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GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES
Rating: 
UK. 1984.
Director – Hugh Hudson, Screenplay – Michael Austin & P.H. Vazak [Robert Towne], Based on the Novel by Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Producers – Hugh Hudson & Stanley S. Canter, Photography – John Alcott, Music – John Scott, Visual Effects – Albert Whitlock, Special Effects – Peter Hutchinson, Makeup Effects – Rick Baker, Production Design – Stuart Craig, Primate Choreography – Peter Elliott. Production Company – Warner Brothers.
Cast:
Christopher Lambert (John Clayton/Tarzan), Andie McDowell (Jane Porter), Ralph Richardson (6th Earl of Greystoke), Ian Holm (Capitaine Philippe D’Arnot), John Wells (Sir Evelyn Blount), James Fox (Lord Esker), Eric Langlois (Tarzan Age 12), Paul Geoffrey (Lord Jack Clayton), Cheryl Campbell (Lady Alice Clayton)
Plot: Jack Clayton, heir to the earldom of Greystoke, is shipwrecked on the coast of Africa with his pregnant wife. Soon after she gives birth, they are both killed by apes. The apes take and raise the abandoned infant child. Twenty years later, now grown into a young man, John Clayton is found among the apes by the explorer D’Arnot. D’Arnot teaches Clayton (or Tarzan) English and brings him back to the Greystoke estate in Scotland. There his savage instincts cause both upset and amusement among turn-of-the-century Victorian society. But it is also where Tarzan finds his love, the beautiful Jane Porter.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel Tarzan of the Apes (192), which was first published in All-Star magazine and then in book form in 1914, created one of the great pulp characters of the 20th Century. Edgar Rice Burroughs published 23 further Tarzan books, but the wider public fascination with Tarzan began in the movies, starting with Elmo Lincoln’s silent essayal in Tarzan of the Apes (1918) and reaching its height with Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) with Johnny Weissmuller, which became a long-running series where the role passed through the hands of various athletes. The classic Tarzan film fairly much wound its way to an end in the mid-1960s, the period after which the films’ mythic version of colonial Africa started to become outmoded and the public itself wearied of such black-and-white heroes. Although Tarzan did undergo somewhat of a makeover in the 1980s and beyond – with various new directions sought such as the softcore Tarzan the Ape Man (1981); in resurrecting Tarzan as a long-haired eco-warrior – the tv series Tarzan (1991-2) and Tarzan (2003); in much more fantastical adventures – Tarzan: The Epic Adventures (1995-6); and as a Disney cartoon with Tarzan talking to his animals – Tarzan (1999).
Of all these reconstructions of the Tarzan myth, the most fascinating was Greystoke. The project was originally conceived in 1975 by screenwriter Robert Towne, who was riding on the success of his screenplays for Chinatown (1974) and Shampoo (1975) and for a time touted the Greystoke project as his own directorial debut. This remained an on/off project for several years, before being inherited by Hugh Hudson, who came flush from the runaway success of the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire (1981). Although Robert Towne, not happy with Hudson’s approach, had his name taken off the script and instead substituted the name, P.H. Vazak, which is believed to be that of his dog.
Hugh Hudson is a director whose work has always fallen into the historical spectacle in the tradition of David Lean. [Alas following Greystoke, Hudson’s career has not fared very well – he bottomed out with the big flop Revolution (1986) and has since only made intermittent efforts such as I Dreamed of Africa (2000)]. Hudson’s innovation with the Tarzan story was to treat it with absolute seriousness and assiduously avoid any of the pulp adventure aspect of the stories. Out has gone the pidgin English dialogue, the chimp sidekicks, the Jane’s in leopard-skin bikinis, the creeper-swinging heroism, the cozy mimicry of a nuclear family in treehuts in the jungle. Back in comes Tarzan’s aristocratic heritage and the use of the John Clayton name. This is something that leaves Greystoke a Tarzan film that really has more of a kinship to the English drawing room drama of Chariots of Fire than it does to the pulp adventure of all the other films or even the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books. The difference in approach is best demonstrated by the contrasts between the two types of films – almost all the other films brushed the Greystoke connection under the carpet altogether; while by contrast Greystoke concentrates on the aristocratic connection and we never even hear Tarzan referred to as Tarzan throughout. It does seem somewhat ironic that a writer like Edgar Rice Burroughs whose prose was crude and unhoned and who wrote to be paid by the word could end up with such a reverentially artistic treatment. The film is overlong and slightly ponderous but there is the wonderful sense that it is delving behind the myth, recasting it and elevating it to art. What better honour could there ever be afforded for a dime pulp novelist like Edgar Rice Burroughs?
The film has some fine casting, something that succeeds in investing the last half with real warmth. This was Christopher Lambert’s first English-language film. In the two decades since, Lambert has established himself as usually an action actor of fairly limited range. Here though there’s something fresh and appealingly irresistible to his screen presence. Andie McDowall is Jane and plays with a certain regal sensuality. Subsequent to the film McDowell became a romantic A-list star and what is noticeable about seeing Greystoke in retrospect is that her natural, distinctive Southern accent has been redubbed for an English accent (purportedly by Glenn Close). But the real scene-stealer is Ralph Richardson’s wonderful performance as the boyishly eccentric Earl. This was Richardson’s last performance for which he deservedly won an Oscar nomination.
Although probably the most striking aspect about the film are the ape-suits from Rick Baker, which simply are indistinguishable from the real thing. The film goes to extraordinary lengths to be able to portray the apes, both shooting in the Cameroons (making it one of the few Tarzan films to actually go on location in Africa) and employing a primate body-language specialist to get the simian behaviour right.
The other screen adaptations of the Burroughs novel are:– Tarzan the Ape Man (1918), the silent Elmo Lincoln version; the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan the Ape Man (1932); Tarzan the Ape Man (1959), starring Denny Miller; Tarzan the Ape Man (1981), a softcore version featuring Bo Derek; and Tarzan (1999), the Disney animated version.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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