Details

Release year: 1934

Storyline

The idyllic life of Tarzan and Jane is challenged by men on safari who come seeking ivory, and come seeking Jane as well.

Top credits

Directors

Writers

Cast

Johnny Weissmuller — Tarzan
Maureen O'Sullivan — Jane Parker
Neil Hamilton — Harry Holt
Paul Cavanagh — Martin Arlington

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Did you know

• Maureen O'Sullivan does not appear as Jane during the film's famous nude swimming sequence. O'Sullivan is doubled by Josephine McKim, a member of the 1928 and 1932 U.S. Women's Olympic Swim Teams and one of the four U.S. swimmers on that team to win the 1932 gold medal in the 400-Meter Freestyle Relay, setting Olympic and World records.

• In a 1994 interview with Ron Miller, Maureen O'Sullivan revealed she didn't use a body double for the swim scene because she had qualms about being naked, after all, she spent most of the movie scantily clad in a revealing loincloth. It was because she was claustrophobic and couldn't bear to put her face under water. Otherwise, she would have gladly gotten naked for the scene.

• The "African" elephants were actually Indian elephants fitted with prosthetic tusks and ears, as MGM already owned several Indian elephants and considered them easier to handle. During the crocodile wrestling scene, a mechanical Nile crocodile, equipped with nigrosine dye sacks to simulate blood, was used. For the elephants vs. lions battle traveling matte shots were used to depict lions leaping up and holding on to elephants, who then seized them with their trunks and hurled them down, or crushed them beneath their feet.