I was fascinated, enchanted by the magical Louisiana landscapes which made me lose all patience for the Hollywood fakes. Through a tangle of greenery and water, made even more immense by the silence, a youth is seen running with his hair loose on his shoulders, a band around his forehead, and an animal skin on his back fastened over one shoulder. Along with the beauty of the shot, the action, which is affectingly simple, borders on poetry when the wild youth attempts to express his love through insecure and fierce gestures, for the first girl he’s ever seen. […] These old images had already crystallized the legend in its original purity much more effectively than the bravado of Weissmuller; the abundance of papier-mâché and the more realistic scenes from the repertoire had little to add.

Francis Lacassin, Pour une contre-histoire du cinéma, Lyon, Institut Lumière / Actes Sud, 1994