Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
This 1983 film takes a radically different approach to most previous movies of the legendary character of Tarzan and in many ways is far closer to the original story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Here we see an intelligent man who despite being away from human contact from infancy is able to as a grown man learn two languages and speak if with a light French accent English eloquently. The story here is not of a rollicking jungle-set adventure but instead focuses on his growing up amongst the apes and then as an adult his struggle to adjust to his “rightful place” amongst British high society as a Greystoke.
This is ultimately a tragic telling of the Tarzan story as John Clayton realises that he can never truly be at home in either environment.
Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to “strip off the thin veneer of civilization,” as Burroughs puts it.