1939 was one of the greatest years in the history of Hollywood, but not so much for the history of Tarzan films. At least this is the impression you might get after watching Tarzan Finds a Son!, an adventure film directed by Richard Thorpe and the fourth instalment in the series starring Johnny Weissmuller.
The plot begins when a plane carrying Richard Lancing (played by Morton Lowry) and his wife (played by Laraine Day) en route to Cape Town crashes at the Mutia Escarpment. The Lancings’ infant son miraculously survives and is picked up by Cheeta, a chimpanzee that brings him to Tarzan (played by Johnny Weissmuller), lord of the jungle. He and his companion Jane Parker (played by Maureen O’Sullivan) decide to adopt the child and name him “Boy”. Five years later, Tarzan’s territory is again visited by a safari, this time led by Austin Lancing (played by Ian Hunter) and his wife (played by Frieda Inescort). They are the deceased couple’s relatives who want to learn about their fate in order to secure a large inheritance. Jane tells them that the boy died, but old Sir Thomas Lancing (played by Henry Stephenson) recognises the 5-year-old Boy (played by Johnny Sheffield) as his nephew, the new Lord Greystoke and heir to an immense fortune. Jane, much to Tarzan’s displeasure and with great reluctance, agrees to let Boy join his proper family and go to England. The Lancings and their guide Mr. Sande (played by Henry Wilcoxson), however, reveal themselves as greedy opportunists who would stop at nothing to gain large sums of money. Later they are captured by the Zambele, a native tribe that shrinks the dead bodies of their prisoners, but Tarzan ultimately saves Jane and his adopted son.
Tarzan Finds a Son! is a clear example of a popular film series losing its way. Production of the film itself was something of an afterthought for the management of MGM studios which, despite financial success, didn’t think much of Tarzan films following Tarzan Escapes three years earlier and even allowed the film rights to the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs to expire. Only the failure of the rival 1938 production Tarzan’s Revenge starring Glenn Morris and the continuing popularity of Weissmuller, still under contract with MGM, made studio heads reconsider. The script by Cyril Hume continued with attempts to make Tarzan’s story more family-friendly, so the character of Boy was introduced. But it also created other problems, mainly due to the extremely strict MPAA Production Code which forbade the depiction of extramarital relationships, so Tarzan and Jane, despite loving each other, had to adopt their son instead of having one the natural way. Hume’s script also completely disregarded any continuity with Burroughs’s novels by having Tarzan’s adopted son be Lord Greystoke instead of Tarzan. A further issue was Maureen O’Sullivan being quite tired of playing Jane and wanting to start a family with John Farrow. The original script had her character killed at the end. Poor reaction at the test screenings and Burroughs sending angry letters to MGM forced producers to reshoot the ending with Jane surviving. O’Sullivan would later receive an increased salary and appear in two more Tarzan films.
Director Richard Thorpe does a decent job with Tarzan Finds a Son!, but, as in the previous two films, plenty of recycled material is used for various scenes. Recycling seems to be the problem for scriptwriter Cyril Hume, who, even with melodramatic twists concerning Jane and Boy, can’t seem to venture out of the increasingly repetitive scenario of a white safari getting into trouble only to be rescued by Tarzan at the end. Johnny Sheffield, the 7-year-old son of English actors, does a good job in the role of Boy, although his American accent sounds odd when surrounded by characters talking with Received Pronunciation. Sheffield, who, according to his own testimony, was taught by Weissmuller how to swim, nevertheless left a good impression and repeated the role in seven more Tarzan films. Although disappointing in comparison with the three previous films, Tarzan Finds a Son! is still watchable, but mostly due to being relatively short at 82 minutes of running time, during which many of its flaws aren’t so apparent.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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