Tarzan's Greatest Adventure 1959
The 3rd Colour Tarzan and the best in my books. More adult that previous one's and a top notch script. It helps that you have a cast to die for Sean Connery (Bond), Niall mGinnis (Night of the Demon), Anthony Quayle (Ice Cold in Alex) and Gordon Scott as Tarzan.
Forget the normal tarzan you're used to. This is The Good Die Young in the jungle. This a very brutal film and both Tarzan and the Female lead (Sarah Shane) come together by chance and it's all about survival Pitting Tarzan and Angie against the ruthless diamond smugglers.
At 90 minutes the film never outstays it's welcome.
It's a shame Sarah Shane retired from acting a few years later because she was very very good and here you can see the early basic of the likes of Weaver's Ripley..... Even if you not a tarzan fan you would enjoy this film.
Howard Hawk's The Thing 1951
This is the original adaption from the Novel "Who Goes There?" and bar the title bears no resemble to the book. Comparisons between it and the John Carpenter film are a waste of time as they are completely different films with a different story and Carpenter's is faithful to the original book.
This is less a horror story but more a thriller in which the Army and Scientists clash about how to deal with the pilot of a crashed spacecraft who is totally hostile to the local population. It becomes a story of survival and how to destroy the "Intellectual carrot!". Surprisingly effective even today and it still
holds up well.
The Giant Behemoth 1958
A lesser 50's monster movie let down by poor special effects despite the presence of Willis O'Brien. I suspect his involvement was in name only. The story is actually very good and the photography excellent only let down by the poor effects from the team concerned. One of the rare times you could justify redoing the effects for a modern audience as an alternative. I say rare as most 50's movies with special effects highlight the work of famous effects artists and therefore to me any remaking of the effects should be off limit. This is one of two exceptions in my books.
Tarzan's Three Challenges / Tarzan goes to india 1962/1963.
The only two Tarzan films that Jack Mahoney did and excellent they are to. In the 1st one he goes to India to help protect Elephants from a dam about to be completed Yep the story sounds lame but it's a very exciting adventure and again a more intelligent script than you would expect. In Tarzan's 3 Challenges he goes to help an old friend get the right heir on the throne in Thailand. With Woody Strude as a badass villain you know it's going to be good. One thing these two films do is blow away the myth that non-white actors are hard done by in Hollywood films. In both these films most of the actors bar Tarzan are all non white and play key roles. No blacking up here. All 100% authentic non-white actors. It happened a lot more than you think in 50's and 60's Hollywood films. Highly recommended both these films. Hopefully Warner Archives will get their finger out and do the early Gordon Scott Tarzans and the post Jack Mahoney one's