Cinema: Bongo Bongo Boffo

Last week, 40 years after his first swing on a back-lot liana, Tarzan of the Apes ooo-eee-ooed the famed yodel, dropped from the treetops into his 32nd movie. Since the other 31 were all financial successes—a combined total gross of more than $500 million and a total audience of 2 billion people—the new Tarzan's Fight for Life showed the sort of promise most appreciated by Cinemogul Sy Weintraub, new head of Sol Lesser Productions, owner of the ape man.

The film also shows a Tarzan who has evolved in a wide arc from the original character of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels, first...