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Tarzan the Fearless, the 1933 Robert F. Hill jungle adventure serial ("Romance! Thrills! Adventure!"; "12 thrilling chapters"; "A New Edgar Rice Burroughs Story") starring Buster Crabbe (in the title role as Tarzan), Julie Bishop (billed as "Jacqueline Wells"), Edward Woods, Philo McCullough, Mischa Auer, Carlotta Monti, Jack Leonard (as the man in the gorilla suit), "and a great cast". Note that Jack Leonard was one of the first men to play gorillas in movies. He was an extra in Tarzan the Ape Man, and the director did not like the way the men in ape suits were performing, and Jack Leonard said he could do better, and he was given the part! He and his wife made his gorilla suit and he studied real life gorillas to see how they moved and the sounds they made. He appeared in a dozen movies between 1932 and 1940, nine times of them as an ape! We don't know what happened to him after that (perhaps he passed away). If anyone knows more about Jack Leonard, please e-mail us and we will post it here. Also note that Ray 'Crash' Corrigan and Charles Gemora were two actors who played lots of gorillas in movies in the 1930s and 1940s. Emil Van Horn and Jack Leonard each played around a dozen gorillas, and interestingly, that was all they did (no doubt all four of them owned a gorilla suit!). Also note that master showman Sol Lesser produced this movie. In addition to releasing it as a regular serial in 12 chapters, he did not create a "feature version" by editing down the 12 chapters into a single film, as producers of many 1930s serials did. Instead, he sent theaters a wacky "feature version" consisting of the first four chapters as a single film, with a separate "trailer" at the end advising patrons to return to the theater to see the other chapters! Apparently, this went over really poorly with film-goers, who were quite naturally very disappointed to only see one-third of a movie! Also, note that this is a "lost" serial which means that no surviving copies are thought to exist (only the "feature version" survives).
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Important Added Info: Note that this card was once owned by the legendary Kobal Collection, which had an amazing collection of stills and lobby cards that they leased to newspapers and magazines. It is an original 1933 English photolobby, but it was stamped on the back by the people at the Kobal Collection, because, after they had trouble getting rare photos back that they had lent to magazines, they started stamping items they lent so that those people would know they needed to return them. Also note that on this movie, and on several other releases of the 1930s and 1940s, lesser studios sometimes issued a set of very different looking lobby cards! This was part of a "photolobby" set with a glossy color scene from the movie, and was printed on the type of paper used for 11x14 stills, not the type used for lobby cards. It is possible that some of these movies also had a regular lobby card set, but I believe in most cases there was only a photolobby set.

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