Tarzan of the Apes *** (1918, Elmo Lincoln, Enid Markey, True Boardman) – Classic Movie Review 8088

Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs sold the film rights of his original novel Tarzan of the Apes to the National Film Corporation on 6 June 1916 for a record $5,000 cash advance on royalties, $50,000 in company stock and 5 per cent of gross receipts. A legend was born. And Burroughs got very rich.

Director Scott Sidney’s 1918 American action adventure classic silent cinema film Tarzan of the Apes is the first Tarzan film ever made and Elmo Lincoln therefore takes his place in history as the first adult movie Tarzan. It also stars Enid Markey as Jane Porter, George B French as sailor Binns, True Boardman as John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and Gordon Griffith as the younger Tarzan.

The film only adapts the first part of the novel, the rest being the basis for the sequel, The Romance of Tarzan (1918), with the same stars. The film is faithful to the novel but adds the character Binns and his role in bringing the Porters to Africa.

There was a feeling and consensus at the time that Lincoln was perhaps the best actor for the role of Tarzan, though admittedly nowadays he looks very stocky, and the film was a huge hit, grossing $3,270,000 in the US.

The film was three hours and divided into three parts, but the longest surviving print is 73 minutes.

Stellan Windrow could have been the first Tarzan. After five weeks of shooting, he had to quit to enlist in World War One, though footage of him swinging from vines remains in the film because Lincoln had trouble doing the sequences.

They picked Louisiana as the main shooting location because of the lush jungle vegetation, bayous, waterways, hotels, a railway-serviced wharf and a storage warehouse, as well as the cooperation of the people of Morgan City, where more than 300 residents were hired as cannibal extras for $1.75 a day. Native huts were built and 800 locals were hired as extras for the scenes in the African village, which was burned down for the finale. The ape roles are played by men from the New Orleans Athletic Club.

It is the film debut of Rex Ingram.

The production company hired eight acrobats to play apes, with costumes made from goat skins and elaborate masks.

It seems likely that the old and drugged lion in the film was killed off screen and was dead when Lincoln stabs it, though he claimed he stabbed and killed it. It ended up as a lobby display when the film opened on Broadway.

Tarzan of the Apes is still interesting and watchable, and is available for free download at the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/TarzanoftheApes1918AndyDivx

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8088

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