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The Appropriate Tune: 'Tarzan Boy' by Baltimora
Before the age of the superheroes was the age of the pulps, and at the dawn of the age of the pulps was Tarzan. In 1912 a man by the name of Edgar Rice Burroughs decided to write a story combining real life accounts of feral children (and likely Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” as well) and deepest, darkest Africa, which was at the height of the pop culture phase of its colonization, and created a sensation. Long before we began to look at Batman and Spider-Man as multimedia franchises Tarzan was showing folks how it was done, his string of novels eventually blossoming into comic strips, films, and so on and on. Much like the outlaws and cowboys of the Wild West, Tarzan’s popularity seemed to stem from embodying this sense of rugged self-reliance and freedom and a ‘return to nature’ primitivism that appealed to audiences of the time who were already struggling against the hell that was modern society. Every boy in the country believed that, placed in a similar situation, he too could become the king of the jungle, fighting off killer apes and discovering lost civilizations, just like they believed they could be Jim Bowie or Natty Bumppo.
Unfortunately for the ape man the rise of superheroes, science fiction and gangster stories meant a slow but inevitable shrinking in cultural relevance, and unlike the western Tarzan (and the ‘jungle adventure’ subgenre that he spawned) never experienced the critical and commercial revival that kept in within the minds of the public. He’s still around certainly -- a comic book series here, a low budget TV series there, but aside from a blip on the radar from when Disney tried their hand Tarzan has faded into a kind of semi-obscurity. A name your average person on the street may recognize, but doesn’t connect with in any meaningful way. Kind of like the Founding Fathers, but less racist.
Released in 1984, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (in the running for longest fucking movie title in Marathon history) was written by Robert Towne and Micheal Austin, directed by Hugh Hudson, and produced by Hudson and Stanley S. Carter, based on the novel “Tarzan of the Apes” by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The year is 1885, and Lord Jack Clayton and his wife Alice are washed ashore in West Africa after a particularly shitty attempt at sailing by the captain. The couple make a go of survival, even lasting long enough to have a son, John, but unfortunately they just aren’t cut out for the rigors of jungle life. Bad news for baby John, until he is ‘adopted’ by Kala, a female gorilla who had recently lost her own child. Years later the Belgian explorer Phillippe D’Arnot (Ian Holm) is escaping from a disastrous ambush of his expedition party by some angry natives when he is rescued by John Clayton (Christopher Lambert), now a fully fledged adult ape-man. D’Arnot quickly realizes that his strange savior is the son of the missing Clayton and the heir to the Earl of Greystoke and sets about educating him on his humanity and restoring him to his expected place in the world. As the old cliche goes though you can take the man out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the man, and the new Lord Greystoke is buffeted on all sides by the expectations of high society and some new found feelings for the lovely Miss Jane Porter (Andie MacDowell). Lord of the Apes, Lord of Men, John’s heart is being pulled in two directions, and who knows where it’ll end up? Well, everyone who has ever heard about Tarzan, I suppose.
As was the case with Love Bites, I became aware of Greystoke through Harlan Ellison’s movie articles, but unlike Love Bites and very much like Gremlins and Back to the Future Ellison raked Greystoke over the coals. His main point of contention if I recall correctly was a distinct lack of excitement; Tarzan was one of the quintessential action heroes of the early 20th century after all, and yet Hugh Hudson discards this in favor of the ‘stranger in a strange land’ drama of Tarzan in Britain.
Personally I lean towards Ellison’s side on this one. Tarzan had been an icon of pop culture for long enough at that point that, much like his successor Superman a few years earlier, taking things in a more dramatic, grandiose direction wasn’t a bad idea. Where Richard Donner and Hugh Hudson differ in this case is that Donner never forgot the heroic core of his film’s protagonist. Hudson is fixated on highlighting the trauma of the story and showcasing that modern society is no less ‘savage’ than the jungle, legitimate angles to explore within the lore, but he never turns the corner and incorporates those story elements into a Tarzan story. Hell, the name ‘Tarzan’ is never uttered once in the entire film, which is probably the most damning bit of evidence that Hudson was too pretentious for his own good. Even Watchmen, the most cynical depiction of superheroes since Alan Moore’s last depiction of superheroes, still has people in costumes and secret identities. Greystoke feels like Hugh Hudson wanted to make the next Elephant Man or My Left Foot, got stuck with this ape man movie job and tried to shove a round peg into a square hole. More like Grey-mopes, am I right?
I don’t believe Ellison cared for the casting much either, but honestly that part of the film is pretty solid. Christopher Lambert (making his Hollywood debut) doesn’t cut the same figure as Weissmuller did but he is large and intimidating when he wants to be while also managing the emotive parts of the role, easily the best actor to portray Tarzan up until that point. Andie MacDowell plays Jane Porter, and if her entire role in this movie can be boiled down to ‘the sexy woman who exists largely for Tarzan to lust over’ then at least she does it very well. Bilbo Baggins himself Ian Holm plays Tarzan’s confidante Phillippe D’Arnot, basically Poirot, and Ralph Richardson (who unfortunately died during filming) played Tarzan’s barmy grandfather the Earl of Greystoke. Not a bad cast really, it’s just a shame the material they have to work with is so stodgy.
Another point me and ol’ Harlan agree on: Rick Baker is fucking great. Those of you in the crowd familiar with genre films will know Baker from his excellent work in An American Werewolf in London, Videodrome, Star Wars and about two dozen other movies, and he brings his magic to bare here with some incredibly impressive costuming and special effects on these apes (heightened even further by some great primate choreography). From a cynical, or Ellison’s, perspective it might be that such great work is wasted on this movie, but personally it’s Baker’s effects that really makes Greystoke. I don’t think Hudson could have really sold the tragic events of Tarzan’s childhood without the emotions that Baker manages to elicit from these apes, and combined with the location shots and the matte paintings, Greystoke manages to be a very beautiful film on a visual level. A necessary as well as an aesthetic choice, as so much of this film is done without dialogue, and listening to monkey noises for 2 hours gets old.
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes gets a mild recommendation. As an example of what made Tarzan appealing as a concept I don’t think it succeeds, but as far as attempts at bringing pulp to a modern audience it’s okay. Certainly better than the Doc Savage movie, although that’s not much of a hurdle to cross. If you’re interested in what Lambert was doing before Highlander then give it a shot, but if you’re looking for something with more of a kick then you might be better off with the Disney film. Or if you prefer your ape men on paper both DC and Dark Horse had long running Tarzan comic series, and he was also the subject of several novels by acclaimed science fiction author Philip Jose Farmer, including his own take on a Tarzan biography. The Lord of the Apes may not be as big as he once was, but he’s still there if you know where to look.
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