Agreed, radriano, most of the movies were utterly dreadful, and did no credit to the character. One exception was Greystoke, with Christopher Lambert, which was pretty good, and treated the subject matter seriously (as pointed out already by DonMeixner).

It was always astonishing to me what a shoddy treatment the film industry gave to Tarzan, considering the wealth of possibilities for some really spectacular films that could have rivalled Indian Jones, had they bothered to try. And that's to say nothing of the Mars series, which could have been even grander, but has not even been attempted.

UNGOWAH! Yes, an extraordinarily useful phrase (which appeared absolutely nowhere EXCEPT in the movies, as far as I know. Here's what it really meant:

Scene 1: Tarzan is in deep trouble. He's been captured by (a) vicious native trive (b) vicious white hunter up to no good (c) vicious Arab slave traders (d) vicious Nazis unaccountably lost in Central Africa (e) all of the above. Just as they are about to deliver the coup de grace to the helpless apeman, he utters that strange ululating cry popularized by Johhny Weismuller...AAAAA-EEEE-AAAAA-EEEEEE-AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

The baddies fall back momentarily in superstitious fear, and look around nervously at the jungle. (Little do they know that "AAAAA-EEEE-AAAAA-EEEEEE-AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" means "All elephants are motherfuckers!!!".

Scene 2: Tantor the elephant is grazing with his herd. Suddenly he hears the cry, recoils, and trumpets in fury. The herd starts to move...

Scene 3: The gloating leader of the bad guys informs the Lord of the Jungle that his silly yelling isn't going to accomplish anything, and that he should say his prayers instead and prepare to meet his maker. Tarzan gazes stonily past his left ear and ignores him. The bad guys move in for the kill. But suddenly they hear a rumbling sound approaching...

Scene 4: 500 enraged elephants burst through the foliage into the clearing. As the bad guys freeze in terror, Tarzan nods or gestures in their general direction and yells "UNGOWA!!!" ...which means, in Elephantese, "THEY SAID IT!!!"

Scent 5,6,7: The elephants massacre, trample, slice and dice the bad guys with extreme prejudice. Tantor grinds their leader's head under one massive foot. Great closeup of foot coming down and bad guy screaming...

TARZAN TRIUMPHS AGAIN!

Strangely enough, the elephants never seem to catch on to this oft-repeated gambit...lucky for the apeman.

Thanks for the link, Bill D! And you too, Giac!

- LH