Joseph Neyer wrote:
delgadosaur wrote:
...the Tarzans were never the A pictures that the Bond films were.

The first six sound Tarzan films (the MGM ones) were definitely A pictures by any and all definitions (casts, budgets, production values, box office, etc.). No A-film of that era was filmed on location the way the Bond movies would be; MGM's nightmare experience in producing Trader Horn on location in Africa, at the beginning of the talkie era, effectively cured them and the other studios of taking cast and crew to other countries for many years. International filming didn't start becoming common in "big" movies until after World War 2, when international travel had become a lot easier due to the dominance of the airlines.
You're kinda explaining that the Tarzan films simply were not as big both in terms of the way they were shot and and the lack of location work. The studio stuff looks the part, as does the location shoots.