Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948)

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) * 1/2 (out of 4) This sorry excuse for an adventure movie marked the twelfth and final film for Johnny Weissmuller in the role of Tarzan. This time out he and Jane (Brenda Joyce) are enjoying life without Boy who is in England studying. This time out Tarzan must save a woman (Linda Christian) who is being "offered" up to a man (George Zucco) pretending to be the God of Aquantania but our Ape Man friend knows he's just a fake and plans on saving the girl and showing the people the truth. RKO decided to shoot this Tarzan in Mexico City and it really shows because the locals are obviously not from Africa and none of the footage looks anything like a jungle. Most of the time it looks as if you're visiting a resort because the water is clear, the skies blue and there's not a single shot of what appears to be anything resembling a jungle. Who knows, perhaps RKO was rewarding their stars by allowing them to shoot in such a pretty location. I do somewhat doubt this because if they were too cheap to hire someone to write a story it's doubtful they were going to do anything useful for the cast. This entire film is so incredibly bad that one can't help but wonder if the screenwriters and director Florey were experimenting with some grass or some extremely harmful alcohol. The story is all over the place and it never makes a bit of sense as characters and their motivations seen to change every few minutes. The screenwriters and production crew couldn't even seem to deliver what the title promises because there's not a single mermaid to be seen and the only time the word is used is by a supporting player who throws the word out when Tarzan catches a (normal) woman at sea. This one word of dialogue seems to have been shot apart from the rest of the movie and just thrown in and I'm guessing it was thrown in after the producers realized that they wasn't a mermaid in the film. Weissmuller, clearly packing on the pounds by this point, sleepwalks through the film as does Joyce who is really wasted. The two of them don't seem interested in anything going on and have zero chemistry together. Zucco was a master at "B" films but sadly he doesn't add anything either as his dialogue will put you to sleep and his character just isn't very interesting. Christian isn't too bad in her part but the screenplay doesn't give her much to do. TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS would mark the final film in the series and sadly it's the worst of the bunch. I guess this is to be expected because the previous two entries were rather poor and it's clear that everyone involved had given up all hopes for the series.

The vine swinging here is pretty good and the background music better than even some of the so called better Tarzan films involving higher expense. Within the budget constraints that this film was produced - and I don't believe Weissmuller was paid anywhere like handsomely- this is a Tarzan film with light-hearted humor with some very unexpected but entertaining swimming and diving scenes with a dash of adventure . I particularly find the fight with the octopus refreshingly good and rather picturesque and reminds one of Hogarth's drawings of Tarzan fighting an octopus in once famous comic series. The difficult under-water scenes are done very well particularly the scene in which Tarzan battles his many youthful enemies with great swimming skill and craft: he appears agile, strong and a champion in the water that he was. He does quite a bit of rigorous cliff climbing like a mountain lion looking very fit and lion-like and diving into the water here again he appears strong and agile.The grand finale in which he hurled the impostor "Balu" from a high cliff is quite impressive. When his adversaries invaded his "estate" he defended his house and home like a true jungle lord ,throwing some over his head and punching others away as if the were toys! I appreciate Weissmuller's self confidence in asking for a "raise" for the continuation of the Tarzan contract which was terminated with the lame excuse that he was out of shape. More than a dozen or so Jungle Jim adventure films in which Weismuller now "fully clothed" did a bit of vine swinging ,a lot of swimming,diving and fought lions,leopards and tigers showed that Weissmuller could get back into shape again and was fit and strong enough to carry on for a few more years as the one and only Tarzan if only he was given a fair chance.

Before watching this I'd read that some considered TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS to be "the worst" of the Weissmuller series. That made me nervous but I gave it a try. I'm happy to say that I was very pleasantly surprised. MERMAIDS might be "the worst" of the Weissmuller series but that doesn't make it a bad film at all. Taking Tarzan away from the jungle for an exotic aquatic romp makes this an unusual entry in the series so prepare yourself for a change of pace. I like it! MERMAIDS is well worth adding to one's Tarzan collection if you can find it. I wish they would release all of Johnny's Tarzan movies on DVD.

The filmmakers behind Tarzan and the Mermaids seem to have been more interested in making a travel/beach movie than another traditional Tarzan picture. There just isn't as much action this time around. There's some wonderful swimming in this one though. Tarzan makes a spectacular dive off a very high cliff. Brenda Joyce and Weissmuller are very charming. George Zucco makes a great villain. The "God" that Tarzan must confront can be rather creepy. The film's soundtrack is certainly elaborate. The scenery is very nice. Cheetah delivers some fun gags. There's a giant octopus too! All of these keep things moving along, but it's still pretty mellow for a Weissmuller Tarzan movie. The movie even has several songs in it! I think they should have called this one "Tarzan Takes A Vacation". It's different, but certainly not bad. It's a good "chill out" movie to enjoy with a cold beverage after a stressful day. It works very well that way.