Way Back Wednesday - Planet of the Apes

If you'll allow me, today I'm going to delve into my favorite childhood movie. Planet of the Apes is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner loosely based on the novel La planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. The film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans.

(From IMDB) The film was well received by critics and audiences, launching a film franchise, including four sequels, as well as a short lived television show, animated series, comic books, various merchandising, and eventually a remake in 2001. Roddy McDowall (my favorite ape) had a long-running relationship with the Apes series, appearing in the original series of five films, and also in the television series.

Planet of the Apes geek that I am, I own the box set with all the movies, plus the box set of the television series.





Astronauts Taylor (Charleton Heston), Landon, and Dodge are in deep hibernation when their spaceship crash-lands in a lake on an unknown planet in the year 3978 A.D.. They use an inflatable raft to reach shore, and once there, Dodge performs a soil test and pronounces the soil incapable of sustaining life. Taylor suggests they are on a planet in the constellation of Orion some 320 light years from Earth but admits he is not sure. These opening scenes - in my humble opinion - are the slowest points of the movie. Once they leave the desert, the action picks up.

The astronauts abandon their spaceship and set off through the desert, finding first a single plant and then others. They find an oasis at the edge of the desert where they decide to take a swim. While they are swimming, someone steals their clothes. Pursuing the thieves, the astronauts find their clothes in shreds and the perpetrators — a group of mute, primitive humans — contentedly raiding a cornfield. Suddenly, the astronauts and other humans are being pursued by gorillas on horseback. This is your first introduction to the apes - at the time of production, the makeup work was considered new, but it doesn't compare to today's CGI work. Dodge is shot and killed during the pursuit, while Taylor and Landon are captured and taken back to Ape City; Taylor is shot in the throat, but survives due to the surgical efforts of of a chimpanzee scientists, Zira (Kim Hunter). Upon his recovery, Taylor is put in a cage with a woman, Nova, who was captured on the same hunt. Due to the throat injury, he has temporarily lost his ability to speak.

Taylor discovers that the talking apes are in control and are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees as intellectuals and scientists - this parallels how our society is today. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered feral vermin and are hunted and used for scientific experimentation.

Zira and her fiancé, Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), an archaeologist, take an interest in Taylor because of his lip movements. While Cornelius and Zira are talking to their boss, Dr. Zaius, Zaius learns learns Taylor can "mimick" the speech of apes.

At the climax of the "monkey trial", Zaius orders Taylor to be gelded, but he makes an escape. Running through the Ape City, Taylor is recaptured and while hanging in a net stuns the crowd by shouting the famous line:

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"

The funniest scene in the movie is the parody of the Scopes Monkey trial - you see 3 apes; one covering his eyes, one covering his ears, and the third covering his mouth. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Taylor is taken to see Dr. Zaius, who threatens to lobotomize him if he doesn't tell the "truth" about where he came from. But Cornelius and Zira execute a plan to free Taylor, who insists that Nova also be brought along. They flee to the Forbidden Zone, where, a year earlier, Cornelius had discovered a cave with artifacts of an advanced society. Dr. Zaius, along with a band of gorilla soldiers, manages to find them. After a struggle, Taylor finds a talking human doll in the cave that proves that intelligent humans were on the planet long before the apes gained control. Taylor and Nova are allowed to escape on horseback. Zaius lets them go without further confrontation, knowing that Taylor will find "his destiny." After they leave, Zaius has the soldiers blow up the cave to prevent future research.

Soon after his escape, in the final, iconic scene, Taylor discovers a damaged Statue of Liberty half-buried in the beach. He realizes that he has been on Earth all along, and that humanity must have destroyed its own civilization with war, thereby paving the way for the Planet of the Apes.

As a teenager, I read everything I could get my hands on that pertained to the Planet of the Apes: books, comics, magazines. Today, you can find hundreds of websites that center around this iconic movie.

This movie still ranks in my top 10 list of favorite movies. Give it a try - you may go apes over the apes as well.