Tarzan 1960

[Evelyn Normington]

Tarzan the Magnificent is a 1960 British Eastmancolor film, the follow-up to Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959) and the twenty-third film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man. Its plot bears no relation to that of the 1939 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same name.[1] The film was directed by Robert Day and produced by Sy Weintraub and Harvey Hayutin. Gordon Scott made his last appearance as Tarzan in the film, while Jock Mahoney appeared as villain Coy Banton. Mahoney would take over the Tarzan role himself beginning in the next film, Tarzan Goes to India, in 1962. The motion picture does not include Jane.[2]

The Bantons (father, Abel and four sons, Coy, Ethan, Johnny and Martin) rob a pay office in a settlement, killing some people. Coy Banton is tracked down to their camp and taken away by a policeman, Wyntors. Taking him back to town, Wyntors is killed as two of the brothers seek to rescue Coy. Tarzan appears and kills Ethan Banton. The other brother escapes. Tarzan decides to take Coy to Kairobi for the $5000 reward so he can give it to Wyntors' widow. However, no one in the town of Mantu (same town as the one at the beginning of Tarzan's Greatest Adventure) wants to help him. The boat he is waiting for to take him and his prisoner to Kairobi is ambushed by the Bantons, who send the passengers off and destroy the boat.

Later that night Tarzan meets with the people from the boat and decides on an overland trek to take Coy Banton to Kairobi and agrees to take along, at first, the boat's mate, Tate, then reluctantly agrees to take the passengers of the boat: A business man named Ames and his wife, Fay; another man named Conway and a young woman named Lori, who all share with Tarzan their own reasons for wanting to go to Kairobi. But Tarzan warns them the trek through the jungles would be hard and dangerous. The presence of so many people to watch out for hinders Tarzan. The Bantons threaten to kill anyone who helps Tarzan. Pausing only to shoot the doctor who has told them what they want to know, the Bantons set out after the party and Coy.

Ames is a boastful and racist windbag whose wife begins to detest him. Seeing this, Coy plays up to her, hoping he might be able to use her later. The party are captured by natives and the leader wants to kill Coy, who killed his brother when the Bantons raided their village. However, the chief's wife is having a difficult childbirth labour, and since Conway (who was a doctor) is able to help her have her baby (a breach birth), the chief agrees to let the party go.

Coy sees his chance and escapes. Thanks to Ames, Tate is shot and later dies. Tarzan again captures Coy and he hides them both in a quicksand pit as the other Bantons search for them. Later, Lori wanders off and is caught by Johnny Banton who attempts to have his way with her. As she screams, Tarzan comes to rescue her and, after a fight, Johnny dies from a shot in the face with his rifle while struggling with Tarzan and falls into a stream. Later, seeing his grave (along with Tate's), Martin Banton has had enough of a father who taught them to steal and murder by age sixteen, and leaves him.

Coy's wiles have paid off and Fay Ames releases him while the others sleep, and they leave camp together. Tarzan goes after them and finds Fay's scarf. Coy left her behind when she was out of breath and a lioness found her. Tarzan eventually comes on Coy and Abel Banton, and in a roving battle, a ricochet from Coy's rifle kills Abel. A prolonged battle on rocks, on sand and underwater follows before Tarzan finally knocks Coy out. The film ends with Tarzan and the remaining three people (Ames, Lori, and Conway) handing Coy over to the Kairobi police on the border and instructs Conway to make sure Wyntor's widow gets the reward money.

Debbie Cobb, outreach director at the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor, said Wednesday that her grandparents acquired Cheetah around 1960 from "Tarzan" star Johnny Weissmuller and that the chimp appeared in Tarzan films between 1932 and 1934. During that period, Weissmuller made "Tarzan the Ape Man" and "Tarzan and His Mate."

In addition, an 80-year-old chimpanzee would be extraordinarily old, perhaps the oldest ever known. According to many experts and Save the Chimps, another Florida sanctuary, chimpanzees in captivity generally live to between 40 and 60, though Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, Fla., says it has one that is around 73.

Writer R.D. Rosen discovered that the primate, which lived in Palm Springs, Calif., was born around 1960, meaning it wasn't oldest enough to have been in the Tarzan movies of Hollywood's Golden Age that starred Olympic swimming star Weissmuller as the vine-swinging, loincloth-wearing Ape Man and Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane.

While a number of chimpanzees played the sidekick role in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and '40s, Rosen said in an email Wednesday that this latest purported Cheetah looks like a "business-boosting impostor as well."

"Unfortunately, there was a fire in '95 in which a lot of that documentation burned up," Cobb said. "I'm 51 and I've known him for 51 years. My first remembrance of him coming here was when I was actually 5, and I've known him since then, and he was a full-grown chimp then."

Film historian and Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osbourne said the Cheetah character "was one of the things people loved about the Tarzan movies because he made people laugh. He was always a regular fun part of the movies."

At the animal sanctuary, Cheetah was outgoing, loved finger painting and liked to see people laugh, Cobb said. But he could also be ill-tempered. Cobb said that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would fling feces and other objects.

A dream that took shape in the outdoors, swinging from tree vines and ropes and using bamboo poles discarded by a rug store in his south New Jersey neighborhood to launch himself over clothes lines, creeks and ditches.

This dream would carry Bragg four years later to the Olympic podium in Rome, earning him a gold medal for vaulting over 15 feet 5 inches, an Olympic record that still holds because he was one of the last to use a metal pole. (Since the 1960s, pole vaulters have used fiberglass poles, flexible and lighter in weight.)

Bragg charged up with pole in hand in the 95-degree heat, after eight hours of grueling competition that knocked his weight down from a strapping 198 pounds to 187, and went airborne. He feared that his cotton shirt, weighed down by sweat and pins that held up his number against his chest, might tip the cross bar.

Across the Atlantic, over the Delaware River, not too far from his hometown of Penns Grove, N.J., in the two 11-story DuPont Nemours buildings, the PA system crackled with the voice of a commentator.

Only months earlier the blonde beauty had dashed onto the field and into the arms of Bragg after he made the pole vault team at the U.S. Olympic trails in Palo Alto. The image of the couple, together, became an instant icon, landing on the front pages of newspapers around the country.

New challenges, perhaps even greater than ones he faced in the sporting arena, still awaited the champ and turned him inward. He would eventually find catharsis and set his emotions free in many poems he penned in the late 1970s.

Bragg, as a recent Olympian, was set to play the lead in the next Tarzan movie, following Johnny Weismuller, also an Olympic gold medalist. But the project was stalled by litigation. When Hollywood called again, a few years later, Bragg had 18 stitches on his foot because of a fall while vaulting.

The camp ended after an 11-year run and some 5,000 children having gone through its programs. The Braggs were at one of their lowest points in life, depleted and having lost their fifth child just hours after birth.

About the same time, Bragg lost his job as the athletics director at Stockton State College in New Jersey, a program he helped build. Lost too were properties he had bought as investments because they became part of environmental preservation areas due to changes in laws.

The man in a still gladiator-like body has gone through six heart bypass surgeries, an operation on his spine from all the banging he took from falls on his back. Welts and lumps on his legs are still visible.

Danton BURROUGHS, as Executor of the Will of John Coleman Burroughs, Deceased, Hulbert Burroughs, Joanne Pierce Anselmo, James Michael Pierce and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., Plaintiffs,
v.
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. and United Artists Corporation, Defendants.

This is a motion for a preliminary injunction restraining the production of a motion picture, "Tarzan, The Ape Man," currently being developed for production by defendant Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. ("MGM"). A hearing on plaintiffs' application was held on May 23, 27, and 28, 1980, at the conclusion of which the Court indicated it was going to deny the motion. The parties having submitted proposed and counter-proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and all of the evidence and arguments having been duly considered, the motion is hereby formally denied. In accordance with Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a), my findings of fact and conclusions of law, for purposes of this preliminary injunction motion, are as follows.

The individual plaintiffs are heirs of Edgar Rice Burroughs (the "author"), author of "Tarzan of the Apes" and numerous other works chronicling the adventures of Tarzan. Plaintiffs Joanne Pierce Anselmo and James Michael Pierce are grandchildren of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and plaintiffs Hulbert Burroughs and the deceased John Coleman Burroughs are the author's sons. The four heirs held at relevant times what the new copyright law designates as a "termination interest" in the copyright grants executed by the author during his lifetime. 17 U.S.C. 304(c) (1).

Plaintiff Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. ("Burroughs, Inc.") is a California corporation conducting its business from an office in Tarzana, California. Burroughs, Inc. was formed by the author in 1923 and the author assigned all rights in his works to the company. Burroughs, Inc. has functioned ever since as the licensing entity for literary rights and copyrights in the author's works. See PXs 3, 17, 18. Burroughs, Inc. is beneficially owned by the Burroughs heirs.

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