Plot summary
Dr. Brooks studies ancient tribes, and the followers of Zar, in their lost city, take him prisoner. His daughter Mary and her friend Bob Hall go looking for him, with the safari guides Jeff Herbert and Nick Moran leading the way. The two guides have more interest in the treasure of Zar than in the missing scientist, and Jeff Herbert holds a notice that promises payment to whoever brings Tarzan in, alive or dead. A group of Arabs travels with the searchers, drawn to Mary. Tarzan grew up in the jungle among apes and knows almost no English. He frees Dr. Brooks from the lost city, and after he sees a photograph of Mary he sets out to find her.
Cast
- Jiggsas Cheeta(uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tarzan the Fearless (1933)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Sol Lesser tricked "Big Jim" Pierce into giving up the Tarzan role by offering him $5,000 and a screen test at MGM; the test turned out to be a reading of a Shakespearean soliloquy for which he was not suited, and Pierce never worked for MGM.
- Lesser's contract included a clause that Tarzan had to be played by "Big Jim" Pierce, Burroughs' son-in-law, a clause Burroughs had inserted as a wedding present when Pierce married his daughter.
- Sol Lesser announced his own Tarzan production a few weeks into filming of MGM's Tarzan the Ape Man, and MGM paid him to delay it until their film was released.
- The god Zar, worshipped by the lost city's people who capture Dr Brooks, is portrayed by the idol prop from Universal's The Mummy (1932).
- A score for the serial was later taken from old westerns, and the Tarzan yell used in it was the James Pierce version, taken from the radio series.
- Buster Crabbe had been tested for Tarzan at MGM in 1931 with a quick group test during That's My Boy that "didn't give any of us a chance"; he and Johnny Weissmuller were friends, but a heavily publicised rivalry amused them both.
- The serial and the 61-minute, first-four-chapter feature are considered lost; a reconstruction using material from the feature version, found footage, stills and inter-titles came out on DVD in 2016 from the fan website "Serial Squadron".
