Tarzan Week: Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)

"We're here for your pleasure. Not ours," states Bo Derek (as prim and proper Jane Parker), in her husband (John Derek's) sexual-skewing interpretation of the Tarzan mythos, Tarzan the Ape Man (1981).

Naturally, she's talking about the reasons why women are put on this Earth (for men's pleasure; not their own...), but she might as well be discussing the reasons this film looks the way it does.

Tarzan the Ape Man was produced -- seemingly -- entirely for male consumption and pleasure. After all, the film is a lingering, loving tribute not to Edgar Rice Burroughs' seemingly immortal jungle man character, but to Derek's legendary and statuesque, perfectly-sculpted body and her character's tantalizing sense of sexual "innocence."

I realize the purists -- and just about everybody else, too -- hated Tarzan the Ape Man when it was released back in the early 1980s, but perhaps it is not as far off the mark as many have insisted.  If one considers the sexual allure of Maureen O’Sullivan, in Tarzan and his Mate (1934), for instance, one could see this film as honoring, perhaps, that heritage.

The basic idea of this "re-imagination" is a depiction of the Tarzan story re-framed and re-parsed from Jane's naive perspective; and as a sort of soft-core travelogue across gorgeous, picturesque, wild Africa.

Accordingly, the film's photography (of both naked bodies and exterior locations...) is never less than beautiful (some might say stunning), and there's no studio fakery to break the illusion of a sojourn into the bush, so-to-speak.

In terms of bad movie history, the torch of bad-actors starring in soft-porn genre films is passed from John Phillip Law (Barbarella), here playing a photographer named Holt (Neil Hamilton’s character in 1932 and 1934), to chiseled Miles O'Keeffe, portraying Tarzan. That baton-passing alone is a cinematic milestone, I'd estimate.

Richard Harris (who also starred with Bo Derek in Orca back in the disco decade), plays Jane's father in this version of Tarzan, and he takes his performance way over-the-top. Mr. James Parker is a central character in the screenplay, however, which concerns Jane's journey of self-discovery. Yes, she must select one of the two Alpha males in her life: either bad old Dad or hunky, heroic Tarzan.

Since this battle of the -- ahem -- larger-than-life men is the crucible of the narrative, both male characters are depicted by director John Derek in - how shall I say this? -- phallic terms.

For instance, Mr. Parker informs Jane that her mother almost died "during conception." 

You read that right. Not child-birth, mind you, but conception. That means...in the act of love-making. 

"I held her too long; I loved her too hard," he explains regretfully, providing way too much information about a scene I don't want to envision.

Later, Holt (a milquetoast) explains to Jane that it takes a very "big" (!) man -- her father -- to go into wild Africa in search of a mythical inland sea, which is tucked secretly away behind a giant stone protrusion in the land, an outcropping of insurmountable rock that Bo and the others must scale. 

Uh oh. A big man to climb towering outcroppings of rock hard stone.  Got it.

Finally, there's an absolutely incredible, shameless, downright brazen composition in which Harris is seen to be polishing a large chrome cannon (placed in the frame around his crotch level).

The cannon, not surprisingly, is pointed due north.

When Bo Derek approaches Harris and his gleaming cannon, she arrives from the submissive position in the frame, from below...studying the shining cannon wide-eyed...

Even Richard Harris (who regrettably plays his first scene without pants...) and his silver cannon, however, can't compete with Tarzan in the phallus department. The Ape Man (always wearing a tiny loin cloth...) reveals his worthiness by freeing Bo not just from another phallic symbol -- a gigantic boa constrictor -- but by rescuing her from a deflowering at the --errh-- hand of a savage local who had planned to make Jane his bride.

The set-pieces in Tarzan The Ape Man are not really what you would expect of a Tarzan movie; confirming the fact that this movie is really about sex, not adventure. The few action sequences are filmed in agonizing slow-motion and look more like coitus than combat.

Take the snake scene: it's an over-long montage in slow-motion photography, with close-ups of Bo and Miles writhing, gasping and twisting in muddy water. Foreplay never looked so great. But it takes too long...you want to get to the main event.

There's also an incredible scene in the middle of the film, one set at an "inland ocean" in which Jane decides - out of the blue -- to take a bath. 

We are then treated to a lingering scene of Bo Derek swimming in a shiny blue sea; the waves lapping against her flesh. She poses in the sand, her clothes clinging transparently to her flesh. It's quite intoxicating...until a wandering lion shows up.

Tarzan shows up too, and a love story (of sorts) commences.

Harris, who actually gets to voice a line of dialogue I've always wanted to say to my wife ("I wallow in me. I enjoy every syllable I say."), soon confronts daughter Jane over her new interest in the hunky ape man. "Do you understand what he wants?" He asks.

Yeah Dad, I think she understands.

Later, Tarzan abducts Jane and one of his chimpanzee entourage tosses her a banana at a well-timed moment. Clutching the banana close to her mouth, doe-eyed Jane says "I'm still a virgin."

Later in a film that feels like all promises and no delivery, Jane teaches Tarzan to smile. She puts her fingers to his lips. He responds in kind. Then, as if he was born to it, Tarzan reaches quickly under Jane's (see-through) shirt and begins to vigorously massage her breasts. Wow.

The film climaxes (if you'll pardon my choice of phrase), with Bo Derek topless again, covered head-to-toe in glistening white paint; rescued in the nick of time by Tarzan from the aforementioned "savage." As for poor Daddy, he's finally undone by the King of Phallic Symbols: gored by an elephant tusk.

As he dies, he continues to blabber endlessly. "Your life is going to be a marvelous adventure," old Dad says to his daughter, just as she is about go off and be deflowered by Tarzan.

Then, as the end credits roll, we are treated to the oddest threesome in cinema history. Tarzan, Jane and an eager orangutan frolic and wrestle at length, their limbs and bodies intertwined.

Well, whatever floats your banana, Tarzan.

The Films of 1981: Heartbeeps

A science fiction film directed by Allan Arkush (Rock’n’Roll High School [1979]), starring Andy Kaufman (1949-1984) and Bernadette Peters, and featuring Academy Award-nominated special effects/make-up by the great Stan Winston doesn’t seem likely to be one that would fall into near-total obscurity.

But that’s pretty much what has happened to Heartbeeps (1981).

I remember reading about the film -- with great curiosity and anticipation -- in the pages of Starlog. 

The magazine even devoted a cover photo to the science fiction comedy in December of 1981, for its 53^rd issue.

Btu then the movie pretty much disappeared from existence, though Kaufman memorably offered refunds to any viewers, during a famous appearance on David Letterman’s late night show at the time.

In terms of critical reviews, the film wasn’t exactly received positively, either.

Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, wrote that Heartbeeps was “a three-minute television sketch stretched to last nearly 90 unbearable minutes.”

His insult is actually a slight exaggeration. 

The movie barely runs 75 minutes.

In 2002, on the film’s re-issuing in the secondary market, The A.V. Club’s Nathan Rabin noted that Heartbeeps is an “overlooked, nearly forgotten” film that “deserves to stay that way.”

TV Guide’s review of the film tracks closer to what I deem a fair assessment, and aligns with my own response to the movie. The magazine terms Heartbeeps “likable and sentimental,” with some moments of “indisputable charm.”

This strikes me as an accurate sentiment. Because of Kaufman’s presence, I believe, critics were expecting some kind of anarchic, edgy, adult entertainment.  

Instead, Heartbeeps is a gentle, even sweet, science fiction movie aimed squarely at kids. That's the basis, it seems to me, upon which to review it, or assess its merits as a work of art.

On those grounds, the film is indeed occasionally charming, and at the very least, far less offensive than some of the poisonous reviews indicate. 

Why?

Well, Heartbeeps features a very human heart in terms of its central characters, and their quest to understand why they are “alive” is affecting on some level.  The purpose of science fiction, especially in terms of the cinema, is to somehow reflect or comment on human existence. 

Heartbeeps reaches that benchmark, though not always elegantly, and not always humorously.  The film’s make-up and robot designs, however, nicely gloss over many of the movie’s notable deficits.

“What is the definition of God?”

Three robots -- inexperienced in the nature of humanity -- escape from a repair factory and go on a “fact-finding mission.”

Pursued by a relentless robot called Crimebuster Deluxe, two of the escapees, Val Com (Andy Kaufman) and Aqua (Bernadette Peters,) fall in love and construct a robot, Philco (Jerry Garcia).  

They soon realize that Philco has no self-protection mechanism, and begin to develop “the concept of family.”  They realize they must care for him. They must act as his parents.

But Crimebuster, who is equipped with dangerous weapons, including a flame-thrower, is closing in on them.

“There’s so much information I want you to have.”

Andy Kaufman boasts such a powerful reputation as a comedic force of chaos and non-conventionality that to this day -- 30-some years after his demise -- some people insist his death was actually a joke, a con. 

These people believe Kaufman is actually still alive, and that -- at any moment -- he will re-appear to deliver the joke’s punch-line.  They see him as a figure of almost God-like comedic instincts, not to mention patience.

With that kind of reputation, it is easy indeed to understand why Kaufman fans -- and critics familiar with his work too -- feel absolutely underwhelmed by Heartbeeps. The film is not at all of this nature. 

It is neither anarchic, nor cynical.  It is not shocking, surprising, or all that sharp, either.

Heartbeeps is not unconventional at all in its approach, and quite conventionally uses the science fiction format to ask questions about human existence.  The film is sincere, in other words, not seeking to be taken as a “big joke.”  

Nor is it a set-up for edgy, envelope-pushing comedy.

Instead, Heartbeeps is plainly and simply about two machines who wake up one day to realize that they are alive, and that they want the freedom of self-determination.  These robots, Val and Aqua, question the nature of life, even asking questions about God. 

They construct a son, and soon -- despite their mechanical nature -- find themselves acting as protective parents. In becoming a family, they became more alive than before, and the film emotionally speaks about the sacrifices parents make for their children.  Val and Aqua do that too. 

The jokes here are not revolutionary, and not hard-edged, for certain. Instead, the filmmakers have the robots joke about the way that men and women relate…even though Val and Aqua are machines.  Aqua is unsatisfied with Val’s level of communication, for instance, reporting that she requires “maximum input” in terms of his output. In other words, he just doesn't relate enough.

These gentle, amusing, but not particularly funny or sly jibes, are aimed at making the audience understand humanity better.  

Consider: the robots desire the same things we all do. They wish to know why they are here, and what their purpose in life is. When they have that child, like so many of us, they feel that their sense of purpose is renewed.  Val seems to come to life, realizing that as a father, he has an obligation to show his son the world.  Aqua makes the sacrifices a mother would make her for baby, almost literally running out of power -- and dying -- to nourish him.

The Crimebuster-related material in the film is a bit more fun. 

This malevolent robot, which looks like a dalek-mounted on a tank (and is constructed, actually, from the Six Million Dollar Man’s “death probe”) goes all ED-209 on his prey, before ED-209 was a glimmer in RoboCop’s eye. 

Specifically, the pursuit robot goes on a relentless, destructive hunt in search of its quarry, the escaped robots. One moment sees the machine singing America the Beautiful while shooting at wild-life in a forest. 

Not all robots, we come to understand from his example, cherish life, or family.  Some robots -- like some people -- are committed not to love and family, but to a savage curtailment of the freedom of others.

Yes, Heartbeeps miraculously finds ways to waste Christopher Guest and Melanie Mayron. 

Yes, the film fails to really make the best or cleverest use of Andy Kaufman's comedic gifts, strait-jacketing him in a sincere, fish-out-of-water role.

And yes, the film’s pleasures are relatively minor, even modest. There are no tremendous threats in the film for the robots to face, and no scenes that really stand out in the memory, either. Heartbeeps is a simple journey about two robots that awaken to consciousness, but told in a distinctly minor key.

And yet I can’t really find it in my heart to “hate” the film as so many critics seem to do. 

I like the weird robot costumes/devices and performances, and figure that if a gentle kid’s comedy can find the time and energy to discuss the mysteries of human life and free will, as a reviewer I can at least give Heartbeeps credit for attempting to be about something more than dumb jokes. 

I would agree that earnestness, gentleness and sincerity may not be the best foundations upon which to build a rollicking comedy. 

Point ceded. 

Yet while this film’s funny bone may be broken -- or at least fractured -- Heartbeeps still has a pulse; a heartbeat.

Below, you can see Siskel and Ebert savaging Heartbeeps for its use of elements from other pictures (Star Wars and the Wizard of Oz, for example).  

In other words, they are actually criticizing the picture for being a pastiche.  Ironically, that's the very grounds by which they both, on other occasions, lauded Star Wars, Predator and other films.

A Crisis in Confidence: The Economic Underpinnings of Time Bandits (1981)

"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose…”

-President Jimmy Carter, July 15, 1979.

“God isn’t interested in technology.”

-Evil Genius (David Warner), Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits (1981)

One of my favorite genre movies from childhood is Time Bandits (1981), which I saw with my father, Ken Muir, at the Royal Theater in Bloomfield, New Jersey when I was just eleven years old. 

The Terry Gilliam film is a rip-roaring, time-hopping comedy fantasy, and a story dramatized from a child’s perspective. The movie is droll, naughty, and like no other time travel film in sci-fi history. 

Why?

Well, for a film that so meticulously diagrams a hierarchy or order to the universe, Time Bandits is, actually relentlessly chaotic. In short, it's about destroying or overturning systems of order, not merely mapping them.

But the irreverent Time Bandits is more than that description suggests, as well.

Above, I quoted President Carter’s famous “malaise” speech of 1979, and in many ways, Time Bandits absolutely feels apiece with that historical context.

Gilliam’s film concerns a child of great imagination and dreams -- Kevin (Craig Warnock) -- who lives with parents that are enthralled with -- nay enslaved to -- “things,” like new appliances.

Where Kevin’s bedroom is filled with objects that spark his unbound imagination, like toys and books, his “zombie” parents simply tune out before the TV set watching brain-cell destroying programming such as “Your Money or Your Life.”

Kevin’s parents you see, must possess the latest tech toys so as to keep up with some external yardstick of success. That's the only way they can feel okay about themselves.

Like President Carter suggested, however, this obsession with things doesn’t seem to make them happy, or even fully alive.

If you’ve seen the film, you’ll remember well what comes next.

Kevin takes a rollicking trip through the space-time continuum with a group of renegade dwarves. 

Their physical dimensions conveniently permit the audience to “see” the world at approximately eye level with Kevin, and therefore to experience the adventure not as a jaded, consumption-concerned adult, but as an imaginative child who questions the way things are. 

To Kevin, life is wondrous, baffling, occasionally terrifying…but never dull. He is all about "tuning in," not tuning out, like his parents do.

Importantly, the film’s (anti)-heroic dwarfs, much like Kevin in his particular domestic situation, are also rebelling against a parental figure or societal structure: The Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson), or God, and his imperfect realm of Existence; the universe itself.

In some ways, the film even seems to suggest, rather boldly, that Authority is always the same, regardless of specific ideology. 

God and Evil (David Warner), are, in a way, one-in-the-same. They are both part of the same (corrupt?) system. Why? They both exist within the boundaries of a corrupt, unequal economic system.

Kevin travels with the bandits, and the film finally involves his reckoning, perhaps, that a rebellious, imaginative and independent mind-set is a quality that one should never surrender, or allow to be chipped away at; one appliance, one game show, one paycheck at a time.

“Dead? No Excuse for laying off work…”

Young, middle class Kevin (Warnock) is surprised when adventure comes to his humdrum middle-class life.

A group of renegade dwarfs in defiance of the Supreme Being (Richardson), have stolen a map to all the “time holes” in creation.  The time bandits travel from time period to time period not to learn or grow, but to loot and pillage, partly out of feelings of resentment towards their Maker, who has not given them proper credit for their contributions to Existence.

Kevin travels with the Time Bandits and is drawn into a remarkable adventure. He visits the deck of the Titanic at sea, France of Napoleon (Ian Holm), the Sherwood Forest of Robin Hood (John Cleese), and meets King Agememnon (Sean Connery) of Ancient Greece.

Unfortunately, Evil (Warner) also desires to possess the Map of Creation, so he can use the time holes for his own, malicious purposes. Kevin and the Time Bandits must there confront the madman in His Fortress of Ultimate Evil…

“The fabric of the universe is far from perfect.”

The crux of Time Bandits seems to be mankind’s uneasy relationship with material things, and therefore, by implicit logic, wealth.  

It’s a story, in some manner, obsessed with economics. Economics, after all, is defined as the study concerned “with the production, consumption, and transfer of material prosperity.”

Kevin’s parents are hyper-focused on the things they can own in the technological 20^th century. They covet things, like a two-speed hedge cutter, or a brand new toaster.

Ultimately, those things, symbolized by the toaster, literally kill them.

From the beginning, they are held rapt by the idea of owning new things; things that their neighbors (The Morrisons) do not. 

On TV, an announcer talks about “Moderna Designs and the latest in Kitchen Luxury: The Moderna Wonder Major All Automatic Convenience Center-ette” which “gives you all the time in the world to do the things you really want to do.”  

What do they want to do?  Watch more TV…

The Bandits themselves seek to rob and steal from all of Creation. Why? They are God’s workers, and he has not treated them well, or fairly. The bandits work long, unfulfilling hours, and get no credit for what they create.

To the Supreme Being goes all the glory.

So whether the bandits actually loot time and space to be rich, or to thumb their noses at God and his unequal realm is ultimately immaterial. Their status as unhappy workers is the thing which motivates their rebellion. 

At the film’s conclusion, their transgression is also punished, on explicitly economic terms.  The Supreme Being threatens them with “a 19% cut in salary…backdated to the beginning of time.”

The Establishment always wins, right?

This idea of inequality plays out in the film in a wicked visual fashion too.  Behind reality itself is the realm of Evil (and by extension, Good). This realm is hidden behind an "invisible barrier," or, to coin a term, a "glass ceiling." In other words, it is an unseen barrier that prevents those outside the Establishment from entering the Establishment.  You don't know it's there, but it's omnipresent.

"So that's what an invisible barrier looks like," one character quips.

Robin Hood too is contextualized, amusingly, in Time Bandits as a figure associated with economics. Traditionally, we note that this hero steals from the rich and gives to the poor.  The film describes his action differently.

Robin Hood is a man who believes “there is still so much wealth to re-distribute.” 

And the Evil Genius, of course, is obsessed with material things like lasers and tanks. He champions technology, specifically, and believes that his understanding of it will make him a master of the universe. 

He understands, for example “digital watches,” and claims to have growing knowledge of “video-cassette recorders and car telephones.” 

Ultimately, and prophetically, he wants to understand computers. “when I have an understanding of computers,” he dreams, “I shall be the Supreme Being.”

In short, the control of  the production of material things that people desire transform a captain of industry into…God. At least in the Evil Genius’s eyes.

Each one of these characters sees ownership of things, control of things, as the reason to exist.  They are all flawed characters in some ways, and they echo the line of dialogue that the fabric of the universe is far from perfect.

Kevin is an exception, of course.

He is loyal and loving, imaginative and curious. He doesn’t see life as an opportunity to accumulate wealth, or to possess things.  Kevin's bedroom exemplifies the fact that he lives in an economy of ideas.  

Toy soldiers, books, posters and other things are all around him there. They are not products, however, for consumption, in the strictest sense.  They are avatars, instead, for imagination itself. They help Kevin seek not things, but knowledge.

Most of all, Kevin seeks a place of belonging, and an opportunity to encounter someone who really loves him. When Agemenon, a father figure, asks Kevin “Who sent you? The Gods?” Kevin may be asking himself he same question.  

Finally, someone who seems to love life and experience and adventure, and is interested in the things Kevin is. Most importantly, as Kevin notes, money is “not important” to Agememnon.

At the end of the film, when technology destroys Kevin’s parents, Agememon re-appears, but as a modern fireman. 

This development seems to suggest that even in our technological epoch, we can still find kindred spirits who don’t see wealth as being more important than “hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God.”

What’s so daring and indeed anarchic about Time Bandits is the idea that revolution and rebellion are good things.  

The notion seems to be that the existing order -- epitomized by the TV show title “Your Money or Your Life” -- isn’t worth fighting for or improving.  Instead, it actually needs to be blown up. Kevin becomes an orphan when his parents die, and yet the movie has a happy ending, doesn’t it? 

Kevin leaves behind his parents and their obsession with things for a relationship about life, not consumption, with that firemen as father-figre. 

Personally speaking, this idea is not appealing to me.  Contrarily, I believe that incremental change, over time, can improve human life significantly. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will a 21^st century utopia. 

So I don’t believe you need to destroy a village in order to save it. But I absolutely credit with Time Bandits of courageous ambition and follow-through. It doesn't chicken out.

Consider, Kevin has seen that the “fabric of the universe” is not perfect.  

Not only is the Supreme Being fallible/duplicitous (in regards to ownership of the map), but egotistical. 

The Evil Genius even calls him a lunatic. 

But more to the point, the Supreme Being and Evil are two sides of the same coin, just as ‘ownership’ of things has two faces: the face of those who have things, and those who want things. There are those who want to keep what they have (and make policy to keep it), and those who want to take what others own, and re-distribute it.

Kevin learns in his travels to be wary of those on both sides of the equation; that Evil itself dwells in the wealth that is to be protected, or re-distributed. Specifically, a piece of ‘evil’ finds a home in his parents’ toaster.  

The way to succeed and find happiness in life, says Time Bandits, is to rebel against and destroy the established order. Kevin’s parents are destroyed (truthfully, they were already dead...) and the Time Bandits have rebelled against God himself.

In real life, I hope we don’t destroy all that we have constructed because we believe that Good and Evil are two sides of the same corrupt Establishment, but I credit Time Bandits, as I credit President Carter, with forecasting the dangers of a system wherein “human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.”

That’s no place to raise Kevin, or any other child.

Time Bandits is fast and furious, fantastic and funny, but most importantly it reminds us that life is a one-of-a-kind experience and a miraculous opportunity not just to “own” things, but to see sights of unusual beauty, mystery, and even terror. 

It's a journey that should be shared with those you love, and who love you, not a race spent keeping up with the Jones, or Morrisons, as the case may be.