User Reviews

***SPOILERS*** Movie with a lot of heart in that to prove oneself in this far-out leopard cult lead by the head of the spotty outfit High Priestess Lea, Acquanetta, you have to kill a enemy and bring his or her heart back to her in order to prove your worthiness in being a member of it. The leopard men have being running around the jungle in their leopard outfits using what looks like steel clawed back-scratchers as weapons and killing anyone who happens to get close to their hangout a cave outside the jungle town of Bugandi.

It's when a survivor of a leopard man attack makes it back alive to Zambezi that Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, who together with Jane and Boy, Brenda Joyce & Johnny Sheffield, with their pet monkey Cheetha who was their looking for bargains at the local bazaar got involved in all this leopard business. Tarzan realized that the attacks that have been taking place around the town of Bugandi were not that of wild leopards but people who were trying to put the blame on the spotted creatures! That's in order to keep the town from becoming modernized! As we soon find out it's , besides High priestess Lea, the highly educated half Bugandian half Englishman Dr. Lazar, Edger Barrier, who's been organizing these deadly attacks in order to keep his hometown Bugandi pure and native and not corrupted by the evils of modern civilization.

Tarzan does his usual vine swinging and diving act in the movie with Johnny Weissmuller looking a bit too old, at age 41, and somewhat flabby to really be convincing. Getting captured by the leopard men after trying to save four pretty teachers from Zambezi who were kidnapped by the cat people and slated to be sacrificed to the Leopard God it's again,like in almost all the Tarzan movies, the cute and mischievous monkey Cheetha using High Priestess Lea's' leopard claw looking back-scratcher who saved the day by freeing Tarzan just as he was about to be done in, together with Boy Jane and the four teachers, by the leopard men.

***SPOILERS*** What in fact really did in High Priestess Lea and her leopard men was her bratty kid brother Kimba, Tommy Cook, who in trying to prove his worth, by killing an enemy of the clan and bringing back his heart, as a full fledged leopard man failed completely which had him and Dr. Lazer, the second in command of the leopard cult, turn on each other in the movies exciting final sequence. It's then that a freed, by his pet monkey Cheetha, Tarzan did in fact a Samson act by pulling the pillars that were holding up the cave, where the leopard men had their headquarters, down and thus finally putting an end to all this out and out jungle craziness!

Oddly named film since the Leopard Woman of the title isn't as big a threat as her young brother and the members of her cult...no matter...

Tarzan run afoul of a cult of people who want the spread of civilization stopped, dressing as leopards in honor of their god they raid caravans and kill the intruders. Along the way Tarzan, Jane and boy make friends with Kimba the brother of the title character. He is actually a spy and is looking for the right time to strike. Along the way more caravans are raided, there are rescues and other nonsense.

10th Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan is a good, if uneven adventure film. The action is really good but some of the plotting and a few of the performances are a bit odd. The male villain is more Nazi than jungle man. Tommy Cook who played Kimba, the young Leopard boy is rather bad and its amazing to think that he's an actor who's career has spanned six decades. I also found the pace a bit slow which made the film seem longer than its 72 minutes. I suspect that its due to some sequences with Kimba that just seem to go on and on.

I like the film, but considering that that previous three RKO Tarzans were some of the best in the series so far it's kind of a disappointment.

I feel I should mention that the ending is rather violent with large number of people dying. I know in the MGM films a couple of the films also had high death rates among the natives, but that was a battle and this is kind of... I don't know cruel. Its nothing we haven't seen before, but at the same time it just seems nasty.

Reservations aside worth a look.

Johnny Weissmuller made a name for himself as Tarzan at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio. However, and I am not sure why, Weissmuller and 'Boy' (Johnny Sheffield) jumped from this prestige studio to the less than stellar RKO--where the budgets shrank considerably as did the quality. The scripts got a lot more weird and the films became chock full of poorly integrated stock footage and animals that often weren't even African. Additionally, 'Jane' (Maureen O'Sullivan) remained at MGM and a new leading lady needed to be found. After having the character be 'off on vacation in England' or 'helping with the war effort' in a couple films, RKO decided to re-cast this character with Brenda Joyce--who bore little similarity to O'Sullivan.

This film about a silly cult of the Leopard. Its followers don't want civilization to encroach on their part of the jungle and so they kill people in caravans who cross nearby. But to hide that people are responsible, they make it look like leopards did this. Now here is the funny part--these guys dress up like these big cats--complete with metal claws and silly leopard costumes. It's even sillier when they dance about back at their lair--as if it was choreographed by a monkey!

Early on Tarzan tells everyone that it is NOT leopards that have been doing the killing. Despite this King of the Jungle ALWAYS being right in the past, he is quickly ignored and the idiots in charge just go out and shoot a lot of poor old leopards. Eventually, this leads to more attacks--including one where four hot school teachers are kidnapped. When they kidnap Tarzan, who's to save him?! Tune in and see the surprising answer (hint: it is neither Jane nor Boy).

This is fun to watch (Cheeta is in rare form) but ultimately a pretty dumb outing for the series. While not nearly as lame as "Tarzan and the Mermaid" (by far the worst of the Weissmuller films for RKO), its plot is so silly that it can never be taken very seriously. Worth seeing for fans of the series, but if you are a novice to them DON'T start with this one--you'll assume the others are all equally silly--which they aren't.

By the way, in the summary I say that this film signals that the series had 'jumped the shark'. In other words, it arrives AFTER the series has gone into serious decline and the writers are trying desperately to find some way to convince viewers to watch (such as the Leopard angle). Likewise, by this film RKO completely gave up on having extras that looked African in any way. There are no black extras and the leopard cult look as if they are from Central America. In fact, in the final film of this series just a couple years later, the movie was filmed in Mexico--with lots of Mexicans and even Aztec sets!!

With the end of WWII, every Hollywood studio faced some major financial problems (a return of the high-priced talent, under contract and expecting to work, smaller audiences, as people had other ways to pass the time, increased production costs, government investigations into the industry), and for the smaller studios, the effect was most pronounced, as shooting budgets would be slashed on many features. TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN marked the beginning of the decline of the RKO-Johnny Weissmuller films, with a BIG drop in quality from the previous year's TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS.

The film is a routine tale of a leopard cult which terrorizes the local African community, while attempting to thwart the government's plan to 'bring civilization' to another village, by capturing caravans and killing everyone, dressed in some REALLY cheesy, leopard-skin, clawed costumes! A dying survivor only has time to utter "leopards" before he expires, and while Tarzan quickly realizes this wasn't the work of animals (and HE would KNOW!), nobody believes him, and the cult turns loose an actual pack of leopards on the next caravan, to discredit him. Even Jane (Brenda Joyce, in her second outing in the role), thinks the Ape Man is getting a bit 'balmy', so Tarzan shrugs off his suspicions, and returns home to do some plumbing work on the tree house(??!!) Naturally, the cult, led by their 'plant' in the government, Nazi-like 'Dr. Lazar' (Edgar Barrier) and buxom, exotic high priestess, Lea (Acquanetta), worries about Tarzan again disrupting their 'Master Plan', so she sends her weaselly little brother (Tommy Cook) to spy on the Ape Man and his family.

Eventually, Tarzan DOES again get involved; he, Jane, and Boy are captured, and dragged into the cult's cave headquarters to be executed, so, of course, Cheeta has to save Tarzan (as always...) The Ape Man rescues the innocents, kills the baddies, and destroys the cult and their hideout...but, by this point, who really cares?

The film has little to offer, other than some silly, if unintentionally camp 'cult dances', the ever-reliable humor of Cheeta, and the novelty of seeing Boy (Johnny Sheffield) in the midst of puberty. Johnny Weissmuller, at 42, looked more 'middle-aged' than ever, and his once-graceful swimmer's physique had packed on some pounds!

The series was definitely on a downward slide, and things would only get worse...

A fanatical cult that worships a "Leopard God" statue aren't happy at the growing encroachment of civilization in the jungle, and so begin murdering caravans while disguised as leopards. While on a shopping jaunt with Jane & Boy, Tarzan takes part in a friendly wrestling match, but then is recruited to track down the wild animals, who only HE insists are NOT animals. A native doctor who was educated by the foreign "intruders" stirs up the cult and its female leader, while her brother spies on Tarzan and his family. Eventually, all are captured and about to be sacrified by the murderous fanatics, until Cheetah cuts Tarzan free, and he does a literal "Samson" routine by bringing down the roof of the cave they use as their temple.

This is definitely NOT MGM's "Tarzan"! In fact, I was reminded a lot of the 1966 TARZAN TV series, except for it being in B&W and having a VERY different Tarzan and adopted son. I noted while watching the previous film, TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS, that despite the continuing presence of Johnny Weismuller and Johnny Sheffield, the Sol Lesser-produced RKO films had clearly slipped into an entirely-different continuity. They no longer live on "The Mutia Escarpment", "civilization" can now be easily reached by river raft (or a long hike), and Tarzan has become a known figure rather than a jungle legend. And then there's Jane. You'd think all those years living in the jungle she would have learned how to defend herself, but here, not only does she talk and act like a "typical American housewife", when danger arises, she seems incapable of anything more than running away and screaming!

At least, by comparison, Johnny Sheffield as "Boy", now aged 15, gets into his first genuine knock-down-drag-out fight, though the sneaky, devious, viscious little rat-bastard he gets into it with has him so out-matched it's up to Cheetah to knock the guy unconscious and save his pal from anything worse than getting his back terribly scratched up.

Dennis Hoey is the "District Commissioner" (did he even have a name in this?), who, while getting a bigger screen part than he did in any of the Rathbone HOLMES films, comes across just as stupid as Lestrade was, totally dismissing Tarzan's insistance that the murders were not committed by animals, and suggesting the ape man has gotten a little soft in the head-- something Jane, infuriatingly, seems to agree with! I'm sorry, but Brenda Joyce as "Jane" is just not agreeing with me here.

Acquanetta is "Lea", the obsessed leader of the cult. Edgar Barrier is "Dr. Ameer Lazar", whose fanatical speeches to stir up the cult members does seem rather Nazi-like. Tommy Cook is "Kimba", Lea's arrogant brother, bent on proving himself a "warrior", yet disliked by his own peers and his sister's lover. While spying on the Tarzan family, both ape man and adopted son instinctively distrust him from the start, yet Jane is so insistent they allow him to stay, it's like those 2 years back in England have completely drained her of any natural instincts she ever might have had. And Kimba keeps wavering between wanting to murder Jane to "prove" himself, and lusting after her. I suppose Norman Bates started out this way!

Anthony Caruso is "Mongo", the lead cult warrior. No matter what I see him in, I'll always remember him as gangster "Bela Oxmyxs" in the 2nd-season STAR TREK comedy episode, "A Piece Of The Action".

My favorite part was when Tarzan fought to rescue the 4 young lady school-teachers from the cultists. He swam underwater and cut up the ropes holding their raft together, then lured several of them to their deaths in a deep animal-trap pit, then dropped a heavy tree-branch on several more of them. He didn't win that fight, but by God, it took at least a dozen of them to overpower him! As several reviewers have noted, I can see that Weismuller had gotten himself into better shape in this film. Perhaps he felt he needed to "compete" with Sheffield, who was growing up very nicely by this time. I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on both the BOMBA and the JUNGLE JIM series when I'm done with these.

It is a mystery that neither Tarzan, Jane OR Boy used anything resembling a "jungle yell" in this film. When all 3 were prisoners (along with the teachers), I was so hoping for an ELEPHANT stamped to flatten the baddies into the ground... as happened way back in 1932. Oh well! Fun stuff.