The Pall of the Wild

Tropical rains flooded the mock-up Indian village, and bats and bird-sized moths flung themselves into the klieg lights. It was the Brazilian location of Tarzan and the Big River, and ex-National Football League Linebacker Mike Henry, the 14th Tarzan since the film series began in 1918, stood shivering in his thatched hut. Then, girding his loincloth, he swung wildly at a mosquito (thus marring his body makeup) and grumbled: "I took this job on to find out if the movie people really had fun. Now that I know, I'm getting the hell out."

Mike had been hooked when Producer Sy Weintraub offered him a seven-year deal that "will make you as rich as a whole backfield." How hard the money was to come by he began to realize as, groggy and red-eyed from an all-night flight, he stepped off the plane at Rio to meet the press and the heat. Both proved overpowering. Expected to exclaim about the charms of the carioca moc,as, Mike could only grunt about the weather. Next morning the papers smirkingly conjectured, "Maybe Mike Henry doesn't like women." Then, even faithful chimpanzee Cheetah turned on him. Filming a scene where they were supposed to kiss, the chimp suddenly sank his teeth into Mike. It took 18 stitches to reattach Tarzan's jaw, and three days and nights of "monkey fever" delirium before he regained consciousness.

Red-dogged Indians. Back on the set, he found even such old pros as Major, the 500-lb. lion, were acting up. When Major refused to roar on cue, his trainer jabbed him in the nose with a long pole. No luck. Director Robert Day then ordered a native crewman to sneak up from behind and prod Major's rump. The Brazilian blanched and declined--until he was given an on-the-spot salary hike. Later on, Major shifted from depressive to manic, escaped during a Rio zoo take, sent visitors scrambling for their lives as he rambled free.

With such unpredictable performances from the animals, the film's villain, former Olympic Decathlon Champion Rafer Johnson, chickened out on a scheduled wrestling scene with a leopard. "It was chained to a tree," explained Rafer, "and it was ripping the bark right off with its claws. I told the director: 'You get yourself another boy.' " Johnson was not the only recalcitrant actor. On the day Tarzan returned to the set, he was directed to ambush three Indian extras. Mike out-Tarzaned his thirteen predecessors, played it like a red-dogging linebacker, taking out all three with one thumping shoulder block. Two got up. The third was out cold, and when he was revived, refused at any price to make a retake. "Print it," growled Director Day.

Blonde-less Bond. By last week, still intact physically--if not emotionally--were two more of the film's featured players, TV Comic (Treasure Hunt) Jan Murray and blonde Starlet Diana Millay. Diana is cast as a wilderness nurse, for there is no Jane nor love interest in Producer Weintraub's 1960s concept of the Edgar Rice Burroughs hero. "They like to think of their new Tarzan as 'the James Bond of the Jungle,'" she complains, "but Bond would have known what to do with a blonde on a moonlit night on a tropical river. Tarzan just cuddles up to his monkey." Murray, who plays a riverboat captain, also feels miscast in this, his first big Hollywood role. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing here," he moans. "I have to take a tranquilizer even to feed my goldfish, and in this movie I've got to act with a lion, two monkeys and a snake. I'm firing my agent just as soon as I can get to a post office."

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