cult film freak: LEX BARKER IN 'TARZAN AND THE SHE-DEVIL' W/ RAYMOND BURR

Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2

TARZAN AND THE SHE-DEVIL is both the last and best of the Lex Barker as Tarzan RKO programmers, but the title is misleading since would-be titular fatale Monique van Vooren as Lyra is actually/ultimately nice and helpful, and for only an instant gives Jane, here played by bombshell-next-door Joyce Mackenzie, some competition, after Jane strikes back by telling Tarzan that she found Lyra's employee, Vargo, attractive...

Enter Raymond Burr as an elephant-hunting ivory merchant, who, with the help thug Michael Granger and aided by Lyra's partner in classy, morally ambiguous Tom Conway, captures Tarzan while making him think Jane's dead... all for his skills for calling elephants so they don't have to hunt them...

Monique van Vooren as Lyra in Tarzan and the She-Devil with Raymond Burr

The plot's simple and the action occurs in effective pockets in-between, with very little downtime (Cheetah, meanwhile, steals the show when traipsing alone through the jungle); which is an added bonus given that Barker Tarzan flicks can both drag and get overly complicated, plot-wise...

But what makes this one tick is how evil Burr is in jungle-occupying scenes countered by the heartbroken Tarzan... If only Brussels beauty van Vorren would only live up to the kind of seduction an actress of her type's born to do. Either way, overall, SHE-DEVIL would've been more properly named HE-POACHER.