Tarzan and the Trappers *(1960, Gordon Scott, Eve Brent, Rickie Sorensen) – Classic Movie Review 8081

Crooks head for a hidden city of treasure, capturing animals along the way, but Tarzan the Ape Man (Gordon Scott) rescues the wildlife and tries to stop the bad guys before they wreck the jungle.

Directors Charles F Haas and Sandy Howard’s 1960 adventure Tarzan and the Trappers is a tepid and mundane Tarzan tale, with pedestrian handling, spliced together and re-edited into a feature movie from three untransmitted television programmes. There is nothing wrong with the performers, though. Eve Brent plays Jane and Rickie Sorensen plays Boy. Also in the cast are Leslie Bradley, Maurice Marsac and Bruce Lester.

Tarzan and the Trappers was originally intended as three pilot episodes for a TV series but three networks rejected the show. It is made in black and white rather than colour, like other Fifties Tarzan films. The film finally appeared on TV in 1966.

It is written by Frederick Schlick and Robert Leach.

It was shot in Chatsworth, California.

It follows Tarzan’s Fight for Life (1958) with the same stars. 

H Bruce Humberstone is uncredited as co-director. Humberstone made King of the Jungle in 1933 starring Buster Crabbe, and went on to make a trio of Tarzan movies in the late Fifties: Tarzan and the Lost Safari (1957), Tarzan’s Fight for Life (1958) and Tarzan and the Trappers (1960), all with Gordon Scott.

Crabbe plays Kaspa the Lion Man in King of the Jungle, but features as a real Tarzan in 1933 serial Tarzan the Fearless.

The cast are Gordon Scott as Tarzan, Eve Brent as Jane, Rickie Sorensen as Tartu, Lesley Bradley as Schroeder, Maurice Marsac as Rene, Bruce Lester as Commissioner Brandini, Naaman Brown as Tribesman, Paul Thompson as Tribesman, Carl Christian as Tribesman, Sol Gorss as Sikes, William Keene as Lapin, Sherman Crothers as Tyana, Madame Sul-Te-Wan as Witch Woman, Paul Stader as Sikes’s Henchman, and Don Blackman as Tribesman.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8081

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