"There was a period when I got so sick of all they would ask me about Tarzan, as though I had done nothing else. I changed my mind when my oldest son said to me he was very proud that I was Tarzan's mate."
The scene in 1934's "Tarzan and His Mate" that caused the most commotion, the ‘underwater ballet’ sequence, was available in three different versions that were edited by MGM to meet the standards of particular markets. Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) and Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan's swimming double, Josephine McKim, who competed in the 1928 games with Weissmuller), dance a graceful underwater ballet with a completely nude Jane. When she rises out of the water, Jane (now Maureen O’Sullivan) flashes a bare breast.
Such big-screen impropriety was rare at the time, and if seen at all was usually done by dancing girl extras, or non-white actresses due to the time's double-standards (witness the topless ‘native’ girls at the start of the film, or the topless ‘natives’ in the 1935 classic, "Sanders of the River"). The new Production Code Office thought O'Sullivan's scant costume coupled with her sexual charisma was too much. In April, 1934, Joseph Breen, director of public relations of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, reported to his president Will Hays that had been rejected because of shots in which "the girl was shown completely in the nude."
When MGM production head Irving Thalberg protested the jury's decision by claiming that the 1928 film, "White Shadows in the South Seas" had "fifty naked women" in it, the jurors screened that film and determined that none of the women were naked.
According to film historian Rudy Behlmer: "From all evidence, three versions of the sequence eventually went out to separate territories during the film's initial release. One with Jane clothed in her jungle loin cloth outfit, one with her topless, and one with her in the nude. However, by April 24, 1934, all prints of "Tarzan and His Mate" in all territories were ordered changed.
Additionally, the New York Censors previewed the film, and insisted that the scene involving actor Paul Cavanagh lowering his nude body into a portable bathtub be eliminated as well. It wasn’t until Ted Turner took over the MGM film library that a positive print of the original film was discovered in the vaults and released in 1986.
While she described Weissmuller as "an amiable piece of beefcake; a likeable, overgrown child", O'Sullivan despised working with the chimpanzee Cheetah, and, according to daughter Mia Farrow, privately referred to the primate as "that ape son of a b!tch". (Wikipedia/IMDb)
Happy Birthday, Maureen O'Sullivan!
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