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Vargo (Raymond Burr) is an ivory hunter in Lyra's (Monique van Vooren)
employ, and he's among the most ruthless, routinely enslaving natives to
hunt the elephants and carry the ivory for him. But Vargo and Lyra have a
problem: Tarzan (Lex Barker), who neither wants elephants hunted nor
natives enslaved. Vargo wants to kill Tarzan in cold blood, but Lyra has a
better (?) idea: Why not capture Tarzan and make him lure the elephants to
an especially built enclosure ?
Soon enough, Lyra and Vargo have captured Tarzan, but the plan doesn't
quite work as planned, as Tarzan is in no mood to lure his friends the
elephants into a death trap, plus he is not a man who is easily held in
captivity ... so before long he has made his escape.
Thing is, Lyra, Vargo and Lyra's right-hand-man Fidel (Tom Conway) have
gone after Tarzan, and they find out his weakness: Jane (Joyce MacKenzie)
- so this time they plan to capture not only Tarzan but also Jane.
Capturing Tarzan proves to be relatively easy this time around, but Jane
makes a desperate escape during which she has an accident and is
thereafter presumed dead. Finding proof about Jane's death, Tarzan is left
a broken man and becomes totally apathic, and after Lyra leaves the camp,
Vargo, who was never too keen on relying on Tarzan's services, subjects
him to one torture after another - without Tarzan even flinching let alone
showing any trace of resistance.
Jane though isn't really dead, an elephant finds her and carries her to
the next native village where she is nursed back to health. Once she's ok
again, she tries to track down Tarzan ... and runs right in to the arms of
Lyra, who has just found out that Vargo is planning to cheat her out of
her ivory - so she takes Jane captive to improve her bargaining position
and returns to Vargo's camp.
Seeing Jane, Tarzan can be persuaded to call the elephants after all,
but he still has an ace up his sleeve: When the elephants arrive he locks
himself and the native slaves inside the elephant-proof enclosure while
the elephants are let loose on the camp ... and trample pretty much all
the baddies to a pulp. And for a little bit of extra suspense, Tarzan only
just manages to save Jane from being stomped on as well.
The last of the Lex Barker-Tarzans is little more than
tired routine: The plot about elephant hunters offers no new insights into
the subject, the alleged She-Devil (Monique van Vooren) is actually rather
tame compared to the lead villain of the piece (Raymond Burr), the natives
are all of a very pale complexion (meaning they are white men), the jungle
sets look less than spectacular, and most of the jungle animals are
nothing more than stock footage edited into the film (though admittedly
rather smoothly). At least the film ends with an elephant stampede, just
like the classic MGM-Tarzans
did ... but compared to the specially staged MGM-finales,
this film's collection of stock footage looks a bit disappointing.
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