a crocodile that must be at least 25' long is a classic. Good performance by Cheeteh.

The Hays Code brought the Tarzan Series down from Adult Adventure to Teen Adventure (this one) to the Kiddie Adventures to come after."Tarzan Escapes" was made prior to the Hays Code but was released after it took effect and therein is the Problem with the Third in the Series. It Suffers from Extended Reshoots and Editing the "Good Stuff". Although the Movie does Retain a bit of the Jungle Violence, the Nasty Natives of Previous Entries, and a Few Scenes of Terror, it Loses the Pre-Code Edge and is Replaced with some Clunky Scenes (Tarzan walking zombie like with depression and extended Cheetah shenanigans).Overall, the Story of Tarzan being Caged and put on Exhibition is a Nervous Anxiety and some Safari Scenes Impress, the much Talked About Ju-Ju is Only Talked About.After this, when the Hays Code and "Boy" showed up, the Series fell into a "Flintstones" Frolic that can at times be Witnessed in this one. The Beginning of the End for Tarzan as an Adult Adventure.

In this episode,Jane meets again two of her cousins,eager to latch onto a rich inheritance ;they need her signature and she 's got to go back to England with them .Jane isn't interested in money at all,but she 's got to help her relatives so his cousin can study medicine .A long sequence shows Tarzan and Jane is their garden of Eden .They do not need anything more,they could not ask for more.Civilization (here represented by a nasty man ,who wants to take Tarzan back to exhibit him in a circus) is evil,this will be even more obvious in "Tarzan's secret treasure" in which Boy would like to know the "other" world and all the things gold can bring.Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan were irreplaceable and these delightful black and white Tarzan movies owe much of their charm to them.

Let me say two things right off the "bat:"1 - This is one of the better Tarzan films; 2 - The title is a misnomer. Tarzan doesn't get trapped anywhere to escape from until the last 20 minuets and he isn't in a cage long enough to warrant that title.This film also is noted for it being chopped down a bit at the last minute. Apparently, a scene or two was a little too scary for preview audiences (giant bats in a swamp, for instance) so they edited it out at the last minute. They didn't re-shoot the material to make the transition smooth, so there are a few holes in the story's last 15 minutes. But it's nothing major and doesn't detract from the interesting adventure.Slowly browsing through the recently-released "Tarzan Collection" DVD pack has made me appreciate these films all over again. They were really great entertainment. There were very few, if any, boring lulls in these films and some of the African wildlife footage is still amazing to this day!Tarzan Escapes is considered one of the best in the series, even if some parts were cut. It's very entertaining with the typical mix of adventure, humor, good guys vs. bad guys, romance and the like. In this film, elephants are the heroes, coming to the defense of Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller).; the humor is provided by a member of the safari team ; Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) doesn't appear the first half hour and the action ends with some great film-noir like photography in a swamp (minus the bats). Along the way are an assortment of wild animals and birds, always interesting to view. It's a fast-moving 89 minutes.