Johnny Weissmuller was perfect for the movie version of Tarzan, but outside of that role, it has to be said that he was a little bit on the flat side as an actor. All the same, he always comes across as an amiable guy that you can't help liking.
That's what makes it enjoyable to watch him in the 1946 film Swamp Fire. I have this mental image of a poor, put-upon director tearing his hair out as he shouts "Put at least a LITTLE emotion into the line, Johnny! Please!" But all the same, he's likeable enough to cause you to suspend disbelief and accept him in his role.
His role in Swamp Fire is Johnny Duvall, a former bar pilot coming home to the bayou after serving in the war. Johnny, we learn, had lost a ship and quite a few of his crew in combat and he is struggling with what we would now call PTSD.
What's a bar pilot? The movie is kind enough to provide some opening narration to explain this to us. If you are sailing into New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico, the bar pilot is the guy who comes aboard to guide your ship in and make sure you don't end up stranded on a sand bar.
Johnny doesn't have the confidence to pull this job off any more, so takes a berth on a Coast Guard ship as a deck hand instead. But the captain fakes getting sick to force Johnny to take over as a pilot on an incoming ship--a move that rebuilds his confidence and gets him back into full time work as a bar pilot.
In the meantime, there's a lot of melodrama going on, involving Johnny's sweetheart and a rival who is jealous both of Johnny both because of that sweetheart and because of Johnny's wartime service. There's also a snooty rich girl who sets her eyes on Johnny as well.
The rival, by the way, is played by Buster Crabbe, another former Tarzan. This is only the second time I've seen Crabbe in a straight bad guy role and he does a fine job of building his character up from someone who starts out as self-centered and stubborn to a guy willing to go on a destructive arson-fueled rampage at the movie's conclusion.
I like Swamp Fire, though I think the melodrama could have been toned down a little to make room for some more action. But in the end, it was a good story and gives us the pleasure of watching two Tarzans fight each other. That is something not to be missed.
As is true with many movies in the public domain, existing prints are of so-so quality. In this case, I think the version on YouTube looks a little better than what you can find on Amazon Prime:
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