Familiar Series With New Tarzan
New York Times ~ February 7, 1949 ~ by H. H. T.

Johnny Weissmuller finally having swung down from his jungle throne of sixteen years, RKO is launching its new muscle king, Lex Barker, in "Tarzan's Magic Fountain," current at the Globe. And score one for Mr. Barker. A younger, more streamlined apeman with a personable grin and a torso guaranteed to make any lion cringe, he seems to be just what the witch-doctor ordered for this tattered series.

The picture, though, is a matter of stale peanuts at the same old jungle stand. Instead of resorting to new ideas and treatment and a timely overhauling job, the studio has dragged out a mouldy script, the same sheepish-looking extras, and the wheezing chimpanzee, Cheetah, who isn't getting any younger, either.

Not even the props have been spruced up, from the cardboard mountain ranges to the studio's backyard underbrush. And the theme, if you missed the last four or five in the series, is still white man's greed disrupting the serenity of the jungle where Tarzan presides from his tree roost.

This time the invaders are led by an English aviatrix, nicely played by Evelyn Ankers, who is seeking a hidden valley where she had lived for twenty years, imbibing from a youth-retaining fountain. Albert Dekker and Charles Drake, the culprits, are all for turning the valley inside out and commercializing the natives right into the next world.

Of course, Tarzan is just the boy to put a stop to that sort of thing. And for our money, the Barker brand of heave-ho is the only asset to the whole tired, silly shenanigans. We wish him luck. If "Tarzan's Magic Fountain" is the shape of jungles to come, he's certainly going to need it.