The Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle Festival is set for April 12-14 in Morgan City and includes the opening of the Tarzan exhibit at the State Museum in Patterson, boat tours of scenes from the Tarzan movies, a Tarzan yell contest and the premiere of the Al and Allison Bohl's documentary, Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle.
Allison Bohl and her father Al Bohl are scheduled to present a documentary during the 100th anniversary celebration of the King of the Apes himself, Tarzan, in Morgan City during the Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle Festival.
The festival, set for April 12-14 in Morgan City and includes the opening of the Tarzan exhibit at the State Museum in Patterson, includes boat tours of scenes from the movies and a Tarzan yell contest and the premiere of the Bohl's documentary, Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle.
The original 1917 silent filming of the first Tarzan movie, Tarzan of the Apes was done in the swamps near Morgan City and apparently it wasn't always a pretty sight.
The documentary shows the rough conditions filmmakers endured in the swamps, as well as the controversial treatment of animals during the making of the movie. Allison Bohl is known for her award-winning work with local filmmaker Conni Castille.
On his website, Al Bohl writes about how and why he became interested in a documentary about the original movie.
"Several years ago, I was having breakfast with a group of men at a hotel in South Louisiana. Seemingly out of the blue, one of the men said that he had lived in Morgan City, La., for a while and that this little town on the coast of Louisiana was where the first Tarzan movie was made in 1918. This grabbed my attention because as a child I had loved the Tarzan movies on television and at the movies.
"But, I became hooked into the story when he said that for the production, live apes and monkeys were brought in to add realism to the silent motion picture. When the production finished, the monkeys would not get back into the cages so they were left behind. The question of whether there were monkeys or apes still living in the jungle swamps around the Atchafalaya River basin ate at me for a long time."
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