The Tarzan character is quite fascinating not only for children, but also for adults, which is why it has been presented in many Hollywood movies.
Despite the fact that the character has firstly appeared in the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, it has roots in Arab culture.
Tarzan is a child who was lost in the jungle and was raised among animals, after his parents died. He combines the characteristics of humans and animals.
In the Arabic culture there is an equivalent to Tarzan, who is Hayy ibn Yaqzan, an imaginary character which was introduced in a novel by the Arab Andalusian writer Ibn Tufail in the early 12th century. Yaqzan is a boy who grows up on a remote island, alone and with no contact with civilisation but he finds God solely through intellectual endeavour and spiritual contemplation.
While Tarzan made it to cinema in hundreds of Hollywood films, in Egypt, there are few notable movies that tackled this energetic character, among the famous movies is Ismail Yasin Tarzan (1958) directed by Neyazi Mustafa.
A decade earlier was an Egyptian movie that featured the character of Tarzan as a woman. Directed by Hussein Fawzy, Nadouga (1944) starred legendary oriental dancer Tahia Karoka.
The movie starts with bedridden Khurshid Pasha asking his secretary Murad (Mohamed el-Bakkar) to find his daughter Nadia (Tahia Karioka) whom he lost in Sudan fifteen years before. Murad and his friends travel to the jungle in Sudan to find her. He met the old hermit Dashenga (Ibrahim Yunus) who found Nadouga as a child, among the monkeys, and he took her and raised her.
However, Murad is not the only one who is searching for Nadouga.The rest of Nadouga’s family are looking for her in order to kidnap her to inherit her father’s wealth.
Nadouga appeared wearing Tarzan costume like that of Lea (Acquanetta) in Tarzan and The Leopard Woman(1946). In her first scene she clings to creepers to jumpfrom one tree to another, then she starts to sing with the members of her tribe a song that praises her beauty with simple lyrics: “Nadouga is young and pretty, Nadouga is a flower in the jungle, earth is her mother and palm trees are her father”.
Nadouga celebrated Tahia Karioka’s talent as a dancer and the budding romance between Nadouga and Murad.
This is one of the first films to be filmed in a natural setting, away from indoor locations. With the lovely songs by singer Mohamed el-Bakkar and Karioka’s elegant dances, the film is a musical classic that is worth watching.
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