TARZAN GOES TO INDIA (1962)

As the title promises, Tarzan, king of the African jungles, goes to India, dropped off from a helicopter into a river and greeted on shore by Princess Kamara, the daughter of the ailing Maharajah who is an old friend of Tarzan's. An animal sanctuary is about to be flooded due to the building of a dam. The construction boss, O'Hara, is desperate to meet his deadline due to the coming of the monsoons, and if the dam isn't finished on time, it could mean a rough year ahead for the villagers. When trying to talk O'Hara into pausing the project doesn't work, Tarzan is tasked with getting the elephants (some 300 of them) through a pass to safe territory. The problem is that doing so might endanger an already completed part of the dam. While O'Hara is sympathetic, and Raj, his chief engineer, tries his best to help Tarzan and Kamara, chief overseer Bryce seems out to actively thwart the elephant rescue plan—in the past, he'd made an enemy of Tarzan because of his poaching of elephants in Africa, and he still plans on continuing that practice here. 

Though this has the advantage of location shooting in India, this is a rather bland entry in the Tarzan series. Jock Mahoney is perhaps a bit too laid-back as Tarzan, though he anticipated in both persona and physical build Ron Ely who played the character on TV in the mid-1960s. At 44, he was the oldest person to take on the role to that point, though he looks younger, and he was certainly in much better shape than Johnny Weissmuller was in his last few Tarzan films. The movie has a more interesting plot than many of the others, going a bit above and beyond the poaching of animals. Still, it takes a little too long to get exciting. For me, the biggest problem is the character of Jai, the Elephant Boy (pictured with Mahoney), a kid with little personality, like a charmless version of Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and little reason for being part of the story except to give Tarzan a sidekick, as there is no Jane and no romantic partner, and to have an elephant who plays a crucial part in the climax. Oddly, IMDb gives no actor's name for Jai, though other internet sources say he was Levi Aharon Aharoni. Leo Gordon is a strong villain as Bryce and Jagdish Raj is appealing as Raj. Simi Garewal has the thankless role of Kamara. The middle of this movie is a bit of a chore to sit through, but it does have a strong climax. [DVD]