Cinema: Wild Child Noble Savage

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And even as one admires the scientific plausibility of the director's realization of ape society, his loving eye for the decorative details of life at the top in turn-of-the-century Britain, one grows a trifle impatient with his ponderousness. Besides merely employing Richardson, he might have learned from the master his trick of keeping things light and keeping them moving without loss of authenticity or integrity. Still, having survived all those years of careless handling, Tarzan deserves Hudson's excesses of respect. If the director has erred, it is only out of an understandable and exemplary desire to restore a magical figure to his rightful place in our minds.

—By Richard Schickel