Harry Holt and his business partner Martin Arlington, leading a large party of locals, meet them on their way to take ivory from an elephant burial ground.

Elephants, aware of the impending disgrace of their sacred ground, turn up in the hundreds, and threaten to exterminate Holt and Arlington's party.

Discussions between Burroughs’ representative, Ralph Rothmund and M.G.M executives, Irving Thalberg and Sam Marx, had begun in March 1932, and a new contract was signed in May of that year for a second Tarzan feature, with an option for a further two.

In mid-June 1932, The Hollywood Reporter announced that former independent producer Bud Barsky was to write the "original yarn" for the yet to be titled Tarzan sequel, and was to be assisted by M.G.M staffers R. L. Johnson and Arthur S.

[3] Story conferences were held in March, with the author of the play White Cargo Leon Gordon, producer Bernie Hyman, supervising art director Cedric Gibbons, and production manager Joe Cohn.

This and earlier script and conference ideas became the basis for the various drafts of the eventual screenplay credited to James Kevin McGuinness.

[3] Special effects were to be overseen by Cedric Gibbons and executed by M.G.M's A. Arnold Gillespie and Warren Newcombe, James Basevi and Irving Reis.

For their day, the special effects of the film were complex, involving such devices as matte paintings, miniatures, split screens, and rear projection.

[3] A June 29, 1933 Hollywood Reporter news item announced that W. S. Van Dyke (director of the first Tarzan The Ape Man), was to be Gibbons' co-director.

Iceberg (1933), co-starring Leni Riefenstahl, one of the last German-U.S co-productions, due to the rise of the Nazi Party), Murray Kinnell (The House of Rothschild), and Frank Reicher (one of 17 films he appeared in 1934).

After 3 ½ weeks of shooting, the first unit was shut down; Gibbons had shot a lot of excess footage, and costs were spiraling.

A late August 1933 Hollywood Reporter news item announced that Rod La Rocque had been pulled from the cast, and replaced by Paul Cavanagh in the role of Martin Arlington, ‘because of miscasting’.

The roles of Tom Pierce and Van Ness were also changed, and Frank Reicher and Murray Kinnell were replaced by Desmond Roberts and William Stack, respectively.

Dressed in ape suits, The Picchianis performed in the film, and one of the troupe doubled for Weissmuller in a tree jumping sequence.

[4] The film has acquired a cult status, largely due to O’Sullivan wearing one of the most revealing costumes on screen to that time — a halter-top and a loincloth that left her thighs and hips exposed.

Because Jane was a cultivated lady from England (not Baltimore, as in Burroughs' novel), with manners and poise, her wearing such a provocative outfit was particularly risqué and symbolic of her sexual freedom.

[8] The scene that caused the most commotion, the "underwater ballet" sequence, was available in three different versions that were edited by MGM to meet the standards of particular markets.

[3] Gibbons' wife Dolores del Rio had performed a risqué nude swim in Bird of Paradise (1932), a sequence that is said to have inspired the one in Tarzan.

As TCM's Paul Tatara observes, “Such big-screen impropriety was virtually unheard of at the time, and the Production Code Office had a fit”.

In April, Joseph Breen, director of public relations of the MPPDA, reported to his president, Will Hays, that Tarzan and His Mate had been rejected because of shots in which "the girl was shown completely in the nude.

Additionally, the New York Censors previewed the film, and insisted that the scene involving Cavanagh lowering his nude body into a portable bathtub be eliminated as well.

[10] Internationally, it was a huge success, despite the fact that it was banned in Germany by the National Socialist Party on the grounds that it showed a Nordic man in brutal surroundings.

[11] In his April 21, 1934, review, Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times praised the film as “if anything, even more fantastic than its predecessor... Aside from the wild tale, this film is a marvel from a photographic standpoint...Needless to say that Miss O'Sullivan and Mr. Weissmuller acquit themselves in the same favorable fashion they did in their former hectic experiences.”[12] Hall followed up on April 29, 1934, with another New York Times piece headlined “LIFE IN THE JUNGLE—Tarzan and His Mate a Marvel of Camera Work”: “FANTASTIC as is the yarn of Tarzan and His Mate, a sequel to the highly successful Tarzan, the Ape Man, it has been produced with such marked cleverness that it affords no little fun and a full measure of excitement...A great deal of credit is due to the expert work of the camera men.

Charles Clarke and Clyde DeVinna...the unfailing manner in which they deal with their scenes is little short of marvelous...just as one might hazard that Tarzan is struggling with a stuffed lion, one sees that the animal has a full-toothed jaw...”[13] Variety observed: “the monkeys do everything but bake cakes and the very human elephants always seem on the verge of sitting down for a nice, quiet game of chess; yet the picture has a strange sort of power that overcomes the total lack of logic.” [8] Dennis Schwartz from Ozus' World Movie Reviews gives the film a grade A−, calling it the best of the series.

[14] Kim Newman from Empire Online rates the film three out of five stars, calling it "Engaging and surprisingly sexy and raw for its time with luscious production values.

"[15] Leonard Maltin gives the restored version of the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising it as an “Opulent, action-packed entry co-directed by MGM's famed art director Gibbons, and notable for pre-Code sexual candor and a distinct lack of clothes.“[16] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Tarzan and His Mate holds an approval rating of 100%, based on 14 reviews, and an average rating of 7.41/10.