Tarzanova smrt

This is Nesvadba and Balík's variation on the fate of the legendary "Tarzan of the Apes." While Edgar Rice Burroughs took his hero into science fiction, especially in books connected to the world of Pellucidar, Nesvadba paraphrased the basic story of Lord Greystoke's lost son as the lost Baron Wolfgang von Hoppe's encounter with human hatred and greed. Problems are personified as a struggle between an English agent and a German Nazi. Unfortunately, the formal mannerism of the 1960s is so aggressive that the core of the interesting subject becomes, in its final form, an etude on situations seen and staged many times. Hrušínský could indeed be an attractive Tarzan, but it would take a different director and different financial possibilities to visit a real jungle. And, of course, it's impossible to believe Jana Štěpánková is a femme fatale, just as it's nonsense to tolerate those endless geometric chases with unacceptable musical accompaniment. (29/08/2020)