Greystoke: Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)

As someone who is rather a fan of Tarzan I eventually had to get around to seeing the 1984 Greystoke: Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. This is an extraordinarily ambitious film and technically it’s extremely impressive. Sadly however it has to be considered to be not a total success. Part of the reason for its partial failure is its inordinate length - at 143 minutes it’s around 30 minutes longer than it needs to be. There’s just not enough substance to justify such a long film. There are however other reasons for its relative failure which we’ll get to later.

One thing that should be pointed out is that the name Tarzan is never mentioned in this movie. He is always referred to as John (his real name being John Clayton). For convenience I will however refer to him as Tarzan (which seems justified because the name does appear in the movie’s title).

It’s a kind of origin story. We not only get Tarzan’s childhood in the African jungle. The movie goes back even farther, to 1885 when Tarzan’s parents set out for Africa. Tarzan’s father is the son of the Earl of Greystoke and heir to the vast family estates.

We get Tarzan’s childhood in exhaustive detail. Too much detail in fact.

Tarzan’s first contact with civilisation comes when he rescues a Belgian explorer, Capitaine Phillippe D’Arnot (Ian Holm). Eventually D’Arnot figures out that Tarzan is the heir to the Greystoke title and estates and he persuades Tarzan to go to England to find his family and assume his destined position in society.

It’s obvious from the start that Tarzan will have difficulty fitting in. He’s fond of his father, the Earl of Greystoke (Ralph Richardson), but he is aware that he will always remain an outcast. He keeps reverting to ape-like behaviour. Tarzan wants to go home to his jungle but he is persuaded that he has a duty to his family to remain in Britain. The only member of the Greystoke household who is nice to him is the earl’s American niece Jane Porter (Andie MacDowell).

There’s a potential romantic triangle between Tarzan, Jane and the wicked Lord Charles Esker (James Fox) but it isn’t developed. There’s one love scene between Tarzan and Jane but it falls rather flat and is absurdly tame. Which is a pity, because it means we never really understand why Jane would consider giving up her society life to be with Tarzan. We expect a bit of passion but we don’t get it. The whole Jane sub-plot just doesn’t work.

This movie is very definitely not in the spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The movie takes the position that Tarzan’s only home can be the jungle and that the wickedness of English civilisation will destroy him. Burroughs was much more nuanced. His original Tarzan is a man caught between two worlds but capable, up to a point at least, of dealing with the civilised world.

Of course the message of the movie is that the jungle is good and civilisation (especially the English variety) is evil. Apes are good. Englishmen are evil. It’s notable that that there are only two European characters who are sympathetic. One is Belgian and the other is American. Every Englishman in the movie is either a buffoon or a comic-strip villain. This weakens the movie’s central theme.

I can see what this movie was trying to achieve. Early on it tries to give us a vivid picture of the complex social and family life of the apes. When you listen to the audio commentary where the differences between the various ape characters are explained it all makes sense but I doubt if the average viewer would have picked up on most of this stuff. And if your movie includes scenes that only work when the director explains them to you then this has to be accounted a failure. All it really does is contribute to the movie’s excessive length.

It’s a movie that aims at an epic feel, and I can admire that, but the real focus should have been on Tarzan’s dilemma - a man trapped between two worlds. The movie is sometimes in danger of collapsing under its own weight.

One of this movie’s many problems is that it takes itself so seriously. This is a Tarzan movie with no adventure, no fun and no humour. The danger of such an excessively serious approach is that the movie can end up becoming unintentionally ridiculous, which happens at times.

It’s hard to judge Christopher Lambert’s performance as Tarzan. He was clearly giving the performance the director wanted but on occasion it becomes unintentionally silly. Eric Langlois who plays Tarzan at age 12 actually gives a more effective performance.

Ralph Richardson gives one of his standard English Eccentric performances. James Fox is embarrassingly bad as yet another villainous Englishman. Ian Holm tries hard. Andie MacDowell makes a very insipid Jane. It’s difficult not to compare her dull performance with the lively sexy sparkling performances of Maureen O’Sullivan in the early 30s Tarzan movies such as Tarzan and His Mate.

Technically this movie is a stunning achievement. There is of course no CGI. The apes are guys in ape suits but Rick Baker and the rest of the special effects crew really do manage to make them convincingly life-like. Glass paintings are used extensively. The jungle scenes are a mix of studio and location work and look great. This movie is a fine example of the superiority of good old school special effects over CGI.

What this movie desperately needed was some brutal editing. There are too many scenes that are there because they look cool even though they’re unnecessary and slow the film down. Scenes like that belong on the cutting room floor.

Overall this movie is too long, too slow, too dull, too self-indulgent and includes too much heavy-handed messaging. It’s clear that director Hugh Hudson had zero feel for the source material. It’s obvious that Robert Towne (the original screenwriter who wisely had his name removed from the credits) had some good ideas. What was needed was a much better director. It is visually spectacular but I’m not sure I could seriously recommend it.