Director – J.P. McGowan, Screenplay – William E. Wing, Based on the Novel Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1923) by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Producer – Edwin C. King, Photography (b&w) – Joe Walker. Production Company – Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation.
James Pierce (Tarzan), Frederick Peters (Esteban Miranda), Edna Murphy (Betty Greystoke), Harold Goodwin (Jack Bradley), Dorothy Dunbar (Lady Jane Greystoke), Boris Karloff (Awaza), Robert Bolder (John Peebles)
The aging explorer John Gordon has escaped after being held a prisoner by the legendary Tagani tribe. At the same time, Jane is returning to Africa along with Tarzan’s sister Betty. The bandit Esteban Miranda overhears Gordon tell of the legends of the fabulously rich Tagani diamond mine. He captures Gordon and takes Betty hostage in a determination to find the way to raid the mine’s riches. Tarzan follows in pursuit where he must rescue Betty before she is made sacrifice to Numa, the golden lion that the Tagani worship.
Tarzan and the Golden Lion was the fifth ever Tarzan film. Tarzan’s long-running cinematic career had begun with Tarzan of the Apes (1918) starring Elmo Lincoln who then went on to appear in The Romance of Tarzan (1918) and the serial The Adventures of Tarzan (1921). During this period, there was also The Revenge of Tarzan (1920), which is now lost, and the serial Tarzan the Mighty (1928). Tarzan and the Golden Lion was the last Tarzan film made in the silent era. To follow would be the sound Tarzan the Tiger (1929) and then the beginnings of the long-running Johnny Weissmuller era with MGM’s Tarzan the Ape Man (1932).
The film is a loose adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ninth Tarzan novel Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1923). That said, there are only occasional similarities between the book and film – the villain Esteban Miranda, Tarzan’s pet lion, the lost city and its valuable diamond mines (which is Burroughs’ legendary city of Opar in the book) and the golden lion worshiped by the natives. The film adds a number of other elements such as the explorer escaped from the city and Tarzan having a sister, while dropping Burroughs’ race of intelligent gorillas.
James Pierce (1900-83) was apparently Edgar Rice Burroughs’ personal choice to play Tarzan. He is serviceable in the role, although ultimately does little to distinguish the part. The film gives us the considerable oddity of a Tarzan who is made up with rouged lips just like a silent movie matinee idol. Although he only ever played Tarzan once, Pierce subsequently married Burroughs’ daughter Joan in 1928. Throughout the 1930s, Pierce and Joan went on to play the voices of Tarzan and Jane on a radio series adaptation of the Tarzan stories.
There are some oddities that we get, which seem odder when you are more familiar with the subsequent Tarzan films. One is the introduction of Betty, Tarzan’s sister, a character that never appears in the Edgar Rice Burroughs books or any other films, who ends up being abducted and caught in the midst of the action. The other is the depiction of Tarzan’s standard treehut home, which here becomes a cabin with a library of books, where Tarzan dresses for dinner in a tuxedo and sits in an easy chair, while a native lies back in the background using a cord tied to their foot to move a ceiling-suspended bamboo mat in lieu of a fan.
Tarzan and the Golden Lion is not that interesting a film, nor does it have a great reputation among Tarzan fans. The plot is very generic and makes the mistake of shuffling the character of Tarzan off to the side for much of the middle of the story. Director J.P. McGowan does create some occasionally epically staged action scenes – a shootout between two sides on either bank of a river, another shootout between parties halfway up the sides of a cliff. In between that though, the film is on the slow side and belies its adventure label. There are better examples of the Tarzan film.
Full film available here