learning on the job and that could have proved expensive and one of the things I rely on is people's belief that I can deliver good value for money. I had this awful vision of Greystoke going over budget and my whole reputation going down the drain." Hudson said, "I think he [Puttnam] felt he had lost control because it was a studio picture set up by Semel and Daly and they wanted to deal directly with me, and he had this other film going, The Killing Fields, that he probably wanted to do more. Stanley Canter [who's credited as producer alongside Hudson] had a deal with Warners and the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, but he wasn’t involved in the making of the film." Hudson had the script revived by Michael Austin. They spent nine months on it. Hudson said the film was "about Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden. It's about the loss of innocence and about the evolutionary urge. This boy is discovered by a Belgian, d'Arnot, and he's taught language. Up to that point he's very contented, but d'Arnot is the snake in the myth. He gives him the word, and from that point you could say he's lost. The question is, does he have to go on to join society, or not? The story asks you to consider how society lives, halfway between the apes and the angels, aspiring to go up yet coming from down there. It's about the battle of nature and nurture, nature and culture – a dilemma, a terrible dichotomy in us all. It's about the freedom of the jungle and the distortions and strictures of society, and how perhaps we can't do without either of them. There's not enough nature in society, and maybe not enough society in nature. The thing is about that sort of balance, which is so tender, so difficult to achieve, yet so essential to all of us. It's about two opposing forces, which shouldn't be opposing at all." Towne had done tests involving real apes but Hudson felt this was too difficult and decided to use humans in ape costumes. Production Casting Hudson wanted to cast unknowns as Tarzan and Jane. "They are complete innocents, and therefore somebody new is more acceptable to the audience than a face you know. They also represent the innocent side of ourselves, and we should be able to identify