Cinematic Disasters: Tarzan, the Ape Man

A retrospective by Brooks Rich

Good to bring this segment back but oh god this film. The year is 1981 and British director John Derek makes this film under the Tarzan license that is essentially padding built around scenes of his wife Bo Derek being naked and fucking Tarzan. Clearly yes, this film was made just so horny dudes could go see Bo Derek naked but my God, is it also just dull as dishwater. And the fact that the director is married to Bo just makes the whole thing feel sleazy.

Bo Derek deserves better than this. Well first she deserves not to be filmed by her borderline creeper husband, ignoring the fact she's a producer on this, but she was an icon of her time. Yes of course she was a sex symbol but she was talented too. Check out the movie 10, which is pretty good. She has nothing to do here but flatly deliver her lines and wait for John to tell her to take her clothes off for a nude swim or for a sex scene with Tarzan, played by wannabe action star Miles 'o' Keefe in his debut film, whose biggest claim to fame is playing beefy Conan ripoff Ator in a series of films, most famously Cave Dwellers, which was a classic episode of Mystery Science Theater.

Look I am no prude. I don't mind films that are just made to show sex or nudity. The '70s was filled with them. There was a time in this country someone could go to the theater and choose to see either a G rated family film or Behind the Green Door, a film where a bunch of guys walk out of a door and have sex with a woman. But as the '70s made way to the '80s and that Reagan era of conservative values emerged in this country, sex films were relegated back to sleazy corners of the film world. One of the last gasps of "artistic" sex films so to speak was this nearly two hour slog. An embarrassment for everyone involved and maybe John Derek's worst movie, even worst then the one he made with a cameo by Donald Trump.

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