Tarzan the Ape Man is a 1932 pre-Code American action adventure film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer featuring Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and starring Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith and Maureen O'Sullivan.

[1] The film is loosely based on Burroughs' 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, with the dialogue written by Ivor Novello.

James Parker and Harry Holt travel in Africa on a quest for the legendary elephant burial grounds and their ivory.

In order for them to release him from the contract, MGM agreed to have actresses such as Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler, to be featured in BVD ads.

[2] The film was shot on Lot One of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Culver City, California and at the Lake Sherwood area north of Los Angeles[3] as well as Silver Springs in Florida.

[5] Similarly, the tribe of African dwarfs, made to look like pygmies (all males), portrayed in the film was actually a cast of several white midgets wearing blackface.

Van Dyke's Trader Horn was added to location work shot in the then-undeveloped Toluca Lake region north of Los Angeles.