First Tarzan (Gordon Scott) has to capture two trappers (Leslie
Bradley, Maurice Marsac) who steal his jungle animals, including his pet
chimp Cheta and his son, the aptly named Boy (Rickie Sorensen), then a big
game hunter (Sol Gorss) and a treasure hunter (William Keene) conspire to
kill him, the first because he thinks hunting down Tarzan is the ultimate
challenge, the second because he wants to find the typical lost city in
the jungle and Tarzan could just get in the way.
The two even manage to temporarily trap Tarzan when they use one of his
native friends (Scatman Crothers) as bait, but ultimately, he turns their
greed against them and leads them into an ambush in the lost city, where
he manages to capture them.
During all this, Eve Brent makes only a marginal appearance as Jane,
who cooks for Tarzan and Boy and gives motherly advice.
Made out of two episodes of a proposed TV-series that never
materialized in full, Tarzan and the Trappers suffers from all the
shortcomings of 1950's adventure TV: The direction is stagey, most of the
jungle sets are rather obvious studio sets, everything has a cheapish look
to it, and the story is very tame in every aspect. Still, the film might
offer some mild amusement if you know what you are getting.
|