Prior to his murder, the head of the farmhouse summoned his old friend Tarzan to track the kidnappers and rescue the boy.

Tarzan turns them down in favor of his own equipment: a chimpanzee scout called Dinky, a lion named Major, Ramel's pet leopard, his hunting knife and his uniform of a loincloth.

Vinero's uniformed private army is well equipped with American World War II small arms, an M5A1 Stuart light tank, an M3 Half-track and a Bell 47 helicopter.

Vinero had forced Sophia Renault, his mistress, to stay with him, but now he no longer needs her and leaves her in the bush with an explosive pendant round her neck.

Ignoring Tarzan's warning, Vinero's army have discovered the entrance to the Valley of Gold through a cave, previously described by Ramel.

Tarzan sends the others on to warn the city's inhabitants, tracks Vinero's men in the cave entrance to the lost city and further demonstrates his expertise in weaponry by wiping out Vinero's rear guard ambush party by crushing them with stalactites hanging over them which he shoots down with a captured M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle.

The chief says he will give away all the gold rather than lose a single life and then locks Tarzan in a room to stop him fighting.

The Edgar Rice Burroughs estate chose Fritz Leiber to write an authorised novel based on Huffaker's screenplay.

Leiber's novel was released in paperback by Ballantine Books in April 1966,[5] and features an expanded version of the film's story with footnotes detailing connections to Tarzan's past adventures as chronicled by Burroughs.