| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Ralph Richardson | ... | ||
| Ian Holm | ... | ||
| James Fox | ... |
Lord Charles Esker
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| Christopher Lambert | ... | ||
| Andie MacDowell | ... | ||
| Cheryl Campbell | ... | ||
| Ian Charleson | ... |
Jeffson Brown
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| Nigel Davenport | ... |
Major Jack Downing
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| Nicholas Farrell | ... |
Sir Hugh Belcher
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| Paul Geoffrey | ... | ||
| Richard Griffiths | ... |
Captain Billings
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Hilton McRae | ... |
Willy
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| David Suchet | ... |
Buller
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Ravinder | ... |
Dean
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John Wells | ... |
Sir Evelyn Blount
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A shipping disaster in the 19th Century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their tree house. The mother dies soon after. An ape enters the house and kills the father, and a female ape takes the tiny boy as a replacement for her own dead infant, and raises him as her son. Twenty years later, Captaine Phillippe D'Arnot discovers the man who thinks he is an ape. Evidence in the tree house leads him to believe that he is the direct descendant of the Earl of Greystoke, and thus takes it upon himself to return the man to civilization. Written by Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>
I have lived long enough to have seen all the Tarzan movies from Elmo Lincoln to Chris Lambert, and believe me, this one was like watching the pages of ERB's novel come to life on the screen. Rarely does Hollywood stick to a novel when they adapt it for film, but this one did. And all the former comments failed to applaud the primate sequences for their realistic performances. The sequences where Graystoke takes his ape mother, later Lord Greystoke and ape father's hand on his head to try and see if their is still life in them, was a primitive act of real Gorillas that was in the original novel - but never used in the other Tarzan films. A wonderful film and a very good performance by Sir Ralph Richardson, which was his final one.
Babe Hardy