Tarzan the Mighty

Tarzan the Mighty is a 1928 American silent action film serial directed by Jack Nelson and Ray Taylor. It was nominally based on the collection Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film is now considered to be lost.

Cast

 * Frank Merrill as Tarzan. Joe Bonomo was cast as Tarzan but, while filming Perils of the Wild, fractured his left leg and severely injured his sacroiliac joint while performing a stunt.   Director Jack Nelson remembered Frank Merill from working with him on an earlier production, either Perils of the Jungle (1927) or The Adventures of Tarzan (1921). Whichever production it was, he felt that Merrill was a natural replacement and the new lead actor started filming the next morning.
 * Al Ferguson as Black John, village ruler of Pirates' descendants
 * Natalie Kingston as Mary Trevor. There was no Jane in this production.  Kingston was cast as the castaway and love interest Mary Trevor.
 * Bobby Nelson as Bobby Trevor, Mary's younger brother
 * Lorimer Johnston as Lord Greystoke, Tarzan's uncle

Production
After the failure of Tarzan and the Golden Lion, starring "Big Jim" Pierce, FBO did not make a sequel. Universal Pictures paid Burroughs an undisclosed sum to make a new Tarzan serial based on Jungle Tales of Tarzan. This serial was later re-titled Tarzan the Mighty.

Merrill, who was the National Gymnastics champion from 1916 to 1918, came up with the vine-swinging technique. Merrill actually swung on a "vine" (a rope) with Kingston in one arm. The footage was later studied by MGM for Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and the subsequent series of Tarzan films with Johnny Weissmuller.

Production began on April 12 and finished on October 28, 1928. The serial was originally intended to be 12 chapters long but it was so successful that it was extended to 15 chapters in length. Tarzan the Mighty was successful enough for a sequel, Tarzan the Tiger (1929), to be put into production with many of the cast returning (in slightly different roles in some cases).

Chapter titles

 * 1) The Terror of Tarzan
 * 2) The Love Cry
 * 3) The Call of the Jungle
 * 4) The Lion's Leap
 * 5) Flames of Hate
 * 6) The Fiery Pit
 * 7) The Leopard's Lair
 * 8) The Jungle Traitor
 * 9) Lost in the Jungle
 * 10) Jaws of Death
 * 11) A Thief in the Night
 * 12) The Enemy of Tarzan
 * 13) Perilous Paths
 * 14) Facing Death
 * 15) The Reckoning

Novel
Originally written as a 15-part serial for newspapers in 1926, it was collected and published as a released as a trade-paperback (ISBN 978-1-4357-4971-9) by ERBville Press in 2005.

Chapters

 * 1)  Jungle King
 * 2) Queen of His Kind
 * 3) Black John Plots
 * 4) A Pawn of Passion
 * 5) Tantor Trumpets
 * 6) Giant Emotions
 * 7) Flaming Hate
 * 8) Mock Marriage
 * 9) Black John's Revenge
 * 10) The Imposter
 * 11) The Stolen Heritage
 * 12) Treachery Higher Up
 * 13) A Thief in the Night
 * 14) Momentary Triumph
 * 15) The Day of Reckoning