About

Tarzan and his Mate was made just prior to the introduction of the Hays Code (a regulatory code enforcing acceptable moral standards for the production of US films) and is the raunchiest of the MGM Tarzan films. A year after the events in Tarzan and the Ape Man (1932), which saw Jane leave behind her worldly life in London for her love of Tarzan (and an African jungle existence unfettered by the social mores of 'civilised' society), her former boyfriend Harry Holt returns to Africa to attempt once again to plunder the elephant burial ground. He also hopes to lure Jane away from life with Tarzan with a selection of evening gowns, shoes, make-up and other trappings of society.

Holt and his sidekick deal with their masculine crisis with wisecracks and cigars, while the scantily clad Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) and Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) swing through the trees, playing erotically charged games. Jane narrates their activities with references to English high society rituals – mocking her civilised past (and its men) and championing her life with Tarzan in their jungle paradise. Location shots mingle with surreal studio settings (Tarzan's blissful treetop hideaway) and back-projected ethnographic footage to create MGM's Africa – a collage of Western fantasies about the continent. Restored sequences include the famous skinny-dipping sequence and the violent murder of an African porter.