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Part 2 |
Adventure Films Historically-Based Swashbucklers of the 30s and 40s: Other historical swashbuckler films included the retelling of Alexandre Dumas' classic novels. In Dumas' often-told tale of revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo (1912, 1934, 1974, and 2002), an unjustly imprisoned sailor Edmond Dantes escaped after fifteen years from an island prison and returned to 1820s Paris to find revenge. British-born actor Robert Donat appeared in the 1934 version - the only film he made in Hollywood. Director James Whale's The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 and 1998) was about twin brothers (one - the tyrannical Louis XIV, the other - exiled and imprisoned with an iron mask) in 18th century France separated at birth - one eventually became a swashbuckling member of the Three Musketeers. Alexander Dumas' classic, The Corsican Brothers (1942) repeated the plot twist of twins (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in both roles) separated at birth but later reunited to join together to defeat a tyrannical Corsican baron. And the oft-filmed The Three Musketeers (1916, 1921, 1933, 1935, 1948, 1973, and 1993) highlighted three 17th century French court swordsmen who battled evil Cardinal Richelieu to save France with a justice-seeking nobleman named Gascon D'Artagnan (Fairbanks). In director Fred Niblo's 1921 film, often acclaimed as the best of the lot, Eugene Pallette, George Siegmann, and Leon Barry starred as the musketeers. Fairbanks reprised his 1921 role as D'Artagnan in The Iron Mask (1929), his last silent film. The most-entertaining sound version was director George Sidney's 1948 version, with an acrobatic Gene Kelly as D'Artagnan, and Lana Turner as Countess Charlotte de Winter - in her first Technicolor picture. The adventure film At Sword's Point (1951) was a variation on Dumas' The Three Musketeers, featuring Cornel Wilde and Maureen O'Hara. (There was also a version with four leads: Richard Lester's The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1975).)
Tarzan Adventure Films:
Others who played Tarzan before Weissmuller were Gene Pollar, P. Dempsey Tabler, James Pierce, and Frank Merrill. And in the early 30s, Olympic gold-medal swimmer Larry "Buster" Crabbe appeared in Tarzan the Fearless (1933) from Principal, released as a 12-chapter serial and as a feature-length film. The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935), also issued as both a serial and as a 75-minute feature, starred Olympic decathlon champion Herman Brix (aka Bruce Bennett). It was later re-edited, and reissued as Tarzan and The Green Goddess (1938).
In total, Weissmuller appeared in twelve productions of the Tarzan series:
Other Tarzan actors after Weissmuller included Glenn Morris, Lex Barker, Gordon Scott, Denny Miller, Jock Mahoney, Mike Henry, and Ron Ely. A more recent, updated and refashioned 'Tarzan' film was director Hugh Hudson's naturalistic UK epic Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), with Christopher Lambert in the title role as John Clayton (the name Tarzan was never used in the film). [Ralph Richardson as Tarzan's grandfather - the Sixth Earl of Greystoke, in his final film role, received a post-humous Academy Award nomination.] Adventure Films of British Colonialism: Adventure films that offered tales of British colonialism and imperial campaigns of worldwide conquest included these examples:
Tales of pirates are numerous in the adventure film genre, including the following:
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Additional
historical swashbucklers included: producer Alexander Korda's The Scarlet
Pimpernel (1934) starring Leslie Howard with a dual identity as an English
aristocrat (Sir Percy) who saved other French aristocrats from being guillotined
during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, 
In
Mervyn LeRoy's Best Picture-nominee Anthony Adverse (1936), Fredric
March starred as the 18th century illegitimate son of an Italian nobleman
who must battle against various adversaries across the globe to rightfully
claim the family fortune. And in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), David
O. Selznick's screen adaptation of Anthony Hope's adventure tale, Ronald Colman
starred as an heroic British commoner posing as his distant 'twin' cousin
(the kidnapped King of Ruritania) during a Balkan coronation ceremony in order
to save the throne from take-over. And Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. also made an
appearance as Rupert of Hentzau. [Earlier versions were made in 1914 and 1922 (with Ramon Novarro and Lewis Stone), and an uninspiring,
inferior version was also remade in 1952 starring Stewart Granger,
Deborah Kerr, James Mason, and Jane Greer.] Reprising his Broadway role from
1946, Jose Ferrer appeared as the long nosed, 17th century braggart and swordsman
Cyrano in director Michael Gordon's Cyrano De Bergerac (1950), and
won the Best Actor Academy Award. The film's story was based on Edmond Rostand's
1897 poetic comedy. 
The
26 Tarzan books of Edgar Rice Burroughs became the subject matter for a long
series of vine-swinging, ape-man adventures set in the jungle. Burroughs'
first story (in 1912) appeared in the October issue of All-Story Magazine,
and was later novelized in 1914. The threats of Western encroachment by white
treasure-hunters, ferocious wild animals, and hostile native tribal life were
typical elements of most jungle adventures. The first "Lord of the Jungle"
was actor Elmo Lincoln - he started the trend in 1918 during the silent era
with Tarzan of the Apes (1918), and also appeared in the sequel The
Romance of Tarzan (1918). 
Of
the many Tarzan films about the English nobleman raised by apes in the African
jungle, the most memorable and enduring were the MGM-Johnny Weissmuller/Maureen
O'Sullivan versions of the early 1930s until 1942, including: 
Michael
Curtiz' The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), a tale of 19th century
imperialism starring Errol Flynn, with the climactic sequence of the famous
light brigade charge of 600 soldiers during the Crimean War
Early
Pirate or Buccaneering Films: