Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

weezeralfalfa No, I didn't misspell Tarzan's Jane, who isn't in this film, except in an indirect way. Actually, Jayne is a stallion(not a mare), perhaps so named in memory of Jane? Supposedly, Jayne is wild, but he didn't act so in Tarzan's presence, allowing Boy to ride him to the next oasis, and playing a significant role in the future adventures of Tarzan's group, while they are crossing the desert, to the 'lost' jungle, where they hope to find a plant with anti-'fever'(probably malaria) activity. They hope to send some to Jane, in a London hospital, to treat soldiers suffering from malaria.(As a historical note, at the release time of this movie, the Japanese controlled Java, where nearly all the world's commercial supply of quinine was produced. Also, the Germans controlled The Netherlands, where the crude quinine was purified and packaged for use. Thus, the Allies were desperate for some other source of antimalarial. Just how Tarzan was expected to recognize this rare plant is not explained........Nancy Kelly, as Connie Bryce, more or less takes the place of Jane, after she is encountered at an oasis.( Just what she was doing, as a side show magician, in the middle of the Sahara desert is never explained!). When Tarzan gets to the oasis, he mistakenly thinks her Arab companions are trying to saw her in half. He chases them and her camels away, to the displeasure of Connie. Before Tarzan arrived, she had arranged with Sheik Amir to carry a secret message to Prince Selim, son of Sheik Abdul El Khim. The message is hidden in a bracelet that Connie wears. Prince Selim later discovers that it tells of a plot by 2 German agents: Karl Straeder, and Paul Hendrix, to stir up some tribesmen into a rebellion. The Germans want to prevent Prince Selim from receiving or acting upon the message(How do they know there is such a message and what it says??) They shoot Selim, and blame it on Connie, who had recently been with Selim. She is quickly sentenced to hang. Tarzan can't rescue her, because he's in jail for supposedly stealing Jayne, who was supposed to be a gift from the Germans to the Sheik. So, it's up to Boy and Cheetah to figure out how to get the adults out of their predicaments, which they do. After thrilling escapes, the 4 ride off toward the lost jungle on Jayne and another horse, with Hendrix and Arabs chasing them. They manage to keep ahead, heading into the jungle, where they encounter giant lizards, crocodiles, and a giant carnivorous plant, whose shoots spring from the ground, waving like so many vertical snakes. When Tarzan comes along all these 'snakes' come together to form a cage, which incapacitates Tarzan for awhile. But , the most fearsome beast in this prehistoric jungle is a monstrous mechanical spider, looking to be about the size of a rhino. Enough to give any arachnophobe a heart attack! Boy gets caught in its giant web for a while. Hendrix tracts them to this cave, and is about to shoot Connie when Tarzan swings down and knocks Hendrix into another web, right in front of the spider. Bye Bye, Hendrix! Somehow, all Tarzan's group get out of the way of the spider, and find some of the appropriate plants for Connie to somehow transport back to Jane.......Of course, Cheetah, the Chimp, is a continual clown, and occasionally helps get the others out of a mess. He even does a tightrope act for the Arabs to distract their attention. .......The screenplay is pretty silly, with many aspects not making much sense. Nonetheless, it's a pretty interesting story for some viewers, with the bonus of Cheetah.

dbborroughs Jane is still in London when she sends word to Tarzan to make up some of the medicine for jungle fever.Heading out with Boy across the desert they run into some no good guys trying to capture a horse. Shooing them off they make the acquaintance of a female magician on a mission for a sheik. They all end up in a city where the no good guys are holding sway over the local ruler. Tarzan and the magician all end up in trouble and it isn't long before there is a chase into the desert which ends in a jungle where giant monsters lurk.Good action adventure sometimes gets a bit side tracked, however when its on point it's solid entertainment, even the giant monsters which come off as pure hokey fun. Highly recommended

physyu Edger Rice Burrough's Tarzan was never meant to be muscular although as portrayed by Elmo Lincoln, Frank Merrill and Gordon Scott's Tarzan was indeed very much so. Young Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan was lithe, strong and athletic with a beautiful manly body. In Tarzan and the Desert Mystery, Johnny Weissmuller looked big , strong and the way he lifted the Arabs --accompanying the American girl magician Nancy Kelly who was providing a free performance in the middle of a desert-- and threw them by mistake despite protests from Kelly was very impressive and entertaining. The second scene that was equally entertaining was the scene in which Tarzan was attacked after being falsely accused of stealing the stallion. Here we find Tarzan throwing the opponents about like little toys and fighting like a majestic lion. I think only Weissmuller could give such a splendid performance. He looked every inch a Tarzan and I should think he was much better built than perhaps Lincoln and Scott. Scott had weight lifter's build and became an extremely believable Tarzan in later films and Lincoln so long as he was in the jungle proved to be a very popular Tarzan with the moviegoers. Nancy Kelly's performance was very humorous and at times very very perceptive. Johnny Sheffield's performance as boy was as to expected , excellent. Cheeta was a great fun to watch and interestingly besides the usual quota of animal extras viz lions, elephants, wild horses, monkeys a number of mysterious prehistoric creatures were included and also a gigantic spider. The stallion that Tarzan rode added an extra element of interest and a novel feature and instead of stampeding wild elephants we have horses stampeding in this movie. The story is quite what one could expect if one is familiar with Newspaper Tarzan Comic Strips as drawn by Hogarth, Manning, Celardo and Foster. These news paper comic strips gave Tarzan a personality and ultimately made it popular enough to be made into movies. The story is a good change but what one could expect for a good Tarzan yarn. Another feature one notices in this film is instead of the " repetitious" vine swinging one finds in in some of excellent MGM films the vine swinging is a refreshing change in this RKO film. I enjoyed it very much and it is an excellent fare for the whole family. I have seen it several times.

lugonian TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY (RKO Radio, 1943), directed by Wilhelm Thiele, the eighth installment to the long running adventure series starring Johnny Weissmuller as the jungle hero, the second under the RKO Radio banner, and the only time during Weissmuller's 16 years in the titled role to have two releases in the same year. As with TARZAN TRIUMPHS (1943), his mate, Jane, is away (as explained in this segment through the reading of a letter that she away in England helping out in the war effort acting as nurse to the wounded soldiers), leaving her jungle warlord husband to remain behind and look after their young son, Boy (Johnny Sheffield) and their chimpanzee pet, Cheetah. Since this is war time, the screenwriters break away from the traditional intrusion of villainous white hunters or angry natives by having Tarzan matching wits with the Nazis once again. Unlike TARZAN TRIUMPHS, the Nazis take second precedence to what Tarzan is to encounter in his latest caper. Before a new adventure begins for both Tarzan and Boy, the story opens with an airplane flying over Tarzan's destination by which the co-pilot is seen throwing down a rock with an attached letter coming down on a miniature parachute. It is an airmail letter from Jane, which is opened and read to Tarzan by Boy. The letter has Jane asking Tarzan to hunt for giant carnivorous plants (plants with malaria serum), which can be found in the jungle on the other side of the desert, and have it sent to her in order to offer this fever medicine to the soldiers. Although it's written for Boy to remain behind, the young lad manages by getting his way with Tarzan, and, along with Cheetah, get to accompany him. While crossing the desert, Tarzan rescues a striped stallion from being whipped by a Karl Strader (Joseph Sawyer), sending the villain away and freeing the horse. The ever grateful animal accompanies Tarzan and Boy on their expedition. Later, Tarzan comes to the aid of Connie Bryce (Nancy Kelly), a lady magician, stranded in an Arab city following a North African USO tour. Because of her attempt to prevent the Sheik (Lloyd Corrigan) from an assassination attempt, Paul Heinrich, alias Hendrix, a Nazi leader (Otto Kruger), arranges for her to be accused of killing Prince Salam (Robert Lowery), and sentenced to die by hanging. Tarzan, imprisoned on the charges of stealing the stallion, breaks jail to save Connie. Afterwards, the trio face dangers in the jungle consisting of prehistoric creatures where Tarzan's to locate the carnivorous plants for Jane. Suspense builds when the Nazis are not far behind, forcing Connie and Boy to seek refuge in a cave. While roaming about, Boy finds himself trapped like a fly as while standing helplessly with his back glued against a gigantic spider web and arms stuck in an outstretched position, attracting the attention of the huge spider, slowly approaching towards his latest prey. Connie tries helping Boy out of this trap, but to no avail. As for Tarzan somewhere in the jungle, he has troubles of his own while entrapped inside a man-eating plant with no way of escaping.TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY, which plays like a Saturday matinée chaptered serial, containing villains, prehistoric creatures, rioting Arabs, a giant spider, and enough suspense in this slightly tight 70 minutes to certainly not disappoint any juvenile crowd. Edgar Rice Burrough's jungle hero continues to play the center of attention, and while this film actually appears better than it should have been, considering the modest budget, absence of the Jane character and contrived yarn, the scriptwriters have placed Tarzan into bizarre situations left to their own imagination. Obviously filmed in an indoor set, it would be questionable to find Tarzan and Boy walking through the hot desert or being exposed in the great outdoors without any signs of sunburn or tan on themselves. The supporting players consists of Frank Puglia (The Arab Dignitary); George J. Lewis (Hassan); and Nestor Paiva (The Prison Guard). Nancy Kelly, substituting for the Jane character, as once played in the MGM productions by Maureen O'Sullivan, makes an acceptable heroine; and Otto Kruger performs his task well as the nasty Nazi villain. The gigantic spider web scene, possibly the most talked about and memorable sequence in the entire movie, is not for the squeamish, especially when a villain gets caught onto the web and becomes a hardy meal for the spider. Naturally played for thrill or shock value at the time, today, this scene looks very artificial. While Tarzan finds himself encountering with prehistoric creatures (reminiscent to RKO's 1933 classic KING KONG) and man-eating plants instead of the usual hostile natives and wrestling crocodiles, this does stand apart from the previous efforts, thus, making it more acceptable as part of the horror genre.After many years as being aired on commercial television either on the late night hours or mid afternoon weekend showings, TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY finally reached its new destination of cable television on American Movie Classics where it found a new audience (1997-2000) and Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: May 21, 2011). TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY and the remaining five Weissmuller/Tarzan adventures from RKO Radio, have never been distributed to video cassette, but did make it to DVD around 2009. Next swing vine adventure: TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS (1945). (**1/2)