The film Tarzan
Goes to India, starring Jock
Mahoney, was the first of a series of films
that portrayed the exploits of the fourth Tarzan of our article, John Cloamby, Lord Grandrith. Grandrith
was the
product of a millennia long project by a group of Immortals to create
the
incarnation of their Undying God, Tharn or Tarzan, the one which had
landed in
24,000 B.C. As a result Grandrith's life paralleled to a great
degree the
exploits of the original Tarzan but there were also great differences.
The
secret Immortals, the Nine offered their elixir to several hundred
candidates
asking only that they would obey all dictates of the Nine and enact any
task
that the Nine commanded them to do without question.
Although
it is likely
that Grandrith had been secretly receiving the elixir from birth, he
was offered
the elixir as an adult and brought into the inner circle of the Nine as
one of
their most favored servants. All of this was due to a schism inside the
Nine.
After several millennia of helping to shape history and embarking on a
human
breeding program, Grandrith should have been the culmination of their
project.
However, the Nine had heard of the reports of at least two other ape
men who
resembled Grandrith and more disturbingly, resembled the Undying God
much
closer than did Grandrith.
Two
of the Nine
set up a series of tasks designed to challenge Grandrith and make him
prove
that he was indeed worthy to be known as the Incarnation of their
Undying God.
These tasks culminated in Grandrith duel to the death with his half
brother,
Doc Caliban who was the dissident's choice to become their new leader.
As part
of their
overall plan to discredit Grandrith, Ananna or had one of their
servants
contact a journalist and possibly showed him excerpts from Grandrith's
secret
diaries. They wanted the journalist to publish an expose, that would
say that
Tarzan was real, alive and this was his identity. This way Grandrith
would be
immediately be under sentence of death by all of the Nine and their
servants
for exposing the secrets.
However, their chosen journalist knew that the expose would be met with
overwhelming skepticism and disbelief. He opted instead for quick cash
and
turned the material into story outlines for the new series of Tarzan
films. He,
of course, did not survive the premier of the first film.
The story
line of
Tarzan Goes to India involves the saving of a herd of
elephants on an
elephant preserve owned by a friend of Tarzan's. The elephants and
their
foraging grounds will be flooded when a dam is put into operation.
Opposing
Tarzan is one of the dam's engineers whose hobby was also hunting
elephants.
They had previously clashed in Africa. Tarzan has to kill a rogue elephant
and lead the
elephant herd out of a mountain pass before the flood waters come.
In
reality, the
Maharajah was a servant of the Nine, whose special task it was to
preserve this
particular herd of elephants for they were the only elephants that
still
carried Mammoth genes. The Nine used them for special ceremonies dating
back to
the stone age. Yet, the schism among the Nine had already begun. The
Dissidents
wished the elephant herd destroyed as one step to forever cut their
ties with
the past. Tarzan and XauXaz won this particular battle and the herd was
saved.
The next
filmed adaptation
of Lord Grandrith's exploits was Tarzan's
Three Challenges. The film's story line has Tarzan requested to go
the Thailand, to aid a small boy, who is a spiritual
leader
akin to Tibet's Dali Lama. The boy's father had been
the
spiritual leader but had recently died naming his son as his successor.
The boy
is being opposed in his succession by his uncle, who insists on three
physical
challenges to determine fitness for the post. Tarzan acts as the boys
champion
and eventually secures his position.
Again we
can see the
inner turmoil of the Nine. The hereditary spiritual leaders,
descendants of the
Siamese member of the Nine, were going to be replaced by the
Dissidents'
candidate, who would use his influence to modernize the country side
and bring
greater wealth and power to the Nine. Once again, XauXaz was opposed to
upsetting the status quo and sent Tarzan into to prevent the change
over from
taking place.
The next
series of
films, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Tarzan and the Big
River
and Tarzan and the Jungle Boy starred Mike
Henry. They at first might appear to be adventures of the
Tarzan
chronicled by Burroughs. This I do not believe is the case, despite the
authorized novel of Tarzan and the Valley Gold by the Burroughs
estate.
Rather this trilogy of films chronicle the further adventures of Lord
Grandrith
on his last mission for the Nine and the start of his opposition to
them.
Tarzan and the Valley of Gold starts with the story of a boy who
wandered out the Mexican jungle and
told of a lost Mayan city, rich with gold. Unfortunately the first
person he
told this tale to was an international criminal named Auguste Vinaro.
The boy
escaped and was found by Ruiz, a friend of Tarzan. Vinaro's men kidnap
the boy
and destroy Ruiz ranch. Members of the Mexican government offer Tarzan
aid in
tracking down the criminal Vinaro recovering the boy. He refuses,
taking on
Vinaro and his criminal cohorts with a chimp, jaguar and lion.
The truth
of the matter
was that there was indeed a lost city. Only it was of the Olmecs. This
in fact
was the home city of the Olmec member of the Nine. One of the citizens
of the
Olmec city was dissatisfied with the manner in which the Olmec Elder
preserved
his homeland by maintaining a static society. The Olmec rebel left the
city and
made an alliance with a renegade servant of the Nine to steal the
city's golden
treasures and force it be acknowledged by the world.
Tarzan
has to stop the
renegade servant and silence the Olmec dissident. He then has to make
certain
that the Olmec city is not found by the modern world and seals the
entrance to
the cavern.
Although
most people
might consider this particular film as Burroughsian canon I do not for
these
reasons. I don't think I will change anyone's mind but my reasoning for
this is
as follows. The film concept came before the novel. Even though the
Burroughs
estate authorized the novel based on the film, it was not based on any
story
ideas or partial manuscripts left by the Master as in the The Lost
Adventure
or Dark Heart of Time both of which arose at least in part
from ideas
left behind by Burroughs. The character of Tarzan in the film and in
the
novelization, although closer to Burroughs vision than perhaps any
others was
still different. Unlike when I read other pastiches, even the comic
books ones,
I just did not get the feel of this being Burrough's Tarzan. Admittedly
the
character is not identical with Grandrith's either but the feeling of a
secret
mission felt like one of his Missions for the Nine. I know this is
rather
arbitrary but that's why I included it as a Grandrith Adventure.
Since
this article
first appeared new information has made me revise my theory on Tarzan
and the Valley of Gold. For more information please visit the
article, Tarzans in the
Valley of Gold.
Tarzan
and the Big River at
first appears
to be a combination of Tarzan's Fight for Life and Tarzan
and the
Leopard Woman the issues involved are actually center on who will
control
the Amazon river basin.
A
renegade servant of
the Nine, Barcuna seizes power among the natives in Brazil. He causes massive work stoppages as
people from
all over Brazil and up and down the Amazon join his
Jaguar Cult.
He is building a power base for later action against the governments of
Brazil and other South American countries. He
promises
death to those who will not join the Cult. And death does come, in the
form of
disease. The unbelieving villages and towns are raided by warriors
wearing
Jaguar costumes. They merely scratch their victims with disease
infected
leopard paws and let the disease run its course. Grandrith's mission is
stop
and kill Barcuna and to end the disease. He is accompanied by a female
doctor
who knows nothing of the Nine.
This was
the last
mission that Grandrith had carried out for the Nine.
Grandrith
himself stated
that he had undergone missions for the Nine in Brazil and Thailand. Why he did not mention the others
could be
because they were not official missions but rather "favors" for
individual members of the Nine.
Tarzan
and the Jungle Boy takes
place
shortly after Grandrith's battle with Doc Caliban. He had heard that
die hard
adherents of XauXaz were continuing a project that he had begun a year
or so
prior to his death. This project was as always to create the
incarnation of the
Undying God. To this end he had stranded a young boy in the
Amazon
jungle. The African jungle was becoming too traveled and he wanted to
see how a
boy who had already acquired language skills would fare.
Grandrith
is
accompanied by a news photographer and his female reporter
fiancé on a journey
to find the boy who was abandoned in the jungle six years earlier. The
search
party must also battle an evil native, who is out to kill the boy and
take over
as chief of his brother's tribe.
Although
Grandrith did
not know it at the time, XauXaz had made similar attempts earlier. By
the time
Grandrith was in his late twenties, XauXaz knew that he was not the
Tarzan he
had remembered from his youth. He never publicly admitted this to any
of the
Nine out of sheer stubbornness and fear of losing face. He publicly
maintained
the Grandrith was the One. However using two of his many offspring he
made
three other attempts. He had revealed to one of his sons, preparatory
to giving
him the elixir, the Great Work, that Tarzan was a real person and that
it was
the Nine's mission to make certain that he was created.
The son
was one of few
people upon whom the elixir has no effect. This drove him insane. The
son,
named Boygur, became obsessed with completing the Great Work before his
all too
short life span. Xauxaz, realizing that his son was lost to him
encouraged him
with the effort and surreptitiously supplied him with wealth and land.
He also
pointed him to a family that possessed the right qualities needed to
become
Lord of the Jungle. They were also descended from his multitudes of
children in
England, the father was name Ivor Montaux-Tyger
Thorsbight.
They had lived in South Africa where their first child was born. When
it was less
than a year old it was kidnapped by Boygur who had it raised by a
female
gorilla in a large area of African property that he owned. The child
died of sickness.
A year and a half later they had another baby. In less than a years
time, it
too would be kidnapped and raised by gorillas but because gorillas have
no
verbal language the boy Jib never developed language skills and
therefore
higher cognitive skills. Finally the Thorsbights traveled to England supposing their family would be safer
there. They
had another child and despite all their precautions, it too was stolen.
The
wife died of grief and the husband committed suicide.
Boygur
hired dwarfs to
pretend to be apes and had the child raised by them. The results
of this
successful experiment are described in Philip Jose Farmer's Lord
Tyger.
Tarzan?
Jane? Intro, Part
II, Part III
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© 2000
Dennis Power