The animals were there but the filmmakers couldn't get close enough. ''We wanted something magical - a fantasy land, but the jungle in Brazil was too dark and too dense. In June 1980 they spent two weeks up the Amazon scouting locations. ''We told them we would not film in a jungle Disneyland,'' said Bo.
When M-G-M agreed to back the project, shooting the film in a Hollywood safari park was considered and immediately rejected. They put the period back to 1910 - and Bo Derek into a corset but no bra.
What they made of Jane was a Perils of Pauline woman who could shoot straight, fly a balloon over the Alps and head an expedition to find her long lost father. His mother died in childbirth his father, Lord Greystoke, was killed, and Tarzan was brought up by great apes, whose enthusiasm for literacy could not have been great. The Dereks went back to Edgar Rice Burroughs's stories, written originally in 1914 on the backs of old envelopes and scraps of paper, to reinforce their belief that no one could possibly have taught Tarzan to speak English. Jane was decorously dressed and Tarzan's loin cloth, at the request of the censor, was lengthened to something approximating long shorts. The jungle was built on the back lot and the whole thing was filmed in North Hollywood. The Jane in that version was Maureen O'Sullivan, dark haired and delicate, and considered to be the perfect mate for Edgar Rice Burroughs's King of the Jungle. It contained the classic line ''Me Tarzan - you Jane,'' written into the script by Ivor Novello, a contemporary of Noel Coward and an English actor as well as composer and writer. It is 50 years since the famous Johnny Weissmuller film ''Tarzan the Apeman'' was made. So the only account which can be in any way considered reliable is the Dereks' own. Perhaps wisely the studio stayed well away, sending not even a publicity man to tell the tale. What really happened in the jungle during the filming of the new ''Tarzan the Apeman'' not even M-G-M will ever know. At press time a time, a lawsuit filed by the Burroughs estate against M-G-M and the film's distributor, United Artists, on various grounds, including the suitability of the film for children, clouded the opening of ''Tarzan the Apeman,'' which had been scheduled for next Friday around the country and for Aug. Derek's bare breasts, the Dereks' troubles did not end when they brought in their finished film.
MILES TARZAN THE APE MAN 1981 FREE
If anyone thought there was an element of farce in it at the beginning, and plenty did as the Dereks are the first to acknowledge, there was none of that at the end.īut despite winning battles with a lion who burst free and tried to kill Bo, despite losing most of the crew they had brought on location from Hollywood, despite an actor in an ape costume whose religious scruples were offended by Mrs. Bo Derek, who also stars as Jane in ''Tarzan the Apeman,'' ordered the elephants in the jungle, bought a python in Thailand, fired the caterers, flew a lion from Sri Lanka to the Seychelles via London because there was no other more direct way for it to go and brought the finished film in on schedule, 48 days, and on budget, $6.6 million. Really produced by Bo Derek, she of ''10'' who did more for mathematical calculation than anyone since Einstein? Did not someone stand in for her - doing the things that producers do, like signing the checks, for instance, or dismissing the staff? The credits on M-G-M's latest Tarzan movie, ''Tarzan the Apeman,'' include the following two lines: Directed by John Derek. WarnerBros.- David Lewin is a London based writer who frequently reports on cultural events.
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