Everyone remembers Johnny Weissmuller . A multi Gold Olympic champion he got his big break in cinema playing Tarzan in the 1930s and 40s . I can't remember the last time television broadcast a Weissmuller Tarzan movie but do vaguely recall it might have been about 30 years ago at the latest . I also vaguely recall that the reason for their absence might be to do with the extremely dated portrayal of Africa and its inhabitants . So much so it might make the 1970s sit com LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR look like it was written by a committee of journalists from The Guardian . I had no knowledge of Jungle Jim so went on Wikipedia to have a quick cursory glance to find out what the spiel might be . Johnny Weissmuller in an action adventure as Jungle Jim where he has to save an African tribe from an atomic test and foreign agents . Hmmm even the name SAVAGE MUTINY conjures up images of painful stereotypes that border on the offensive . If nothing else I was convinced that no matter what I wasn't going to be bored
The first thing to strike you is that Weissmuller is an athlete and no actor and an ageing athlete at that . He might be able to get away with that in the Tarzan movies but his droning monotone European accented voice is a distraction to put it mildly and as Oscar Pistorius shows athletes don't make good actors . The plot itself is rather muddled and confused . Someone wants to carry out atomic bomb tests on an Island of the coast of Africa and Jungle Jim needs to evacuate a noble but superstitious tribe to safety . At the same time a foreign power wants to carry out chemical warfare tests on the tribe . If someone ( I take it that it's America ? ) is carrying out atomic tests why not conduct it at a remote isolated area that is uninhabited ? Likewise if the foreign power ( I take it that they're
Soviets ? ) want to carry out chemical weapons tests why not do so on a tribe that aren't subject to attention via the atomic testing ? The natives themselves don't resemble Africans in anyway and look Hispanic and talk like red Indians . On top of that SAVAGE MUTINY is terminally boring and manages to live down to expectations which is no small feat
