User reviews

Shot amongst the luscious vegetation of... Louisiana... this is actually quite a decent effort at telling the story of "Tarzan"; of his family, youth, rescue and - of course - his falling for "Jane" (Enid Markey). It seems to be intercut with archive of some of the animals you might expect to find in the jungle, though some are also clearly folks in costume - but it's over 100 years old, and frankly the narrative flows far better, with a score that conveys the mood well, than the pretty mediocre version told with special effects a plenty in 2016. Gordon Griffith has something of the wonder about him as the child, and Elmo Lincoln the capable, honourable adult. The pace is consistent and the fight scenes quite realistic looking (plenty of gymnastics) - and if you are at all interested in the development of cinema, as well as of this oft told story, then this is well worth 70 minutes of your time. Helpfully, the inter-titles don't get in the way of the acting; they are there - but sparingly.

At this early point in American film history, Tarzan of the Apes was an instant success. Elmo Lincoln was perhaps the best actor at the time for the role. It's a fairly straight forward telling of the novel, tho Edgar Rice Burroughs was frequently on the set in an advisory role and his input was seldom utilized. In the books, Tarzan was quite the self-made scholar and this was barely touched upon in the film. For 1918, this turned out to be an excellent film, parts of which still hold up today. It's a solid 7 out of 10, and well worth seeing.

This is the first and oldest Tarzan movie ever made, as far as I know. Interesting mainly for that point. For the rest, I will always prefer Johnny Weissmuller as the Tarzan character, and I suppose I am not the only one to think like this. Elmo Lincoln could have been replaced by a more convincing actor, more athletic. OK, it tries to speak of the true, genuine story of Tarzan, according to the Edgard Rice Burrough's novel, as Hugh Hudson did in 1984. This is a good point that can justify to watch this rare item, xanks to TCM. This is also a shame that so many features fromt he silent era are now lost forever.

Cinema's first adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's famous novel sees screen strongman Elmo Lincoln claiming a place in cinematic history in the title role. With his bulging eyes and crazed grin, he's a strangely unhinged version of the ape man, but Lincoln's eccentric portrayal somehow makes him all the more convincing. Although only a 60 minute version of the original 2-hour film survives, the plot remains both coherent and remarkably faithful to Burrough's famous novel, and the swamplands of Louisiana provide a convincing substitute for the African jungle.

Whenever I watch a silent film, I try to view it in the proper context (time it was made, technology, etc.). I got a kick out of this film. I imagined what wonder there was in viewing giraffes, rhinos, elephants, pythons, and a host of jungle life. I particularly enjoyed the young man who played Tarzan as a child. His face was continually full of wonder and life. For me, the movie took a downturn when Elmo Lincoln showed up. For a guy who obviously spent his time running through the jungle, climbing trees, wrestling critters ten times his size, he looked like one of the guys that used to sit next to my father at his favorite watering hole. He has that huge paunch and those fleshy white legs. I was very aware that this Tarzan was in continual danger of falling off a branch (possibly breaking it) and doing himself harm. Let's face it: he also wasn't exactly going to win any beauty contests. If Jane hadn't had a bad experience with he fiancé, would she have given him a second look. Jane, no great prize herself, gets together with him, but I couldn't help but wonder what they would be doing, other than the obvious. All that aside, it was fun seeing this. I had heard about the film for years and decided to purchase a copy for myself. It was worth it for the novelty.

After a shipboard mutiny forces Lord and Lady Greystoke into the uncharted African Jungle, Lady Greystoke gives birth to a boy. The parents die soon after, and the boy (Gordon Griffith) is raised by a family of "apes". He learns to live and fight like them, but also learns how to read and right from escaped slave Binns (George B. French), who heads back to Europe. Binns eventually convinces enough people that young Greystoke is still alive, and brings an expedition back to find him years later. The boy has now grown into the man known as Tarzan (Elmo Lincoln), Lord of the Jungle. When he sets eyes on Jane Porter (Enid Markey), it's love at first sight, and he rescues her from a number of perils. Also featuring Thomas Jefferson (!).

Filmed in Louisiana, this proved a hit, despite only adapting the first half of Burroughs' novel. A quick sequel, The Romance of Tarzan, was released later the same year but has since been lost. Lincoln, who had played a scary guard in Griffith's Intolerance, makes for an equally scary looking Tarzan, big and beefy, wearing a headband and an over-the-shoulder fur onesie. His Tarzan "yell" consists of him raising his fists in the air and making an insane face. The "apes" in Tarzan's family are people in weird monkey suits, with a real chimp thrown in occasionally to make things even weirder. There's also a really bad gorilla suit, as well as a real lion which one source I have says was actually killed by Lincoln on screen. There's enough strange stuff here to keep the viewer's interest, along with a brief (under an hour) running time.

If someone watches this film and starts looking for shortcomings, they'll probably find a reasonable amount. However, considering the film was made in 1918, it's an amazingly good film--even with its few mistakes and cheesy touches--which, relative to other films of the day, were few.

This original Tarzan film was made in Louisiana. I live in Florida and I could tell by looking at the plants that it was filmed in this part of the USA, but considering that many later Tarzan films were filmed with houseplants all over the set, the backwoods of Louisiana (with all its Spanish moss) was a good choice for a domestic production. As far as the wild animals go, it was a mixed bag. Unfortunately, the elephant was an Asian elephant but I can't blame the film makers too much--the African variety are a lot nastier and dangerous. What I can blame them for, a bit, are the apes that adopt Tarzan. They are clearly people in cheap ape costumes--that look neither like gorillas or chimps--just people in ape costumes! But once again, given the technology of the era, it isn't that bad--plus, Stanley Kubrick did the same thing in "2001" and it's considered a masterpiece!! As for the plot, aside from the addition of a character and a few other small changes, it is essentially Edgar Rice Burroughs' book come to life. It's actually much more accurate than many of the later versions and because it stays closer to the book, it is more interesting and watchable...and less silly. In fact, as far as the writing, direction and acting go, it was all very, very good for such an early full-length film--and a lot better than the gobs of Tarzan films from the 1950s and 60s.

Overall, very good and very interesting.

...because of his already established reputation as a Hollywood strong man (e.g. his role as the Mighty Man of Valor in the 1916 DW Griffith classic "Intolerance").

Also, the image of Tarzan in 1918 was not that of a lithe gymnast like Christopher Lambert in "Greystoke", but of a man powerful enough to wrestle lions. Strength equalled bulk.

There's an interesting piece of trivia attached to that movie and Uganda (that's in East Africa) where I'm now based. There's a popular myth around here that the 1918 version of "Tarzan of the Apes" was filmed on the northern shores of Lake Victoria. In fact it was shot, I believe, in Louisiana.

Edgar Rice Burrough's 1912 novel about hereditary and how an abandoned baby adapts to the wild African environment was first brought to the screen in January 1918's "Tarzan of the Apes." Pegged as the most faithful film of the novelist's debut book, "Tarzan," played by actor Elmo Lincoln, is the first of a great many Tarzans to come upon the silver screen.

The film follows Burrough's events described in the first half of his book, introducing the characters and events leading up to a young infant's upbringing by the apes in the African jungle. The boy, played by Gordon Griffith, one the earliest child actors in silent movies, is raised by his adoptive ape mother, before Lincoln takes over as the adult Tarzan. Jane, his future partner, comes upon the scene as part of an expedition investigating the disappearance of Lord and Lady Greystoke, who births the boy before she and her husband die. The film reveals the love relationship of Tarzan and Jane in the deepest of terms.

The immediate sequel of "Tarzan of the Apes," which was "The Romance of Tarzan," released in September 1918, deals with the second part of Burrough's book. Incidentally, Burrough ended up writing or co-writing a series of 24 books about Tarzan and his adventures.

A perceptive viewer will notice the large amount of Spanish Moss growing on the trees in "Tarzan of the Apes." The moss, rarely found in Africa but abundant in Louisiana, serves as a lush backdrop where filming took place near Morgan City. Several hundred locals were hired at $1.75 per day to play the natives, while the an entire African village was constructed, only to be consumed by fire as part of the movie's plot. Additionally, several teenagers from the New Orleans Athletic club donned on ape costumes to play Tarzan's weening mother as well as her friends and relatives.

One particular scene in "Tarzan of the Apes" contains a legendary tale where actor Lincoln is wrestling a lion who was trying to get after Jane and her servant while in the cabin. The old lion is seen in the movie lurking around when Lincoln approaches and wrestles the supposedly drugged animal. The anecdote goes that the lion became excessively aggressive with the actor, forcing him to stab the feline to death on the set. The real story is the lion was filmed outside the cabin, then the camera stops and he's killed offscreen before the corpse is placed on the open widow sill. The camera then rolls as Lincoln is seen wrestling and stabbing the "dead" animal, making the sequence appear to look like the lion is alive and kicking.

Agile, athletic actor Stellan Windrow was originally contracted to play Tarzan in the 1918 movie. He had spent five weeks being filmed on long shots climbing tree branches and swinging from vines. But he opted out of the production to enlist in the First World War when the United States entered the conflict. The more muscular, bulky Elmo Lincoln, who had played the Mighty Man of Valor in D. W. Griffith's "Intolerance," was hired as Windrow's replacement. Unable to do the stunts that Windrow did, Lincoln's far away shots of him in the trees were really those of the original actor. Lincoln's daughter, Marci'a Lincoln Rudolph, wrote a biography of her dad in "My Father, Elmo Lincoln: The Original Tarzan." Actress Markey had the distinction of being the first Jane in Tarzan movies. She played her character in the Tarzan sequel before turning to the stage, where she said, "I really wanted to learn how to act." Today's audiences would recognize her as Barney Fife's landlady Mrs. Mendelbright in "The Andy Griffith Show" as well as in other various TV roles.

Tarzan of the Apes(1918). I watched this based on picking up a post in the Silent Film News Thread. This is the PD version that is hosted on IMDB.

This is a really good film for giving the basic outline of the Tarzan origin story. It takes place from the Greystokes fleeing their ship after a mutiny that lands them in the African Jungle. Tarzan is played in the growing up part of the story by Gordon Griffith, who does an admirable job playing the Tarzan of adolescence. As he gets older he starts to realize he's not like the rest of the apes in his tribe and he is able to learn things the apes are unable to. He also gets his trusty knife that gives young Tarzan an important weapon to help him against other animals (and sometimes other humans).

Elmo Lincoln provides a rather stout version of the adult Tarzan. We see him conquer different wild animals, while also getting revenge for the death of his ape mother who took him in and raised him. There was an interesting play of emotions on his first time to see a European female, who tells him "You do not steal love from a woman", a lesson that one of her own companions in the rescue party from England can't seem to understand.

The print on IMDB was in extremely bad shape. There are parts of the film where the image was completely wiped clean from being used over the last Century and a bit. I was glad to see it, as I had wondered how well this first Tarzan film was. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

This original silent version of the Lord of the Apes is perhaps the truest screen representation of the way Tarzan is envisioned in the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is seems very crude but really isn't. It follows the first story (in as much as it can in the limited time of the feature) very closely. Elmo Lincoln, while no Adonis, is very adequate in the role. He's not Johnny Weissmuller...but then Johnny didn't really look all too much like Tarzan should have either.

I've always enjoyed Tarzan and his infinite incarnations, but this silent work has made me an official Tarzan fan. It's current running time doesn't really allow for the whole story to be told and it leaves you wanting more. Some have complained about Elmo Lincoln not having the physical appearance of Tarzan, but I COMPLETELY disagree. It's nice to see a great, expressive actor like Elmo looking like an unkempt linebacker instead of the endless thin, clean looking Tarzans we would see in the years to come. Although the entire cast is made up of excellent actors, the real shining star of this film is Gordon Griffith as young Tarzan. The stunts are great and the film is action packed. The sets and location filming in Louisiana make an excellent substitute for the jungles of Africa and the mixture of real animals with costumed ones is used well, even if one or two of the ape costumes look a bit ridiculous. My biggest, if only complaint, is the soundtrack. Although the sound effects were nice touches, the actual "music" sounds closer to the background music of a Commodore 64 game as opposed to a score written for a 1918 feature film. If you have any interest in Tarzan, Burroughs or silent film then this needs to be in your collection

A very enjoyable silent B-movie and superior to many Tarzan films. Many Tarzan movies skip Tarzan's tragic origin and load the film with too much action, animals and comedy. Its interesting that this massive franchise started with a slow, logical and character-driven movie. Tarzan comes off more like a superhero here than in any of the other films. He's powerful, heroic and sensitive. Kudos to Weissmuller for playing Tarzan as a more primal innocent wildman (bringing great acting to the series) but Elmo Lincoln is the perfect fantasy of a jungle superhero. This film seems to be missing a lot of footage because its so disjointed and the over-the-top cuteness of the child Tarzan and the over-the-top evil of Tarzan's African enemies will annoy modern viewers. But the rest of the film holds up. Even the B&W photography is awesome.

Ever since I started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' original Tarzan novels, I've been anxious to get my hands on the different interpretations of Jane's "forest god." Well, maybe silent movies aren't my thing, however, like the guy who said he likes to watch silent movies and imagine what it would have taken to create such a picture with the technology they had at the time, I suppose it was interesting. You think they would have had better cutting of the shot with the lion, seeing as it was touted as an actual lion kill. (Hell, just let the camera roll!) But I guess the stuff of legend is mysterious, cryptic, and inspired by what may have been.

I cram to understand how somebody can call this "very interesting," but let it be said that I agree wholly with John G. Olson.