After a mutiny on board their ship, British noble couple Lord and Lady Greystoke are marooned by the crew on a desolate African beach with their newborn son, John Clayton. Not long after, the founding boy is an orphan, his mother dead of natural causes and his father at the hands of a vicious ape. Saved by the she-ape Kala, who had just lost her own baby, John was raised in the jungle as one of Kala's own and named 'Tarzan (white skin). After learning the ways of the jungle and also schooling himself by reading books left behind by his parents, Tarzan does battle with the ape who killed his father and becomes king of the jungle. Later Tarzan falls in love with Jane Porter, a beautiful American woman who is part of an exploration party and is forced to make a choice between the world of man and the world of the jungle.