A very enjoyable silent B-movie and superior to many Tarzan films. Many Tarzan movies skip Tarzan's tragic origin and load the film with too much action, animals and comedy. Its interesting that this massive franchise started with a slow, logical and character-driven movie. Tarzan comes off more like a superhero here than in any of the other films. He's powerful, heroic and sensitive. Kudos to Weissmuller for playing Tarzan as a more primal innocent wildman (bringing great acting to the series) but Elmo Lincoln is the perfect fantasy of a jungle superhero. This film seems to be missing a lot of footage because its so disjointed and the over-the-top cuteness of the child Tarzan and the over-the-top evil of Tarzan's African enemies will annoy modern viewers. But the rest of the film holds up. Even the B&W photography is awesome.

It's actually pretty astonishing, when one thinks about it, how many types of Tarzan have existed and how many versions of the story have been filmed. This first, silent version is a far cry from the more famous ones (most famous being the ones featuring Johnny Weissmuller), but it's still very interesting to watch for fans of the character. More than practically any other adaptation of the tale, this one features his parents and his youth as the Lord and Lady Greystoke come to Africa and are left alone in the jungle to face their fate along with their newborn baby. Though Lincoln is nearly always credited as being the first movie Tarzan, Griffith actually plays the role as a youth for the first half of this relatively brief film. He is shown cavorting in the nude with his ape family and eventually discovering the joy of clothing, the importance of a knife and the act of reading. Later, Lincoln takes over the role just as a safari led by his long lost family is on an expedition to locate his parents. This is where he meets Jane (Markey) and introduces her to the wonders of jungle life. Griffith does a fairly remarkable job as the boy. His facial expressions and enthusiasm help a lot in keeping the film watchable. Lincoln has been heavily criticized by many as the fattest, most out of shape Tarzan ever. However, though he is certainly husky, he isn't really as rotund as his costume helps to suggest. Many times he is shown briefly from an angle that displays a waistline and he is somewhat muscular, not completely flabby. Most folks prefer the lean, lithe Tarzan's, but for a man to wrestle a lion to death, some muscle would likely be in order as well. Gordon Scott, though clearly a more fit and beautiful specimen than Mr. Lincoln, is not too much smaller in size. If Lincoln is not the ideal Tarzan, Markey is even less appealing as Jane with her heavy plaid outfit and her unengrossing demeanor. Still, the two manage to muster up a shred of chemistry. The film was actually revolutionary at the time for it's inclusion of jungle footage and the bodily exposure of its leading man. Lincoln was considered a sensation. The film is archaic, but interesting and, at 60 minutes, doesn't take too long to watch, at any rate.

...because of his already established reputation as a Hollywood strong man (e.g. his role as the Mighty Man of Valor in the 1916 DW Griffith classic "Intolerance").Also, the image of Tarzan in 1918 was not that of a lithe gymnast like Christopher Lambert in "Greystoke", but of a man powerful enough to wrestle lions. Strength equalled bulk.There's an interesting piece of trivia attached to that movie and Uganda (that's in East Africa) where I'm now based. There's a popular myth around here that the 1918 version of "Tarzan of the Apes" was filmed on the northern shores of Lake Victoria. In fact it was shot, I believe, in Louisiana.

This original silent version of the Lord of the Apes is perhaps the truest screen representation of the way Tarzan is envisioned in the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is seems very crude but really isn't. It follows the first story (in as much as it can in the limited time of the feature) very closely. Elmo Lincoln, while no Adonis, is very adequate in the role. He's not Johnny Weissmuller...but then Johnny didn't really look all too much like Tarzan should have either.