Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953)

Director Kurt Neumann directed the horror classic "The Fly" but the dull Tarzan material here is nowhere as good as that classic. Despite a rather provocative title, this film doesn't have any She-Devils who look the Tura Satana or anything close. Instead, all you get is a lot fo stock footage of animals, jungles, and a boring story about ivory hunters needing to be stopped by Tarzan. One of the ivory hunters is played by George Sanders' sound-alike brother Tom Conway, so that's a bit fun. Its' also funny because Conway earlier played a great white hunter who tricks Tarzan into helping him find hidden gold. You'd think Tarzan would have learned his lesson the first time! Raymond Burr plays the main baddie, so that's a good thing, but there's not much besides Burr and Conway to recommend about this one. Probably a low point all the Tarzan pictures, which was also the last time Lex Barker played the role.

***SPOILERS*** Lex Barker in his final role as Tarzan the Ape Man is kidnapped and tortured by a gang of Ivory poacher's lead by She-Devil Lyra, Monique Van Vooren, and held hostage by them. That's until he can bellow out his famous bull elephant, not ape, call to get the local heard of elephants to meekly get into line to have their precious ivory tusks amputated by the pouches. It's after Tarzan's luxury's tree-house, that didn't have fire insurance, in the jungle was burned down by the pouches with his wife Jayne, Joyce Mackenzie, and pet monkey Cheetah possibly perishing in the flames Tarzan felt that he had nothing to live for. And even welcomed death at the hands of his kidnappers lead by a whale like Vargo, Raymond Burr, who tried to get him to play along, by getting the elephants to turn themselves in, with them.It's when both Jane and Cheetah showed up alive that Tarzan agreed to give the bull elephant call only to have the elephants stampeded their intended killers into chopped meat not go quietly to their death. With Vargo getting the worst of it being crushed alive when the roof, of his headquarters, came crushing down on him. As for She-Devil Lyra she ended up getting hers not from the stampeding elephants but from her wimpy butter-fingered husband Fidel, Tom Conway,who in trying to prevent from getting trampled shot her , by accident, instead before the charging and out of control elephants did a number on him.Raymond Burr just back after staring in his last jungle film "Bride of the Gorilla" where he played the gorilla was excellent here as Vergo the 275 pound heavy who liked to throw his weight around and ended up getting a lot more weight, in being trampled to death, thrown at him instead. It was 4 years later after shedding some 75 to 100 pounds that a slimmed down looking Burr got the role as TV's Perry Mason that not only turned him, who up until then was always playing villains, not only into a good guy but also a TV icon and legend as well.

Thankfully this was Lex Barker's last Tarzan film. Discarding clichéd Cold War leanings and Eastern European villains in the stories, the routine plot of "Tarzan and the She-Devil" turned its attention to hot-blooded Europeans with similar greedy motivations, this time for profits from ivory trading, including three mean Mediterranean males and one Belgian woman. But as Jane's mishaps are central to the plot, the enterprise turns too mellow and becomes more melodramatic than the previous entries that showed the Greystokes' domestic life. In the story Jane is abused, lost in the jungle, kidnapped and imprisoned, and in the proceedings the Greystokes' tree house is set on fire, so there was a need to introduce before romantic images and dialogues between Tarzan and Jane that in the end seem too ludicrous and out of place. On top of that Monique van Vooren's character (a Belgian business woman called Lyra) becomes too soft to be one of cinema's unforgettable she-devils (think of Ona Munson in "The Shanghai Gesture", Gale Sondergaard in "The Spider Woman", or Mari Blanchard in "She Devil", for example). Directed by Kurt Neumann (a veteran in Burroughs land, having directed Johnny Weissmuller in "Tarzan and the Amazons", "Tarzan and the Leopard Woman" and "Tarzan and the Huntress") the film still has high entertainment values to keep our attention. As Neumann went on to direct "She Devil", "Kronos" and the original "The Fly", Lex Barker became a superstar in European adventure films, made two movies with Cuban H-Bomb Chelo Alonso, appeared in Fellini's "La dolce vita" with Anika Ekberg and De Sica's "Woman Times Seven" with Shirley MacLaine, and lived happily ever after married to Miss Spain 1961, until his death in 1973.

For the fifth and final Tarzan film starring Lex Barker it was not only back to the RKO back lot, but back to the old days when the natives that Tarzan was helping were not even black. In fact Tarzan spends most of the time in chains because he's broken hearted because he thinks the villains have killed Jane.Jane is played here by Joyce McKenzie and the trio of villains are Tom Conway, Raymond Burr, and Monique Van Vooren, the last being the she-devil in the title. No black magic does she use, simply some feminine wiles and an appeal to Tarzan that since Jane is dead, he can best help by making sure that her two male conspirators don't go too hard on the natives they've enslaved, especially Raymond Burr who is on a power kick.The trio is after ivory and they've captured a whole tribe of to do their heavy work as ivory hunting legal or not requires a lot of help.But as we know from many a Tarzan film in the past, the elephants are among his best jungle friends and they help out a lot in rescuing Jane and the natives and Tarzan later in typical elephant fashion. Of course the elephants are also acting on their own rational self interest since they have no desire to wind up piano keys.RKO did the first film with Gordon Scott as Tarzan and then bid adieu to the Tarzan franchise. With Scott the series began to get a bit more realistic in the plots and also reflected the new Africa emerging in the Sixties. Tarzan And The She-Devil is a piece of high camp, but that's about the only way it can be enjoyed.