{ "id": "epynqy0tr1", "slug": "tarzan-the-ape-man", "title": "Tarzan the Ape Man", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series", "label": "Franchise and series entries as standalone works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series.franchise-series.overview", "label": "Franchise and series film entries — overview and cross-series topics", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series.franchise-series.overview" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Franchise and series entries as standalone works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series", "label": "Franchise and series entries as standalone works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Tarzan the Ape Man: 1932 MGM adventure film starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, directed by W. S. Van Dyke; first of six MGM Tarzan films, introduced the Tarzan yell, and spawned 1959 and 1981 remakes.", "snippet": "Tarzan the Ape Man: 1932 MGM adventure film starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, directed by W. S. Van Dyke; first of six MGM Tarzan films, introduced the Tarzan yell, and spawned 1959 and 1981 remakes.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.franchise-series.franchise-series.overview", "markdown": "# Tarzan the Ape Man\n\n**Tarzan the Ape Man** is a 1932 American adventure film from [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer](https://www.edgepedia.org/metro-goldwyn-mayer) starring [Johnny Weissmuller](https://www.edgepedia.org/johnny-weissmuller) as Tarzan and [Maureen O'Sullivan](https://www.edgepedia.org/maureen-osullivan) as Jane, directed by W. S. Van Dyke from a screenplay by Cyril Hume and based on characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/7166-TARZAN-THE-APE-MAN) It was the first sound Tarzan film and the first entry in MGM's Tarzan series, and its title was reused for two later MGM-associated remakes, in 1959 and 1981.[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) • [3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53032-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00dfbee8-b599-4632-8394-96825587fbab&sr=0.191968)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Original film | Tarzan, the Ape Man, MGM, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, released 2 April 1932, 99 or 101 minutes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/7166-TARZAN-THE-APE-MAN) |\n| Lead cast | Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan), Maureen O'Sullivan (Jane), Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/7166-TARZAN-THE-APE-MAN) |\n| Origin | Conceived as a follow-up to Trader Horn (1931), reusing its director, screenwriter, editor, cinematographer, theme music, and wildlife footage[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) |\n| Signature element | Introduced Tarzan's now-signature yell[4](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781136447921_A23846904/preview-9781136447921_A23846904.pdf) |\n| Series | First of six MGM Tarzan films starring Weissmuller and O'Sullivan (1932–1942)[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) |\n| Remakes | 1959 version produced by Al Zimbalist; 1981 version directed by John Derek, starring Bo Derek[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53032-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00dfbee8-b599-4632-8394-96825587fbab&sr=0.191968) • [5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN) |\n| 1981 lawsuit | Burroughs heirs sued MGM over remake rights; the appeals court ruled for MGM on 26 May 1982[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nThe story opens in an East African port town, where James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith), a gruff English businessman, is outfitting an expedition to the Mutia Escarpment, a region no white man has mapped, in search of the elephants' graveyard. His business partner Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) has just come back from a failed first attempt, and he has an interest in Parker that goes beyond ivory: Parker's daughter Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) is arriving from England, and Harry means to marry her. Jane turns out to be no Victorian miss but a crack shot with a mischievous streak, and she insists on coming along when word arrives that the porters have deserted.[14](https://pre-code.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932-review-with-johnny-weissmuller-maureen-osullivan/)\n\nThe trek into the escarpment country is a chain of ordeals: a raft crossing attacked by a water buffalo and then a crocodile, and the scaling of a sheer precipice so narrow that one of the men falls to his death.[15](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/7166) Then the jungle starts taking an interest of its own. Something has been watching the party from the canopy, drumming on tree trunks and mimicking Jane's voice. More than half an hour passes before the title character shows up at all.[16](https://digitalbits.com/reviews/item/tarzan-the-ape-man-wac-2024-bd)\n\n**Tarzan's entrance is the moment the film has been holding back, and it still lands.** Dwarves, small-statured tribesmen the film stages as shrieking menace, ambush Jane's part of the expedition and carry her off. A figure drops out of the trees, scoops her up, and lets loose with the yell, a strange, rising, three-note cry that MGM's sound department assembled for the picture and that became one of the most recognizable sounds in movies.[17](https://www.filmsite.org/tarz.html) TIME noted that Weissmuller's first appearance shows him swooping through the trees in huge, quick parabolas, and that the wildest animal the Olympic swimmer had known before this was the tame alligator in the Miami hotel pool where he worked as a swimming instructor.[18](https://www.erbzine.com/mag6/0611.html) Tarzan deposits Jane in his treetop aerie, and the two get acquainted through pointing, jabbing, and prodding, since his entire vocabulary fits on a cocktail napkin. This is the exchange the world remembers as \"Me Tarzan, you Jane,\" a line that never actually appears in the film; O'Sullivan later said the phrase began as Weissmuller's joke on a high branch, delivered to remind her which of them was supposed to do the yelling.[17](https://www.filmsite.org/tarz.html) • [19](https://www.cmgworldwide.com/2023/06/05/johnny-weissmuller-as-tarzan-the-ape-man/)\n\nFrom there the film runs on a simple triangle. Harry organizes a rescue and wants Jane home; Parker wants to push on to the ivory; Tarzan wants Jane, and shows it by the era's regrettable grammar, carrying her off and keeping her until affection, or [Stockholm syndrome](https://www.edgepedia.org/stockholm-syndrome) with a good tan, takes over. The middle stretch stacks capture, escape, and pursuit: Tarzan fights lions barehanded, one of them while wounded, and swings through the trees in loops forty feet across with Jane tucked under one arm.[20](https://moriareviews.com/fantasy/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932.htm) The best of these is the river escape, Tarzan and Jane fleeing through a swamp of hippos and crocodiles, staged with real geography so the viewer always knows where everyone stands relative to the water, the bank, and the pursuers. It is capped by Tarzan wrestling a croc in the water, a composite of a mechanical crocodile, rear projection, and real animal footage that the early sound era solved with ingenuity rather than budget.\n\nThe expedition finally reaches its goal when a wounded, dying elephant leads the party through a waterfall to the elephants' graveyard, an immense plateau scattered with hundreds of tusks and skeletons. Parker gets his treasure, collapses, and dies on the spot, and is buried there among the bones.[21](https://www.filmsite.org/tarzC.html) The dwarves then capture the survivors and lower the bearers one by one into a pit where a giant gorilla bites off their heads, until Tarzan arrives just in time to wrestle the ape and kill it with his knife.[20](https://moriareviews.com/fantasy/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932.htm) For the finale he gives his yell in a loud voice and advances on the dwarf village followed by a herd of friendly elephants, which trample the village to bits.[18](https://www.erbzine.com/mag6/0611.html)\n\nThe ending is the film's quiet surprise: Harry offers to take Jane back to civilization, and she declines, choosing Tarzan and the chimpanzee Chetah over England. The last image is the couple waving from a rock, Cheeta between them, as the soundtrack swells with Tchaikovsky's Theme from [Romeo and Juliet](https://www.edgepedia.org/romeo-and-juliet).[21](https://www.filmsite.org/tarzC.html)\n\n### Characters\n\nTarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) is a man raised by apes who speaks in fragments and expresses everything else with his body. Weissmuller, an Olympic swimming champion with no acting experience, is effective precisely because he does very little; the stunts are real, the swimmer's ease in water is genuine, and the yell does the rest.[18](https://www.erbzine.com/mag6/0611.html)\n\nJane Parker (Maureen O'Sullivan) is the film's actual lead in every way but billing. A crack shot from England with a modern woman's wisecracks, she carries most of the dialogue and all of the wit, and her gradual reorientation from the human world toward Tarzan is played as a decision, not a swoon.[14](https://pre-code.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932-review-with-johnny-weissmuller-maureen-osullivan/)\n\nJames Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) is Jane's father, a gruff, reliable Englishman whose single-minded pursuit of the ivory graveyard kills him within sight of it.\n\nHarry Holt (Neil Hamilton) is the younger partner and Jane's suitor, decent and persistent, who spends the last half of the film trying to rescue a woman who no longer wants rescuing.\n\nChetah the chimpanzee, introduced here, provides comic relief and became a fixture of the series.[17](https://www.filmsite.org/tarz.html)\n\n### Interpretations and controversies\n\nThe film diverges sharply from [Edgar Rice Burroughs](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgar-rice-burroughs), whose Tarzan is an educated English lord; Weissmuller's can barely speak, and that inarticulate version is the one the movies kept.[22](https://www.kozaksclassiccinema.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932/) Two things date it badly and are regularly discussed in retrospectives: the depiction of the African dwarves as anonymous, shrieking threats staged as spectacle, and the courtship plot, in which Tarzan's carrying Jane off against her will is framed as romance. The final tableau of Tarzan, Jane, and Cheeta on the cliff has been read as an alternative family portrait that reconciles the wild man with a conventional monogamous ending.[22](https://www.kozaksclassiccinema.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932/)\n\n### Sequels, prequels, and universe\n\nThis was the first of six Tarzan films starring Weissmuller and O'Sullivan together at MGM between 1932 and 1942, followed by *Tarzan and His Mate* (1934) and others, and it established the template later Tarzans in film and television copied for decades.[17](https://www.filmsite.org/tarz.html) • [16](https://digitalbits.com/reviews/item/tarzan-the-ape-man-wac-2024-bd)\n\n## The 1932 film\n\nTarzan was created in 1912 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a former pencil-sharpener salesman, in a story published in pulp fiction; the character reached the screen in 1918 with Elmo Lincoln in the silent [Tarzan of the Apes](https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-of-the-apes).[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) After several silent films, the first hit Tarzan movie was MGM's talkie Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), starring the Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller.[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en)\n\nThe film began as a commercial calculation. Trader Horn (1931), shot largely on location in Africa, was both the most expensive and the highest-earning film MGM made in 1930–31, and producer [Irving Thalberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/irving-thalberg) and production supervisor Bernie Hyman decided to repeat its formula of exotic location, thrilling action, and simple plot.[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) Ape Man kept the Trader Horn director (Van Dyke), screenwriter (Cyril Hume), editor (Ben Lewis), and cinematographer (Clyde De Vinna), along with cast member C. Aubrey Smith, the theme music, and much footage of wild animals and African tribes; the Trader Horn character himself appeared in early storylines but was cut in later drafts.[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) Some footage from Trader Horn was included in the finished film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/7166-TARZAN-THE-APE-MAN)\n\nThe plot follows Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton) and James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith), two explorers hunting ivory who reach an isolated stretch of jungle in quest of a legendary elephant burial ground, with Parker's daughter Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) along for the trip. When Tarzan and his primate companions abduct Jane, conflict follows between the jungle dwellers and the outsiders, and Jane gradually falls for Tarzan.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1020896-tarzan_the_ape_man) The film's opening credits list Weissmuller's name first, while the end credits place it last, reading \"and Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan\"; the film was copyrighted as Tarzan, the Ape Man, though many reviews included the comma.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/7166-TARZAN-THE-APE-MAN)\n\n**Reception and series.** Ape Man was immediately successful, ranking as one of the top ten grossing films of 1932, and MGM commissioned sequels.[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) Over the next ten years the studio made six Tarzan films starring Weissmuller and O'Sullivan: Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), [Tarzan and His Mate](https://www.edgepedia.org/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).[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) The 1932 film introduced Tarzan's now-signature yell.[4](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781136447921_A23846904/preview-9781136447921_A23846904.pdf) A contemporary New York Times review opened by associating the film with the child audience, describing youngsters home from school finding the Capitol theater \"a lively place\".[2](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en) On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the 1932 film holds an 88% Tomatometer score from 17 reviews.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1020896-tarzan_the_ape_man) Weissmuller played Tarzan from 1932 to 1948, first for MGM and later for producer Sol Lesser at RKO.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-12-tv-1238-story.html) • [8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/490042/tarzan-triumphs)\n\n## The 1959 remake\n\nIn November 1958 the producer Al Zimbalist announced that his production of Tarzan, the Ape Man would be \"more or less\" a remake of the 1932 MGM film, the first in the studio's long-running series.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53032-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00dfbee8-b599-4632-8394-96825587fbab&sr=0.191968) The 1959 film, released more than 27 years after the original, was MGM's least popular entry in the series, and for many years was considered the worst Tarzan movie ever made until the 1981 version appeared.[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1142/tarzan-the-ape-man-1959) According to a 1961 Variety article, Edgar Rice Burroughs' estate sued MGM following the 1959 film's release, claiming it was an altered version of the original story.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53032-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00dfbee8-b599-4632-8394-96825587fbab&sr=0.191968)\n\n## The 1981 remake and the rights lawsuit\n\nIn February 1980 MGM announced a remake of its 1932 film, to be produced and directed by [John Derek](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-derek) with [Bo Derek](https://www.edgepedia.org/bo-derek) starring and also producing.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN) Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., representing Burroughs' heirs, who had meanwhile made a deal with Warner Bros. for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), investigated the legality of MGM's project, and the heirs filed suit in a New York federal court claiming the studio lacked remake rights.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN) MGM's position rested on its 1931 agreement with Burroughs, which allowed the studio to make the 1932 film and entitled it to film remakes; the heirs contended that the U.S. Copyright Law of 1978 gave them the right to terminate MGM's remake rights, and their attorney also noted that MGM's remake rights stipulated the film be suitable for young audiences, while the Dereks' film promised to be \"erotic\" and \"sensual\".[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN)\n\nThe appeals court ruled for MGM on 26 May 1982. Comparing the synopses of the 1932 and 1981 films with the original 1912 book Tarzan of the Apes, the judges held that under the 1931 agreement the 1932 film was MGM's original story utilizing the character \"Tarzan\" but was not based on the book, so the estate's termination of MGM's rights to copyrighted material from the book was inapplicable.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN) The case is reported as Burroughs v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 683 F.2d 610.[10](https://app.midpage.ai/document/burroughs-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-8915476)\n\n**The 1981 film itself** was released on 24 July 1981, rated R, running 112 minutes, with [Richard Harris](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-harris) as Jane's father and Miles O'Keeffe as Tarzan.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN) • [11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1020897-tarzan_the_ape_man) It opened strongly: $6,700,809 in its first weekend at 930 theaters, MGM's largest opening to date, $10,198,355 in its first week, and $20,428,716 in its first seventeen days, with an estimated gross of $27 million by September 1981.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN) Critics were far less generous than audiences: on Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 9% Tomatometer score from 22 reviews, and Roger Ebert, the [Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-sun-times) critic who won the [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize) for criticism in 1975, gave it 2.5 of 4 stars, calling it \"completely ridiculous\" while allowing it \"a certain disarming charm\".[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1020897-tarzan_the_ape_man) • [12](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tarzan-the-ape-man-1981)\n\n## Legacy\n\nThe 1932 film fixed the screen image of Tarzan for decades. The six MGM films starring Weissmuller and O'Sullivan are credited with cementing the ape-man's status as a cultural icon in the 1930s and 1940s.[13](https://arboretum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ARB_Jan-Jun-2018_r4.pdf) A 1990 Los Angeles Times retrospective described the 1932 film as \"as ingratiating today as it was when it came out\" with first-rate production values, and noted that no one equaled Weissmuller's rendering of a hero at home in the jungle but not in civilization.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-12-tv-1238-story.html) The famous yell itself was assembled from layered sounds; according to David Zinman's book on Saturday-afternoon movie series, it combined a camel's bleat, a hyena's yowl played backward, a plucked violin string, a soprano's high C, and Weissmuller's own bellow.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-12-tv-1238-story.html) The 1932 film also established a template later remakes measured themselves against: the 1959 version was pitched explicitly as a remake of the original, and the 1981 film's legal defense turned on the originality of that 1932 screenplay rather than on Burroughs' book.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53032-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00dfbee8-b599-4632-8394-96825587fbab&sr=0.191968) • [5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/7166-TARZAN-THE-APE-MAN)\n2. [Background to the MGM Tarzan Series, University of Strathclyde](https://stax.strath.ac.uk/downloads/sx61dm54h?locale=en)\n3. [Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53032-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00dfbee8-b599-4632-8394-96825587fbab&sr=0.191968)\n4. [Global Perspectives on Tarzan (Routledge), preview](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781136447921_A23846904/preview-9781136447921_A23846904.pdf)\n5. [Tarzan, The Ape Man (1981), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56704-TARZAN-THEAPEMAN)\n6. [Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1020896-tarzan_the_ape_man)\n7. [Joe Saltzman, \"It's a Jungle Out There,\" Los Angeles Times, 12 August 1990](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-12-tv-1238-story.html)\n8. [Tarzan Triumphs, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/490042/tarzan-triumphs)\n9. [Rob Nixon, \"Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959),\" Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1142/tarzan-the-ape-man-1959)\n10. [Burroughs v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 683 F.2d 610 (2d Cir. 1982)](https://app.midpage.ai/document/burroughs-v-metro-goldwyn-mayer-8915476)\n11. [Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1020897-tarzan_the_ape_man)\n12. [Roger Ebert, \"Tarzan, the Ape Man\" review, Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tarzan-the-ape-man-1981)\n13. [Los Angeles Arboretum and Botanic Garden Magazine, Winter/Spring 2018](https://arboretum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ARB_Jan-Jun-2018_r4.pdf)\n14. [https://pre-code.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932-review-with-johnny-weissmuller-maureen-osullivan/](https://pre-code.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932-review-with-johnny-weissmuller-maureen-osullivan/)\n15. [https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/7166](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/7166)\n16. [https://digitalbits.com/reviews/item/tarzan-the-ape-man-wac-2024-bd](https://digitalbits.com/reviews/item/tarzan-the-ape-man-wac-2024-bd)\n17. [https://www.filmsite.org/tarz.html](https://www.filmsite.org/tarz.html)\n18. [https://www.erbzine.com/mag6/0611.html](https://www.erbzine.com/mag6/0611.html)\n19. [https://www.cmgworldwide.com/2023/06/05/johnny-weissmuller-as-tarzan-the-ape-man/](https://www.cmgworldwide.com/2023/06/05/johnny-weissmuller-as-tarzan-the-ape-man/)\n20. [https://moriareviews.com/fantasy/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932.htm](https://moriareviews.com/fantasy/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932.htm)\n21. [https://www.filmsite.org/tarzC.html](https://www.filmsite.org/tarzC.html)\n22. [https://www.kozaksclassiccinema.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932/](https://www.kozaksclassiccinema.com/tarzan-the-ape-man-1932/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Franchise and series film entries — overview and cross-series topics*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-the-ape-man", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-the-ape-man.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Tarzan the Ape Man\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-the-ape-man. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Tarzan the Ape Man](https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-the-ape-man)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-the-ape-man](https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-the-ape-man). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Tarzan the Ape Man\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/tarzan-the-ape-man. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Tarzan the Ape Man: 1932 MGM adventure film starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, directed by W. S." }