TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS (1948)

The last of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies has a more elaborate plot than most of the others, requiring an off-screen narrator to set things up for us. The isolated island of Aquatania, not far from the river that runs past Tarzan's home, has set itself up as taboo to strangers. The people worship a god named Balu, a statue that occasionally comes to life and makes pronouncements communicated to the natives by the high priest Palanth (George Zucco). Balu has the people dive for pearls and bring them to him as offerings. What we soon find out is that Balu is actually a shady pearl dealer named Varga who puts on a mask and robe for his appearances (pictured), and he and Palanth have rigged this island as an easy money-making scheme. When Mara (Linda Christian) is chosen against her will to be Balu's bride, she escapes into the sea and winds up in the river where Tarzan finds her, thinking for a moment that she's a mermaid. Tarzan and Jane take her in, but a gang of Aquatanian men find her and snatch her back to the island. Tarzan goes to rescue her, joined eventually by the local commissioner who is investigating pearl smuggling, and by Tiko (Gustavo Rojo), Mara's boyfriend who was exiled from the island for speaking out against Balu.

Weissmuller went out with a bang with this movie which mostly shook off the formulaic doldrums into which the Tarzan films had settled. Boy is gone (being schooled in England) and the antics of Cheetah the chimp are sharply reduced. The evil white hunter is now an evil pearl trader, and, though the actor playing him (Fernardo Wagner) actually has little to do, his henchman, the fabulous George Zucco, gets quite a bit of screen time to be dastardly. A new character—Benji, the singing mailman, played by John Laurenz—acts as a theatrical chorus, summarizing plot points in song. Near the climax, Tarzan executes a dangerous dive from a high cliff; according to rumor, the stunt man who did the dive died as a result, but that seems to be unsubstantiated. Brenda Joyce as Jane is fine if a bit colorless, but Christian (who soon married Tyrone Power) and Rojo are fine as the threatened lovers. Weissmuller had been seeming a bit bored and bloated in previous films, but for his last stand, he's a bit more energized, even if his acting remained lackadaisical at best. BTW, despite the title, there are no mermaids other than the swimming Mara. [TCM]