Come On, Tarzan (1932)

No Johnny Weissmuller, nope - it’s not even Johnny Sheffield who is accused of rustling the horses. It’s another “Tarzan” altogether and he’s got four legs. What this especially bright animal does know, though, is just who is pinching the herds and so sets about freeing his brethren. Meantime, tha conniving “Frazier” (Niles Welch) manages to convince the nice but dim sheriff (Jack Rockwell) that “Tarzan” is a menace to society and so is to be hunted down. Luckily, our wild stallion has a pal “Ken” (Ken Maynard) and his new boss, ranch owner, “Pat” (Merna Kennedy) who have his back and so “Ken” decides to get to the bottom of just who is really the offender, here - and to find out just what his real agenda is. Now we know who the baddie is all along, so essentially this is just an excuse for some superb and engaging animal handling delivering an aww-some performance from the horse and some mediocrity from just about everyone else. It’s been done on a shoestring, but when the horse gets messed with the photography does manage to generate just a bit of a sense of peril as it’s hooves stamp into the sand perilously close to folk’s heads! It all follows a fairly predictable pattern with a join the dots mystery, but it’s just about worth it for the horse.