Serial of the Month: The Tiger Woman
The Tiger Woman (1944) is one of the greatest serial debuts every made, The unknown actress cast in the title role was instantly catapulted to stardom. Other serial stars like Buster Crabbe, Ralph Byrd, Jean Rogers and Kirk Alyn all made one or two serials before clicking with a character that audiences embraced, and Linda Stirling did it with an original character, not one from the comics. Of course Republic hedge it’s bets by filling the cast with popular actors like Duncan Renaldo and LeRoy Mason as well as casting in the lead their reigning serial king at that time, Allan Lane.
The serial opens in an unnamed presumably South American jungle due to the Indian natives and Spanish names for the towns. The Tiger Woman (Linda Stirling) is the sacred White Queen of a jungle tribe that has allowed the Inter-Ocean Oil company to enter her territory in search of oil. A rival oil company wants to get Inter-Ocean’’s franchise and has sent Tom Dagget (Crane Whitley) to prevent them from discovering oil. Setting up a general store as cover in the town of Alta Vista, Dagget hires local thug Morgan (George J. Lewis) to take care of any workers that go into the jungle.
Morgan effectively pulls off a reign of terror, but then takes a major misstep when he tries to capture the Tiger Woman as a way to get control of the Indians. Her devoted warriors protect the Tiger Woman and capture one of Morgan’s men. Morgan makes it back to town and reports to Dagget, but Dagget has more important worries. Inter-Ocean employee Jose Delgado (Duncan Renaldo had come by for supplies and told him that the company is sending their ace trouble shooter Allen Saunders (Allan Lane) to get things settled and bring in a well before they lose their franchise.
Dagget manages to get aboard the riverboat Saunders is taking to Alta Vista and replaces a purser with one of his men. The purser attacks Allen with a knife, but the oil man is an old hand at hand to hand combat and pitches his attacker overboard.
The attack was witnessed by a lawyer named Fletcher Walton (LeRoy Mason) and Dagget. Walton takes Dagget aside and tells him that he has been sent by their employer to help with stealing the franchise, but has a little side business he wants to discuss with Dagget. Walton suspects that the Tiger Woman could be Rita Arnold, daughter of one of the richest men in the world who both disappeared fifteen years ago somewhere in the jungle. All they need to do to be able to present an imposter and get the fortune is find Arnold’s papers, which would be buried with the man. Their talk is interrupted by the ominous jungle drums signaling that the Tiger Woman is making a human sacrifice.
At the Tiger Woman’s temple the captured man is suspended over a trap door that drops into a fiery lave pit. While a native performs the sacrificial dance, high priest Ramgah (Robert Frazer) cuts one by one the three ropes holding the man in midair. After the sacrifice the Tiger Woman sends her head warrior Tegula (Rico De Montez) to take the man’s horse and and set it lose outside of Alta Vista.
Allen arrives in Alta Vista where Jose gets him up to speed on where they are in the hunt for oil, which is no where. No one is able to get into the jungle, Jose believes it is the Tiger Woman that is behind the attacks on their men. Allen doesn’t think so, it doesn’t make sense for her to first allow them access to the oil field areas and then suddenly change her mind and kill all the men that enter the jungle. He decides to go talk to her.
Allen and Jose go to the local blacksmith shop to get Jose’s horse that was having a broken shoe fixed. They find Morgan horse whipping Tegula to force him to tell what happened to the man that was captured. When Allen and Jose protest that if a crime was committed the man should be turned over to the Commandant of Police (George Renavent), Morgan and his men turn on the two oil men. The fight is brief as Allen and Jose mop the floor with Morgan and his thugs. Allen and Jose cut Tegula down and decide to take him to their work camp.
Morgan over hears Allen tell Jose that he will go the Tiger Woman and bring her to the camp to get her warrior. He contacts Dagget, who gives him some more men to lay an ambush for the Tiger Woman when she gets to the camp.
Allen arrives at the Tiger Woman’s temple where he is immediately captured. When Tegula’s medallion is found in his pocket, Ramgah wants to have Allen executed immediately. Allen assures them that Tegula is at his camp and that he will take them there. The Tiger Woman counters with the suggestion that he will remain a prisoner while she goes to see for herself. Allen agrees.
The Tiger Woman shows up at the camp where she sees Jose caring for Tegula. They prepare to take Tegula back to the temple when Morgan and his men pop up and capture them. The warrior the Tiger Woman left on guard sends a quick drum message that it was a trap before he is shot.
Morgan has the Tiger Woman tied to a saddle and leaves one man behind to take care of Jose, then leaves with his prisoner. Jose manages to turn the tables on his captor, they fight and Jose kills him. Grabbing a horse, he heads off after Morgan.
The Tiger Woman uncinches the saddle from the horse she is tied to and then grabs a low hanging branch of a tree and escapes from Morgan. Morgan quickly notices that he is leading an empty horse and turns around to get his prisoner. He comes upon her untying her feet from the saddle, but is chased off by the fast approaching Jose with his gun blazing.
Jose frees the Tiger Woman, then they both hear the drums sounding from the temple. Realizing that her warrior must have mistakenly sent a message that Allen had lied and they are preparing to sacrifice the oil man. Grabbing Jose’s horse, she races to the temple, arriving just in time to see Allen plunge into the pit…..
The first thing everyone talks about when they see this serial, is that the Tiger Woman is wearing a leopard skin outfit. This incongruity has never been explained but often speculated on. I’ve always held with the theory that the title was come up with first and when they got the costume from wardrobe, decided it was easier to just go with it than to rewrite the script as The Leopard Woman, not to mention that RKO had recently put out a horror film called The Leopard Man (1943), which might have confused moviegoers into thinking they were going to see a horror film instead of a jungle serial (though Republic would reuse the title in 1945 for a noir mystery).
And it is quite a jungle serial. I like the way the plot mixes the standard jungle plot of a missing heiress ruling a native tribe with the western plot of trying to bring an oil well in on time. I do wish that they have given each plot equal time, but the majority of the episodes deal with the villains attempt to get proof of the Tiger Woman’s identity, with the heroes only getting to actually working on the oil well around Chapter Ten.
The action is what you would expect from the Thrill Factory, and all done excellently, well choreographed fights, lots of explosions (the explosion of the oil rig at the end of Chapter Eleven would get a lot of uses in serials from Jesse James Rides Again (1947) to Desperadoes of the West (1950)), and exciting chases.
One of the best chases is the cliffhanger for Chapter Eight with Lewis and Lane fighting in the back of a truck while Duke Green tries to drive through a mountain gauntlet guarded by Warriors and is dodging arrows and spears around every turn. The standout fight is in Chapter Five with Babe Defreest and Ken Terrell doubling Stirling and Lewis with Defreest using a combo of judo and wrestling moves to toss Terrell around like a toy. Never has the old airplane spin looked more effective as a way to end a fight.
The acting is all top notch. LeRoy Mason, Crane Whitley and George J. Lewis make a great triumvirate of villainy. Mason is the cool, suave and laid back leader who easily passes himself off as one of the good guys by offering to represent Lane and Renaldo against criminal charges he has framed them for. A big man, he also gives Lane the fight of his life in the last chapter. Whitley is a good second in command, a little more impetuous than Mason, his usual answer is every problem is to have someone killed, and has to constantly be corrected on the right way to proceed by Mason.
Lewis is the perfect muscle for the team. Armed with a perpetual sneer and walking like a man always on the lookout for a stray dog to kick, Lewis comes off as one of the meanest heavies in serials. He also gives the best retort to the old cliche when he captures the Tiger Woman in Chapter Seven and offers to return her in exchange for her father’s effects kept in a sacred urn. Lane asks “How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” Lewis smugly replies, “That’s the deal, take it or leave it.” That is miles above the usual reply of “You don’t.”
The heroes are well represented by Lane, Renaldo and Stirling. Allan Lane, despite the criticism heaped on his thespic abilities by William Witney in his autobiography, is actually a good actor. He is at times tough, easy going and friendly. He abley alternates between friendly bantering with Renaldo in the office with steely eyed determination when dealing with the bad guys. A good example is in Chapter Two when after escaping from having his car blown off the road by a land mine, he gets the drop on Fred Graham with a tommygun. Graham refuses to talk. Lane fires off a few rounds at the other man’s feet, then raises the gun to knee level and says, “The next one’s going to be a little higher,” making it perfectly clear he is going to slowly shoot the other man to pieces to get the information he needs. Now that is a hero not to be messed with.
Renaldo gives his usual dependable performance. He also plays an unusual sidekick, one who seems unsure of himself. Though not shown in any dialog, his facial expression and haltingly hesitant delivery during scenes like when he is arrested for murder in Chapter Two or the total look of terror on his face when he and Stirling are trapped in a tunnel that has been filled with gas and set on fire show a more three dimensional character than the standard secondary lead.
Stirling gives an okay performance. It is obvious that she is an inexperienced actor at this point, but she gives the role her all, investing every line with as much feeling and sincerity as she can muster (and to be fair, she would quickly learn the subtleties of her profession, eventually holding her own against pros like Roy Barcroft and Clayton Moore). She compensates for her novice performance here with her graceful atheletics in the action scenes. Though doubled in many of the fights and vine swinging scenes, she is clearly visable riding hell bent for leather on a horse and running to and from dangerous situations, without ever breathing hard once. Plus how can you think about someone’s acting when they’re dressed in an outfiit as sexy as Carrie Fisher’s metal bikini. Stirling’s modeling experience clearly shows through, and I’m pretty sure a lot of fathers eagerly accompanied their kids to the theater every week just to stare at her legs.
Of course we can’t leave The Tiger Woman without discussing it’s Spielberg influence. Secet Service in Darkest Africa (1943) is often sited for it’s plot inspiring the plot for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). But rarely is it mentioned that the fire pit used here is obviously the inspiration for the similar sacrificial pit used in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), only done better.
