screenshots / Tarzan's Peril / 1951 RKO Radio Pictures

Lex Barker returns as the King of the Jungle for what was billed as the first Tarzan movie to be filmed in Africa.

The cast included Virginia Huston (the ninth Jane and her only Tarzan film) and Dorothy Dandridge as Melmendi, Queen of the Ashuba.

The film was exhibited in Great Britian under the title Tarzan and the Jungle Queen.

The 1999 television movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge features a reenactment of a scene showing Tarzan freeing a bound Melmendi who is being held captive in a jungle hut.

Actor Wesley Gale was previously seen on theatre screens in Bomba on Panther Island (1949), Blonde Savage (1947), and the 13-chapter cliffhanger serial Jungle Queen (1945).

Director Byron Haskin other films include 1948's Man-Eater of Kumaon starring Sabu and the 1953 sci-fi classic The War of the Worlds.

Plans to make the movie in Technicolor were discarded when footage was ruined while on location in Africa.

While some of the film was shot in Kenya (making it the first Tarzan film to be filmed in Africa) the majority of it's location shooting was done in California.

Regarding the Kenya location filming, Lex Barker recalled: "We just were not prepared for location conditions. Local natives were rounded up, and the first time I appeared in my loincloth, they burst out laughing. It was demoralizing."

California filming locations included Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth (Los Angeles), Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden (Arcadia), and Death Valley National Park.

Dorothy Dandridge passed in 1965 at the age of 42.

Virginia Huston passed in 1981 at the age of 55.