The Adventures of Tarzan

Tarzan is one of those characters that has been so popular for so long that it seems almost real. And yet, when the film Tarzan of the Apes was released in 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs had almost just invented him. The character appeared in the novel of the same name published in a magazine in 1912 and as a book in 1914.

Gordon Griffith as young Tarzan

Producers apparently wanted Alice Guy, the first woman director, to do the film, but she turned it down. Morgan City, Louisiana, was used to stand in for the jungle because of the swamps and the vegetation. Also, the Old South would provide many black extras.

Technically, the first Tarzan to appear on screen is Gordon Griffith, who plays the hero as a boy and appears (stark naked) in the first part of the picture.

Stellan Windrow

The actor chosen to play the part of the adult Tarzan was Stellan Windrow, an unknown Swedish-born athlete who was ideal for the physically demanding part. Star power would be provided by his Jane, actress Enid Markey, who had been in movies since 1911. However, when the USA entered WWI, Windrow was drafted and had to leave the production before it was finished, after five weeks of shooting.

Elmo Lincoln

Elmo Lincoln stepped in the part. At the time, he was becoming more and more popular with audiences, playing bigger and bigger parts opposite the stars of the 1910s like Constance Talmadge, Douglas Fairbanks, Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron...

However, Lincoln was nowhere near as muscular as Windrow, so the latter's performance was kept in the film as long as his face was hidden from view when Tarzan did the tree swinging.

Although the film was said to be a 3 hour three parter, the longest available copy is now 73 minutes (available on DVD). However, it was such a success that a second production was soon underway, adapting the second part of the novel. It was called The Romance of Tarzan and the two stars reunited for it. Sadly, no copy has turned up so far.

Louise Lorraine as Jane

After a 1920 serial called The Son of Tarzan and a feature called The Revenge of Tarzan both using different actors for the leads, Elmo Lincoln returned in 1921 one final time for his own unusually expensive 15 episode serial called The Adventures of Tarzan. By then, Enid Markey had declared that she was "tired of making faces" and wanted to act, so she left the silver screen for a successful career in the theater. For this production, 16 year-old Louise Lorraine replaced her in the role. She had started her career the year before in another serial starring Elmo Lincoln called Elmo The Fearless and she went on to become a serial queen, much like Pearl White.

Apparently, filming was plagued with huge problems: in mid-July, during a jungle fire scene, the flames spread through the studio,

setting three lions free among the crew, burning the set, injuring several actors and destroying three cameras. Elmo Lincoln also claimed that a lion fight scene went wrong went the lion decided to actually attack him and he had to stab it to death on camera. However, the insurance company on this film, unlike the first, would not put the lead actor in jeopardy and hired someone for the stunts (It is unclear if this anecdote relates to this film or the previous ones). As a matter of fact, Elmo Lincoln's stunt double, Frank Merrill, who also has a part as an Arab guard in the film, went on to star as Tarzan in two of his own movies.

The film was re-released in a shortened version with added sound effects in 1928. This montage was preserved and is available on DVD, but the original serial edit has only been restored as a ten episode version. Some scenes are missing like the scene where Rokoff tattoos the plan of a treasure chamber onto Jane's shoulder with his belt buckle. This still proves that the scene was indeed shot, it is now unfortunately replaced by a title card.


Elmo Lincoln continued his career mainly in bit parts, sometimes in Tarzan movies where the lead role was played by Johnny Weissmuller or Lex Barker. As for Louise Lorraine, although she had made a rather successful transition to sound films, she decided that she would withdraw from the screen after her marriage.

The film is available on DVD in the ten episode version.
For further reading, I suggest this excellent site (with another page about the 1921 serial) and the book of Elmo Lincoln's daughter.
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That's all for today, folks!