In the last two Tarzan films, the last one for MGM and the first one for RKO, the character of Jane was written out by having her go to the United Kingdom as a patriotic gesture for the war. Tarzan himself dealt with the Nazis in his usual manner in these last two films himself, Tarzan Triumphs and Tarzan's Desert Mystery. Jane is now played by Brenda Joyce as Tarzan and his family are fully reunited now. She's bought some friends along headed by Henry Stephenson who is fascinated by a bracelet that Cheetah found for Jane. It speaks of an ancient legend of an Amazon tribe and a lost city. Of course Tarzan knows all about it and he's been keeping the Amazons a secret. There ain't nothing in the jungle that he doesn't know about. And in Tarzan And The Amazons the usual common theme of all Tarzan films comes true. Outsiders only mean trouble, especially if they come from civilization.Stephenson is a cultured scientist, but the rest of his crew have their own ideas. Folks like Barton MacLane, Lionel Royce, Don Douglas, J.M. Kerrigan, and Steven Geray see visions of untold riches. I think you can figure the rest of this story out.Tarzan And The Amazons features Maria Ouspenskaya as the ancient Queen of the Amazons who exacts hard punishment for those who violate the sanctity of the Amazons, She's always good even in some really terrible films. This like so many other Hollywood films with an African setting give us a pulp fiction view of that continent. It was only in the Fifties with King Solomon's Mines and The African Queen that we started getting a realistic view of Africa. Still Tarzan And The Amazons is entertaining enough in a pulp fiction sort of way.

Johnny Weissmuller made a name for himself as Tarzan at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio. However, and I am not sure why, Weissmuller and 'Boy' (Johnny Sheffield) jumped from this prestige studio to the less than stellar RKO--where the budgets shrank considerably as did the quality. The scripts got a lot more weird and the films became chock full of poorly integrated stock footage and animals that often weren't even African. Additionally, 'Jane' (Maureen O'Sullivan) remained at MGM and a new leading lady needed to be found. After having the character be 'off on vacation in England' or 'helping with the war effort' in a couple films, RKO decided to re-cast this character with Brenda Joyce--who bore little similarity to O'Sullivan.Early in the film Tarzan happens upon an Amazon lady who is being chased by leopards. She's injured her leg and Tarzan insists on carrying her back to her Amazon city. However, apparently it's taboo to either leave the town or enter it if you are an outsider. Fortunately, the Amazon Priestess knows that Tarzan can be trusted and apparently he's the only outsider they ever let leave the city alive.A bit later, Jane arrives from one of her many trips and brings with her some friends. Unfortunately, these hunters turn out to be headed for disaster when they see a bracelet left by the Amazon who Tarzan rescued--and they decide to try to find this Amazon kingdom themselves! But, Tarzan wisely refuses to help them--especially since some of them (Ballister in particular) are real jerks! Oddly, Ballister is played by Barton MacLane--the same actor who re-appears in "Tarzan and the Huntress" but he plays a different character--even though he dies in "Tarzan and the Amazons"! Considering that these two films were only made a couple years apart, you do wonder why they chose him for both films. And, now that I think of it, Henry Stephenson (a wonderful character actor) was also in "Tarzan Finds a Son!"--and was killed in that film--yet appears in this one a few years later! Despite these odd casting problems, this film actually turns out to be a pretty good one--though they never explain how a group of very white women happened to be living in the heart of Africa! The film lacks the bad stock footage of some of the other RKO Tarzan films and at least the black natives are black--and not Mexicans like in the studio's last film in the series (well after it had 'jumped the shark'). In addition, the film is well written and quite entertaining--one of the last ones like this in the series.

This jungle adventure was a popular Saturday matinée entry and has a simple but effective plot of archaeologists looking for a mysterious city of a warrior tribe of women. The white hunters are searching for wealth and riches believed to be in the domain of the Amazons and convince Tarzan's son to guide them to the hidden valley. Tarzan and Jane quarrel about Boy's involvement with the safari because the jungle man knows that the intruders are headed for trouble when they encounter the Amazons. Johnny Weissmuller was winding down in his role as Tarzan but is good as always as the king of the jungle. Brenda Joyce is okay in her first role as Jane and Johnny Sheffield is the troublesome youngster who disobeys Tarzan. Barton MacClane is good as the heavy and Cheetah is along for some scene-stealing fun.

Let me start by saying that I'm not very familiar with the TARZAN-films of the 30's, 40's and 50's, or actually: not with Tarzan at all. This film, only being the second I've watched recently is not a very good one. Classic story(Tarzan swings from tree to tree, rescuing people from wild animals and bad guys), cardboard scenery and not a very impressive Tarzan too.This is in fact the biggest flaw of this film. I've seen Gordon Scott play Tarzan in the much better TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE and thought former swimming champion Weissmuller was the greatest Tarzan of all. I don't know if Johnny Weismuller always looked like he does here, but I can say that he doesn't look like a champion at all. There's no greatness in his performance at all, nor does he look like an athlete. I heard that he got tired after a few films more and decided to stop playing Tarzan, and this seems to be the case here already. One of the few good things about this film is Cheetah. What a great job of the animal trainers here! Great fun to watch, when Cheetah is on screen This, together with the fact that the film isn't very long(which is good, because there really isn't much story too), is the only thing why one should see this minor Tarzan-episode. 5/10