Want to know the best Johnny Weissmuller movies? How about the worst Johnny Weissmuller movies? Curious about Johnny Weissmuller box office grosses or which Johnny Weissmuller movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Johnny Weissmuller movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well, you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Johnny Weissmuller (1904-1984) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American competition swimmer, water polo player and actor. He was best known for playing Tarzan in many films and for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century. His IMDb page shows 38 acting credits from 1929 to 1976. This page will rank Johnny Weissmuller movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.
FYI – Talk about the differences in sources. My MGM ledgers make me feel very confident in my Tarzan box office estimations. As for my Jungle Jim estimations….and I feel almost no confidence in my estimations. Had to rely on the Harrison Reports and movie books.
Johnny Weissmuller Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews, and awards.
Johnny Weissmuller Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies any way you want.
- Sort Johnny Weissmuller movies by his co-stars
- Sort Johnny Weissmuller movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- SortJohnny Weissmuller movies by yearly domestic box office rank
- Sort Johnny Weissmuller movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Johnny Weissmuller movie received.
- Sort Johnny Weissmuller movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews, and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Check out Johnny Weissmuller‘s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
HI STEVE: Thanks for the always welcome feedback and the interesting quote. My own additional comments are as follows:
1/I overlooked Doug “the other Virginian” in my initial comments. Full marks to you for spotting him – but isn’t one Virginian in any post enough for us?
2/I was never into Tarzan that much in my youthful hero-worshipping days because he couldn’t fly and didn’t wear a cowboy outfit! However Johnny was probably the one I most admired. Scott/Barker/Mahoney et al were big enough guys but the speed and athleticism of especially the young Weissmuller as picked up by the camera I found breathtaking. I actually liked Mahoney as television’s Range Rider [78 episodes 1951-1953] and in a brief run of westerns in the late fifties: Last of the Fast Guns/Showdown at Abilene/Slim Carter/Joe Dakota/A Day of Fury. “Fasten your gunbelts for Jagade’s Day of Fury!”
3/For a long time I thought of Rice Burroughs as English because Tarzan -Edgar’s greatest and perennial literary invention – is I think descended from John, Lord Clayton heir to the 6th Earldom of Greystoke; in the 1984 movie Greystoke the 6th Earl is played by England’s Sir Ralph Richardson; and Wikipedia recites the fictional Tarzan’s legal name as John Clayton 2nd Viscount of Greystoke [which I gather is in in Newcastle upon Tyne England].
4/Many of your Burroughs-video stills are crackers but I ESPECIALLY [and nostalgically] admired your Lion Man one featuring Jon Hall great adventure B movie hero of the thirties and forties. When I started watching films in the early 1950s Jon’s movies were still going the rounds as 2nd features in down-market cinemas over here and the Young Bob took a Lensman-like delight in watching many of them such as On the Isle of Samoa; Hurricane Island; Brave Warrior; When the Redskins Rode and Last train to Bombay.
On average those 5 movies ran for just 72 mins each and sadly after them Jon’s big screen career fell away. However last week when I hadn’t set eyes on him for years he did a ‘Michael Myers’ on me by resurfacing in a rerun of a 1965 Perry Mason TV episode called The Case of the Feather Cloak. He was much reduced in professional status but still very much a handsome and charismatic performer if still no great actor. That same year of 1965 he made his last big screen movie The Beach Girls and the Monster which IMDB give a miserable 32% rating but which for all I know may currently occupy pride of place on the Lensman DVD shelf!!
For me this has been Steve’s most exciting and colorful video for a while now – 3 views to date. My pick of the 22 best STILLS are as follows:
1/Animated Tarzan at end of video
2/Tarzan 1981
3/Lion Man
4/Tarzan’s Fight for Life
5/Tarzan Goes to India
6/Tarzan and the Jungle Boy
7/Tarzan’s Savage Fury
8/At Earth’s Core
9/People Time Forgot
10/Tarzan 1918
11/Tarzan’s Peril
12/Tarzan and Valley of Gold
13/Land Time Forgot
14/Tarzan 2016
15/Tarzan and the Amazons
16/Tarzan’ New York Adventure
17/John Carter
18/Tarzan Finds a Son
19/Tarzan Escapes
20/Tarzan the Magnificent
21/2 for Greystoke
22/the entire classy set for Tarzan and his Mate.
ADDITIONAL TRIVIA: Screen Tarzan Lex Barker was of course married to Lana Turner and Gordon Scott married Hitch’s Psycho girl Vera Miles.
Overall Steve’s Burroughs video is 99% rated by me. The 23 Best POSTERS in my opinion are:
1/2 for Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure
2/entire set for Revenge of Tarzan
3/Tarzan and Lost City
4/The Lion Man
5/1st one for Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle
6/foreign language one for Tarzan’s Jungle Rebellion
7/Tarzan the Fearless
8/1st one for Tarzan and Lost Safari
9/Tarzan goes to India
10/2 for Tarzan and Great River
11/Tarzan and Mermaids
12/foreign language one for At Earth’s Core
13/2 for People that Time Forgot
14/the set for Son of Tarzan
15/Tarzan 1921
16/Tarzan and Valle of Gold
17/first and foreign language ones for Land Time Forgot
18/first one for Tarzan’s Secret Treasure
19/1st one for Tarzan’s New York Adventure
20/John Carter – foreign language one
21/the entire set for the animated Tarzan.
22/the entire set for the Revenge of Tarzan at start of video
23/1st one for Tarzan and His mate
ADDITIONAL TRIVIA: According to Maureen O’Sullivan in a TV interview that I saw Tarzan’s Cheeta in her films with Johnny was a member of the animal gay community.
HI STEVE Good choice. Edgar was a very prolific writer of adventure/sci fi/fantasy stories – everything that a growing Manchester boy could want to read and watch in the movies and obviously still does! – and two of Edgar’s most famous character creations are Carson Napier of Venus and John Carter of Mars.
The latter might be of particular interest to followers of this site as in Edgar’s novels Carter is a fictious Virginian who is an American Civil War veteran who is transported to Mars. That plot line appeals to me as I have for some time now felt that Mars or some other such planet would not be inappropriate place for a Virginian to reside.
Indeed I often think that this is where our own Virginian goes to during his frequent long absences from us. In fact was it you Steve who told me that it WAS on one of those trips that he came across the classic text book Rating the Movie Stars – The Book that Time Forgot!?
Of course Tarzan is Edgar’s MOST famous creation and has become a huge icon in literature and movies over the years. Unsurprisingly therefore Edgar’s burial plot is in the “Tarzana” neighbourhood of LA; tellingly your own opening photo shows Edgar holding a Tarzan book; your massive 42 entry Edgar video is all but a profile of Tarzan movies; and The Work Horse lists no fewer than 34 Tarzan films above
The following breakdown of the box office contributions of the 3 most prolific screen Tarzans in terms of adjusted US grosses as provided in WH’s helpful tables justifies Johnny’s long-held reputation as THE definitive screen Tarzan:
Johnny Weissmuller 12 Tarzan movies Total Adjusted Domestic gross $1.375 billion; average per movie approx $115 million
Lex Barker 5 Tarzan movies Total Adjusted Domestic Gross $175 million; average approx $35 million per movie
Gordon Scott 5 Tarzan movies. Exact same stats as Barker.
I mentioned in my Part One post Bruce giving us 34 Tarzan movies in the above tables whereas it is 31. Apologies- but that’s still a great total though Steve’s video with its 42 entires beats WH !!!
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooo), info and trivia, much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Yeah this was basically a Tarzan video interrupted occasionally by that other ‘Virginian’ Trampas aka Doug McClure. I did leave out a couple of low rated Tarzans to try and keep the running time down – Tarzan the Ape Man 1959 starring Denny Miller and a recent CGI Tarzan. But all the Weissmuller, Gordon Scott and Lex Barker Tarzans should be all in there.
Bob, btw who was your favorite Tarzan? assuming you watched a few in your youth. I doubt it was Jock Mahoney, he played a villain in one Tarzan film and the Lord of the Apes in the next, talk about a promotion!
No Burroughs film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources, two scored 9 – Disney’s Tarzan (1999) and Tarzan and his Mate. There are several 8 out of 10s including Greystoke, Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure.
Burroughs read pulp magazines and decided he could do better, ” …. I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.” He was 35 when he started writing for a living. “I write to escape; to escape poverty.”
Easily the best Tarzan.