"Tarzan's Secret Treasure"

Tonight's Tarzan was "Tarzan's Secret Treasure" (1941). Boy is swimming in a pond while Tarzan and Jane prepare breakfast nearby. This opening sequence is cute because Cheeta is helping Jane hard boil the eggs (which are the size of cantaloupes) in a hot spring, while Tarzan picks gigantic grapes and sets the table at an outdoor, Gilligan's Island-style kitchen. Tarzan and Jane join Boy at the pond. He shows them a "rock" he has pulled up from the bottom. "Good for slingshot", he says. "Heavier than stone".

It is gold that he has found. He shows his parents several nuggets, but Tarzan is not impressed. "Much rock on escarpment", he tells Boy. Jane explains to both of them what gold is, how it has something called "value" that can be used to "buy" things in "civilization".

"What is 'buy' "?, asks Boy. Jane then explains a little bit of basic economics, but Boy - and Tarzan - fail to understand. This scene is played from a philosophical standpoint, and goes beyond the tenets of formula capitalism or socialism. Boy just straight up doesn't understand the need for money, Tarzan concurs, and Jane tries to clarify but ends up conceding the point. They live in the jungle (which for them is a metaphor - almost - for the Garden Of Eden), so money has no meaning.

We are seeing some progressive philosophies from ol' Tarzan and his family. He has been consistently anti-gun; now he goes entirely beyond economics to second Boy's question, "What is 'buy' "?

This is from a movie made 78 years ago. Ahh, but we already know we love Tarzan, and we have explained many of the reasons why.

Of course, the idea of "no money" is, in itself, a Utopian philosophy that doesn't take into account human nature, but it's still really cool that such a point of view is expressed in the Tarzan movies, where the protagonist has been raised far from civilization (and greed, avarice, etc.) and thus has his own ideas about the way things should be. No guns, no money, but instead trust and sharing.

Of course, because Boy has found gold at the bottom of the pond, and because Tarzan knows of vast amounts at the top of the escarpment, you just know some outsiders are gonna show up. They do, in a safari headed up by Reginald Owen, who assures Tarzan that his group are not hunters but scientists. Tarzan is intuitive, and trusts scientists no more than hunters, because scientists also want to bother animals. Maybe not kill them, but disrupt jungle all the same.

Jane intervenes, as always. The scientists are English, she still feels a strong connection to her homeland, and she is always trying to teach Tarzan and Boy about the ways of the outside world. Jane realizes, though, that Tarzan runs entirely on his intuition. No matter the words coming out of anyone's mouth, he has an instinct for what is true.

One of the scientists finds out about Boy's gold, and from there the plot develops and greed takes over.

At various points, the Tarzan formula will kick in. Savage tribes will accost the interlocuters. Crocodiles will slide into the river the second a bad guy falls from a canoe. Cheeta will get into scrapes with lions.

And eventually, the remaining villains will try and fail to capture Tarzan. They will imprison Jane and Boy in their quest for gold, but will run into cannibals near the end of the movie.

That's pretty much the final showstopper, when you run into cannibals, right?

But in Tarzan movies - and I really shouldn't tell you this because it's a spoiler - the elephants always have the final say.

One last thing about "Tarzan's Secret Treasure".......the villain is a Very Special Person, one who has entertained us several times in recent weeks, and has become one of our favorite Screen Personalities.

Can you believe it? The Bad Guy was Tom Conway. "The Falcon". So how cool was that?

He was a professor in this case,  who succumbs to Gold Fever, but to be watching a Tarzan movie and then all of a sudden to have Tom Conway show up was an extra special bonus.

As with all of the Johnny Weissmuller/Maureen O'Sullivan "Tarzan" movies, "Tarzan's Secret Treasure" gets two gigantic Thumbs Up. The finale at Garden of The Gods added a final touch to my appreciation.

Tomorrow night we have one last Weissmuller Tarzan Movie to watch. Then we will be done, and probably we will experience some withdrawal symptoms.......

But down the road we will watch 'em all again, because they stand out in the history of film, and we love 'em. ////

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)