Tarzan Lends a Hand against the Cannibals

As a child some of my favourite TV shows and films were set in Africa. I especially liked Johnny Weismuller, Olympic swimming champion, who played Jungle Jim and Tarzan in the old black and white films. In my opinion he was the best Tarzan; he really looked the part and did his own swimming. He was a little on the brutish side. (I absolutely hated the Tarzan in the later TV show of the 60s as he was just too nice). Jane was played by the gorgeous Maureen O'Sullivan, who wore some very revealing outits until a new movie code made her cover up. (see the film, Tarzan's Mate).My appreciation of those aspects came later!

The best parts were the battle scenes with bad white hunters getting eaten by lions and good ones getting rescued from the cannibal's cooking pot, as Tarzan charged in with a herd of elephants to trample the bad natives.

I have a shelf devoted to jungle Africa pre AIDS, pre assault rifle and pre independence. You can see a wild assortment of figures. The pigmies have blowguns. I made these from diminutive copies of Lone Star natives, the arms bent around and given metal rod blowguns. The Tarzan is a HK copy of a made in England Tarzan but I have forgotten which brand the original was but it was possibly Lone Star. The natives with the red shields are by BUM of Spain and the explorers are re-issues of Charbens.