How Much O’Keefe? Miles O’Keefe

Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981) surprised me - it wasn’t all that bad. Or do I just have too much tolerance for jungle adventures? At least this one makes a big white explorer the bad guy.

Although the title says “Tarzan”, this is a Jane story. Jane is played by Bo Derek, legendary sexpot wife of director John Derek. She has travelled to Africa to find her father, drunk white explorer Richard Harris. The riverboat she is on comes to his camp to find him running around with no pants looking for his cannon. It turns out that he needs the cannon to fire a grappling hook to the top of the unscalable cliffs, behind which lives the legendary Man-Ape. He is not so excited to see his daughter. His assistant, John Philip Law with a little mustache, is a little more psyched. But both intend to capture, or preferably kill and stuff, Tarzan.

So they climb the cliffs, plus or minus a dead bearer or two, and are soon in the land that time forgot. A hidden tribe starts picking off members of the expedition, and finally (about 40 minutes in) Tarzan shows up to start rescuing them. He is played by MST3K fave Miles O’Keefe. We see him swinging on a vine (always in slow mo) and riding on an elephant. He has a chimp companion, but also an orangutan, which is weird, since they are Indonesian and unknown in Africa. I’m sure there’s a good reason.

The rest of the movie is Jane and Tarzan’s courtship, where Derek seduces O’Keefe with the subtlety of a Mac truck. We get to see a lot of Bo Derek boobage, and hear her reporting to her father in realtime about the state of her virginity - fortunately when he isn’t there. When he is killed, she starts talking to Law when he isn’t there. But only about ape-man sex.

Like I said, I didn’t mind most of this. The first two acts, with Harris as the focus, is quite fun - he’s a great villain. The scenery and animal life is pleasant (although maybe there could have been a few, you know, Africans around. The soft core sex in the last act is kind of icky, but maybe you like that.

I don’t think I’ll be watching it again soon, though.