This is a 15 chapter movie serial which focuses on the coming of age of Jack Clayton, also known as Korak, the son of Tarzan and Jane. It is based on the 1915 novel of the same name by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The serial was released starting in the summer of 1920, with the final chapter released in January 1921. The Hawaiian-born Searle, upon landing the role, spent a month in the desert "hardening" himself. The film starred two Tarzan film veterans. Gordon Griffith had earlier portrayed Tarzan as a youth in 1918's "Tarzan of the Apes" and "The Romance of Tarzan, "and Karla Schramm had just finished portraying Jane in "The Revenge of Tarzan." One long-held urban legend states that Searle died of injuries sustained when the elephant, carrying him bound to a large wooden stake, slammed him to the ground, and that the scene was left in the film, attracting morbidly curious film-goers. A review of the film actually reveals that he was dropped rather abruptly, but not "slammed." Searle's own brother later stated that though Searle was hurt enough that a double did stand in for him in a few final long shots, he survived the mishap, only to die of cancer in 1924.
