After the horrendous Tarzan's Hidden Jungle, Tarzan and the Lost Safari comes as a breath of fresh air, yet the formula was still wearing thin, and this is still very evident. It was the first color, widescreen Tarzan film, which meant all the stock jungle footage that had been used and reused from the beginning could no longer be utilized -- new footage had to be shot, which is just as well.

For the first time since Tarzan's Peril, filming was done on location, and this time it wasn't even just background footage -- most of the scenes with the main cast were shot in the jungle as well. Somehow this didn't stop the interweaving of stock jungle footage in this film from ranking among the least convincing. Cost cutting is also prominent, such as in a scene where a plane slides off a cliff into a deep crevice.

Technical jabs aside, the plot, involving five plane crash survivors struggling to reach civilization again, isn't bad compared to the other Tarzan plots of the time, but the portrayal of a stupid, illiterate Tarzan -- which would thankfully soon end -- was getting tiresome.