Greystone: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
                            
Director: Hugh Hudson
Year: 1984
Rating: 7.0
As the old saying goes, you can take Tarzan out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of Tarzan. Except in this case there is no one called Tarzan. In this radically different version of Tarzan than we are used to, director Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire, who just passed away recently) and the writers stay away from all the Tarzan film tropes and traditions by actually staying close to the book. At least for the first remarkable half. This is a feral Tarzan brought up by the Giant Apes far away from civilization. Nothing cute, no cheetah, just survival. Nearly all the Tarzan films that followed Weissmuller were more indebted to those films than to the books keeping Cheetah, Boy, Jane, the homey treehouse, the call to the elephants, the Me Tarzan, You Jane speech, but this goes back to the source and reinvents Tarzan. Never called Tarzan in the film. By the time he meets Jane, he can speak French.



Lord and Lady Clayton are departing from the huge family estate run by his father the Earl of Greystoke (Ralph Richardson in his last performance) for Africa. One can hardly imagine what could cause him to leave the luxurious and privileged setting of the manor for the unknown with his wife. But that was part of the upper class British thinking at the time - go explore and colonize. They are shipwrecked and are able to build a treehouse for Lady Clayton to give birth to a son, the Greystoke heir. She soon dies from disease and Lord Clayton is killed by an ape. One of the other giant apes who has just lost her baby picks up the baby, nurses it and brings it up.



This is sort of familiar, but instead of jumping ahead to Tarzan as a grown-up, the next hour of the film devotes itself to Tarzan (I will call him that) growing up with the Apes at different ages. The apes are in costumes but feel so lifelike that you have to wonder at times. They are amazing jumping from branch to branch and tree to tree. A baby then a tiny tot, a young boy managing to survive among them, thinking he is one of them, loving his adopted mother, speaking the language in growls and beeps, learning to swing on vines, the tragedy of his mother being killed by tribesmen. It is fantastic. Beautifully shot in Africa with the thick verdant foliage and magnificent waterfalls. Eventually he becomes a man - played by Christopher Lambert in his debut - and thankfully begins wearing a loincloth - the younger versions did not. A group of Europeans sent by the British Museum on a ship land to find specimens. One of the party is a Belgian played by Ian Holm with an accent exactly that of Suchet's Poirot - and when Suchet shows up in a small role you have to wonder if this is where he got his accent from five years later.



They are attacked, a few killed and Phillipe (Holm) wounded. Tarzan finds him and keeps him alive. They become friends, Phillipe begins to teach him English and French and more importantly who he is. Human. Not ape and the heir to Greystoke - he found evidence in the hut. They return to England and the film takes on a totally different tenor - lets the air out as it becomes a fable of manners among the nobility. Almost Masterpiece Theater. He meets Jane played in her debut by Andie MacDowell (though dubbed by Glenn Close because of Andie's southern accent). The Earl is still alive and welcomes him - this is all yours. Now called John, Tarzan slowly integrates himself into this life but the jungle is always calling out to him.



I went into this film expecting another traditional Tarzan and was initially taken aback by the first section thinking let's get to Tarzan saving Jane - but as the film explores the life of apes - their social and hierarchal rules it becomes fascinating. Apparently, there are about thirty minutes from this section that were cut out and you can understand why but this was the part that really mattered. Don't expect any heroics or adventure or elephant stampedes. Just a man brought up by apes and becoming the Lord of the Apes.