Tagline:
"The most beautiful woman of our time in the most erotic adventure of all time."
Plot:
It's Edgar Rice Burroughs' culture-clash adventure like it's never been seen before: as a vehicle for the narcotized anti-charisma of an oft-nude Bo Derek. Derek plays the female half of the "Me Tarzan, you Jane" equation as a rugged adventurer who travels to Africa to find her overacting father, Richard Harris. There, she's kidnapped by Tarzan (Miles O'Keeffe), who later vindicates himself by saving her from a fearsome python and a tribe of nefarious natives whose hobbies include body-painting and abducting hysterical starlets.
Key scenes:
It's a veritable act-off when Derek confronts Harris with his parental neglect: He rages and emotes as if performing a medley of Shakespeare's greatest soliloquies, while the glassy-eyed Derek speaks haltingly, in a robotic monotone. After her abduction, she bonds with O'Keeffe's simian companions and fondles his muscular physique before insisting, "I've never touched a man before." "I'm still a virgin," she elaborates, while suggestively stroking a banana and pondering O'Keeffe's level of sexual experience. When he appears oblivious to her sexual advances, she tells him, "Do you know you're more beautiful than any girl I know?" Sure enough, before long, O'Keeffe is copping a jungle-feel in full view of his animal posse. Later, Derek is kidnapped by natives who strip and bathe her, prompting her to whine, "Damn, they're washing me, just like a horse!"
Can easily be distinguished by:
Gratuitous nudity, bad acting, soft-focus photography, and wooden dialogue. Come to think of it, that's true of every Bo and John Derek collaboration.
Timeless message:
It takes a white man to truly understand and dominate Africa.
Memorable quotes:
In a monologue that adroitly captures his subtlety-impaired style, Harris operatically insists, "I wallow in me. I enjoy every syllable I say and every gesture I make. I indulge myself a full 100 percent... Turn yourself into a god, and you then will not have to look for another."
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