Golden Era of Bollywood: Tarzans of Bollywood

Thursday, 11 June 2020

Tarzans of Bollywood

Tarzan is a fictional character created by the fictional writer Edgar Rice Burroughs in the novel "Tarzan of the Apes" published in 1914. The first Tarzan film was a silent film released in 1918, With the advent of talking pictures, a popular Tarzan movie franchise was developed. Starting with Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932 through twelve films until 1948, the franchise was anchored by former Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in the title role.
In India, the first Tarzan film was TOOFANI TARZAN produced by Wadia Brothers in 1937 It starred John Cawas as Tarzan. This film went on to become the studio’s biggest grosser. Wadia also made Tarzan an Indian man and never again was his Indian-ness challenged. He always sang and danced and spoke fluent Hindi before the interval.

The next Tarzan film was Zimbo released in 1958. Homi Wadia now created an Indian Tarzan, it was a remake of Toofani Tarzan This time the role was played by Azad, he made a much better Tarzan than Cawas. Perhaps, the reason behind choosing Azad to play Tarzan was his resemblance to Weissmuller. This film became a hit, Azad did many Tarzan films in the 60s. In fact, many Tarzan films were made in the 60s.

Zimbo was a 1958 Hindi action-adventure film directed by Homi Wadia and produced by Basant Pictures. The film starred Azad, Krishna Kumari, Chitra, Achala Sachdev.

Professor Chakravarty and his wife Uma (Achala Sachdev) live with their four-year-old son in the jungle where he carries out experiments. He has discovered the formula to prevent aging. Adversity strikes when their house is attacked by lions, killing him, while his wife goes mad with grief. The professor's son goes missing in the melee. The story then follows the arrival of several people seventeen years later from the city. One of them is the Professor's brother who has traveled to the jungle with his daughter in search of the missing formula and to look for the professor's son. There are villains in the group of people, wanting the formula for their own purposes. Chakravarty's son Zimbo has been brought up by the apes and the story takes a turn when they try to relocate him with Dada (Pedro the Chimpanzee) to the city.

In 1962 Navshakti films came out with the earlier title Toofani Tarzan with Azad playing the Tarzan role.

The story was different here the Explorers searching for a hidden treasure encounter the titular jungle man (Azad) who refuses to let them pass through his forest. When Tarzan falls in love with Sushma (Shanta Kumari), one of the travelers, the magician Samri, who is also a part of the group, creates a duplicate of the woman in an effort to overpower Tarzan.

By this time Azad has typecast the Tarzan or Zimbo. He was many offers to play this role in the forthcoming films. The next in line was TARZAN AUR JADUGAR released in 1963.

This film was produced by Nattu and directed by Radhakant The story of this film has another angle of a magician. Magic was a hot subject in the 60s This film had both the interesting subject of that era. In this film, Tarzan is referred to as the king of the beasts, who lives in the forest of fairies, and of an evil sorceress who wants to control it.

Khanna, his wife Kamla, and their little son Tony start out on a sea voyage only to face tragedy when the ship sinks, flinging each of the three onto different parts of massive jungle land. Khanna becomes a laborer for a contractor in the jungle. Kamla meets a lady magician named Rooplekha, who she grows to love as a daughter. And little Tony is rescued by a fairy from Paristan and placed in the loving hands of the animals of the jungle and grows up to be known as Tarzan (Azad).

Another Tarzan film released in 1963 was Tarzan Aur Gorilla, directed by Pyarelal for hind Films. The main lead remains the same Azad as Tarzan and Chitra, his love interest but in this film, the highlight was given to Pedro the Chimpanzee

In 1964 three Tarzan films were released and in all the three films Azad played the role of Tarzan. Director Radhakant once again comes with Azad as Tarzan in the 1964 film "Tarzan Aur Jalpari "

In this film, Tarzan is saved by a “Jalpari” played by Chitra. In the end, it is Tarzan’s turn to help the Jalpari who has become the victim of a notorious magician.

The second Tarzan film of 1964 was "Tarzan And Delilah" produced by Heera Sawant, A. Shamsheer, and directed by A Shamsheer with the same star cast, Azad as Tarzan and Chitra as Delilah.

Tarzan is in love with Princess Delilah, a captive of the evil queen Laila, who has her eyes on the beefy jungle hero. Sunanda and Fernades who was thrown from a vessel, land on an island inhabited by Tarzan (Azad). Tarzan and Zippy to free Delilah and the other lasses who are being held against their will behind the “magic door” belonging to Queen Laila.

TARZAN AND CAPTAIN KISHORE was the third Tarzan film of 1964 with similar leading pair. Azad and Chitra.

Three young boys become separated during a shipwreck. One grows up to be a jungle man named Tarzan, another becomes a ship’s captain named Kishore, while the third, William turns into a smuggler. The story is about stealing valuable scientific formulas.

In 1965 three Tarzan films were released, this time Dara Singh appeared as Tarzan with Mumtaz as his heroine in Tarzan comes to Delhi. This film was produced by Surinder Kapoor, the father of Anil Kapoor and Boney Kapoor. The film was an average in Bollywood but the audience liked Dara Singh as Tarzan.

This film was a remake of TARZAN’S NEW YORK ADVENTURE (1942). Rekha (Mumtaz), and her professor father go to a jungle with a guide Shekhar played by Sidhu, who steals a priceless necklace off of a tribal idol. The tribesmen blame the theft on the interlopers and threaten the life of the professor until it is returned. With Tarzan’s help, Rekha and her father search for the gem and it takes them from the wilderness to the big city of Delhi where the jungle man experiences a mighty big case of culture shock.

The second film was "Tarzan and Kingkong", in this film Tarzan is played by Randhawa, the younger brother of Dara Singh. Dara Singh appears in this film in a Guest appearance. The highlight of this film was the role of Kingkong played by himself.

This film was produced by A Jaiswal and directed by A Shamsheer, who earlier directed "Tarzan And Delilah" with Azad as Tarzan, now take Randhawa as Tarzan. A jungle queen (Bela Bose) captures the survivors of a plane crash, planning to sacrifice them to the goddess Bali. Tarzan (Randhawa) intervenes and in the process falls in love with Sharmila (Mumtaz), one of the stranded passengers.

The queen teams up with her commander, Romi (Shyam Kumar), and a strong-man named King Kong (King Kong), to destroy Tarzan and his lady love.

The third Tarzan film was "Tarzan and Circus" with Azad once again as Tarzan. This film was produced by S.J.Rajdeo and directed by Shiv Kumar with Chitra as the heroine.

IN this film we see a ringmaster of a circus who has lost his only son; Bimla, a love-hungry circus owner; and Keshav (Mohan Sherry), the wicked circus manager whose goal is to gain Bimla’s wealth and possess Malti’s youth. Malti is played by Chitra.

In 1966 three Tarzan films released. The first release was Tarzan Aur Herculis produced by Herculis and directed by Mahmood, not the comedian Mehmood. The other film was Tiger And Jadui Chirag and the third was Tarzan Ki Mehbooba

Azad once again appears as Tarzan, his life is in danger, both from monsters created by a magician who is searching the jungle for a buried treasure and by royals who have discovered that the jungle man is the lost heir to a kingdom they have overthrown

D R Films Tarzan Ki Mehbooba was directed by Ram Rasila. In this film, Tabassum was the heroine of Tarzan played once again by Azad.

Tarzan loves a jungle nymph named Nimoni (Tabassum), who is the daughter of a tribal chief, Tomoki. The tribe’s witch doctor, Limo, wishes for Nimoni to become his bride, and to help make that happen he murders Timoki and takes over as chief. He then sets out to destroy Tarzan’s peaceful rule of the jungle.

In 1968 another Tarzan film released, directed by Sushil Gupta with once again Azad as Tarzan in Tarzan In Fairyland

The star cast includes Azad, Indira, Shyam Kumar, Amar, Ram Kumar, Ram Mohan, Sheikh, The story about a professor and his daughter (Indira), who are in search for a treasure thought to belong to a civilization that was buried during an earthquake thousand of years before. They run afoul of a mad magician, who captures the group. Tarzan came to rescue them from the magician and help them to find the treasure.

In 1970, a new Indian Tarzan was introduced, this time the great wrestler Master Chandagiram( Hind Kesri 1962 and 1968). The film was produced by Radhakant, who earlier a Tarzan film in 1963.

Tarzan (Chandgi Ram) takes to task a band of gold smugglers while at the same time falling in love with the gang leader’s pretty daughter, Rama (Shabnam).

Slowly the attraction of Tarzan was fading new characters were emerging like Rambo or Rocky. It took 15 years for Tarzan to reappear in 1985 film TARZAN (aka: ADVENTURES OF TARZAN)

The film directed by B Subhash, starring Hemant Birje, Dalip Tahil, Kimi Katkar, and Om Shivpuri. The film was successful commercially. The film was much talked about in its time, mainly due to the steamy scenes between the lead actors and popular hit songs.

Like earlier films here also A small boy, lost in the jungle, becomes the ward of the jungle animals and grows up to become Tarzan (Hemant Birje). He was found by Dr. Sethi and his daughter, Ruby (Kimi Katkar) whom he saves. They fall in love.

Ruby's dad and D.K plan to capture Tarzan and take him to work for the Apollo Circus, owned by Krishnakant Verma. Tarzan is captured before Tarzan and Ruby's romance could take wing. Tarzan is chained and taken to the circus and made to spend the rest of his days performing various acts,

17 years later The sequel of the above movie named Tarzan Ki Beti was released in 2002. Tarzan was played by Hemant Birje. This movie was released in 2002 under the banner of Kusum Art International as a sequel of the Adventures of Tarzan.

The star cast includes Hemant Birje, Ritika Singh, Gouri Varma, Raza Murad, Dhananjay (Junior Dharmendra) which was a look-alike of Dharmendra. Hemant Nirje plays Tarzan and Ritika Singh plays his daughter.

Dhananjay Singh plays Arjun, he loves an orphan girl Kiran. When they are about to be married. Kiran knows from her mother that her father is Tarzan. Kiran also has a sister, Aarti who still lives in the jungle. Some hunters try to catch Arti in the jungle. A forest ranger helps Aarti to reunite with her family.

In 2004 a film was released Tarzan and Wonder Car starring Ajay Devgan. The film was not a Tarzan film but there was car named as Tarzan. Ajay Devgan plays Deven who was an Automobile engineer who possessed this car. He was killed by four of his friends to grab this car. Ultimately this car was purchased by Deven's son after many years. Deven's spirit possesses Taarzan and starts killing all the gentlemen responsible for the murder, including Inspector Sanjay Sharma. Since the car now belongs to Raj, he becomes a suspect in eyes of Inspector Khurana (Gulshan Grover)