Spanish title: Tarzan el Indomable (Tarzan the Indomitable One)
Stars: Herman Brix (AKA Bruce Bennett)
Directed by: Edward A. Krull
Distributor: Guaranted Pictures de Mexico

"Dangers and adventures in the tropical forest"

Herman Brix could have been Johnny Weismuller, but for a shoulder injury he suffered in his first film – Touchdown. he was due to play Tarzan, the studio wanted him in the role, and his public profile was strong after he won the Olympic shot put gold medal in 1928, but with a bad wing, the role went to The Weis instead, and the rest is history.

That said, Herman Brix (who would eventually rename himself Bruce Bennett to shed the action star/tough guy persona) had a much longer career by ensuring that, whenever things weren’t to his liking, he’d go away, take some acting classes, and reinvent himself – even if it meant several years of uncredited acting and extra parts in the meantime. In fact, Brix was so sure of himself and so open to new things that, even at the age of 96, he decided to go skydiving. He would ultimately appear on 150 films before retiring to run a vending machine company in the 60’s.

Edgar Rice Burroughs had liked Brix and wanted him to play Tarzan, so when the studios went in another direction (and decided to make Tarzan a savage, rather than a displaced British aristocrat), Burroughs decided to start his own production company (Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises Inc.) and make his own Tarzan series, in which he would give Brix the lead role.

Unfortunately, the studios don’t dig that kind of entrepreneurship, so they froze the series out of theaters in North America, but it did big business elsewhere, eventually being recut and turned into a pair of features – one of which was this one.

Tarzan the Indomitable One, as it translates to in English, is a collection of highlights from the first episode of the New Adventures of Tarzan serial, with a touch of episode two thrown in. The rest of episode two would eventually become Tarzan and the Green Goddess, several years later, and would still be circulating right through the 50’s and 60’s, wherever a theater needed a quick Saturday morning matinee fill-in.

The lobby card above is a good example of the way lobby cards used to frequently be back in the 30’s – original paintwork, some cheap screen printing (you can see a few errors from the print, most notably in the way the red color cuts out halfway through the ‘Herman Brix’ titling), and the usual action shot inset.

This card was created by the distributor of the film, Guaranted Pictures De Mexico, who are listed as being at Acapulco number 38, Mexico DF, with two telephone numbers of 14-46-42 and 14-46-48. We’re guessing those numbers don’t work today. GPdeM was the local office (as best as we can work out) of the US company, Guaranteed Pictures, who formed in 1918 and specialized in foreign films, reissues and B-grade fodder. They went out of business some time in the early 40’s.