Apeman Watch: Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953)

Watched:  03/28/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Kurt Neumann

I wasn't planning to watch Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953), but had it on, and Cheetah the Chimp was carrying a rifle and I was like "yeah, okay...  I'll finish this movie".  

This isn't Johnny Weissmuller, it's Lex Barker* as Tarzan and Joyce MacKenzie as Jane.  It also co-stars Raymond Burr(!) as a Great White Hunter-type, Tom Conway as a cuckold and Monique van Vooren as Lyra, the titular She-Devil.  

Lyra is mostly just a woman of means who knows her own mind and doesn't let men dictate her life, which makes her a She-Devil.  She also would like to be on Tarzan, but that's par for the course in these movies.  

Basically it's a movie about some rich assholes trying to exploit Tarzan's elephant pals for the ivory trade, and those same assholes are happy to enslave Tarzan's pals and press them into work helping them.  Tom Conway almost kills Jane as they plan to use her as a bargaining chip to get Tarzan to help them, but she escapes.  

Anyway, it's full of footage of real animals doing animal things, including a real boa constrictor killing a real lion.  Crazy, man.

Weirdly, this movie just doesn't use Black people.  In 2026, it feels both racist to show Black people as the typical Tarzan supporting tribesmen, but also it feels weird seeing a white guy named "Henry Brandon" playing an African Chief.  And then having Jane say "I haven't seen a white woman in forever!" when, girl, you just left a scene full of white and Hispanic women.  Also - these folks all use boomerangs?  Can you see the strings?  1000%.  

It does end when the elephants in question trample and kill most of the bad guys.  

There's also a certain level of kink baked into this one that I don't quite remember in other Tarzan movies, at least not bubbling beneath the surface.  And maybe I'm reading too much into it.

I never know how to discuss old Tarzan movies.  They're terribly goofy and watchable - swinging wildly between antics of a trained baby chimp to stock footage of real animals committing real atrocities on each other.  It's all very high adventure, which is deeply entertaining if you separate it from the real world.  

I grew up thinking Tarzan was the best (and, no, not the Disney version which I saw in the theater as an adult), so I have a hard time not continuing in that tradition despite the relatively bad taste of the character.  But it's still a kick to see Tarzan swing on a vine, call animals, and beat hell out of encroaching bad guys.

*probably most famous in 2026 for his brief marriage to Lana Turner

Monique van Vooren is likely a primary reason I made it to the end of this movie, but that is not to besmirch Joyce MacKenzie's contributions