Tarzan’s Secret Treasure ***(1941, Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan, Johnny Sheffield) – Classic Movie Review 8056

Director Richard Thorpe’s 1941 Tarzan’s Secret Treasure is an efficient and entertaining jungle adventure caper, re-uniting Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan for their fifth film together as Tarzan and Jane, and bristling with tongue-in-cheek fun and familiar thrills.

In the screenplay by Myles Connolly and Paul Gangelin, The Ape Man (Weissmuller) repels Professor Elliott (Reginald Owen)’s safari party, who are searching for gold, and Jane (O’Sullivan) finds a tribe whose speciality is killing white people slowly. Tarzan and his elephants set off to the rescue when the villains Medford (Tom Conway) and Vandermeer (Philip Dorn) kidnap Jane and Boy.

Also in the cast are Johnny Sheffield as Boy, whom the couple found and adopted in the previous episode Tarzan Finds a Son!, Barry Fitzgerald, Cordell Hickman, Everett Brown, Johnny Eck and Martin Wilkins.

O’Sullivan played Jane in Weissmuller’s first six Tarzan films before getting tired of the role and quitting: Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), Tarzan and His Mate (1934), Tarzan Escapes (1936), Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942).

Sheffield made eight MGM Tarzan movies, then became Bomba the Jungle Boy, retired from movies in 1955, and died on 15 October 2010, aged 79.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8056

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