Ranked: Planet of the Apes – The Original Pentalogy
Planet of the Apes opened in theaters on April 3, 1968. Based on a novel by Pierre Boulle, Planet of the Apes was a huge hit for 20th Century Fox. Beginning in 1970, 20th Century Fox released a sequel every year, culminating with 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
In this edition of Ranked, we will countdown the original Planet of the Apes Pentalogy, a film series that inspired a toy line from Mego, a short lived live action series that aired on CBS, an animated series that aired on NBC and in the decades that followed there a reboot, a trilogy of films and another film on the way later this year.
Joining me for this countdown are my fellow Bulletproof Action staffers Matt Spector and Chad Cruise and friend of the site Keith Rainville of VintageNinja.net. We already knew Keith was a ninja expert and we were happy to find out that Keith had a deep admiration and knowledge of those “damn dirty apes”. Now, let me turn it over to Matt Spector…
Matt Spector: The law of diminishing returns comes to mind when I think of Battle for the Planet of the Apes. What should be the final battle and conclusion of a successful movie franchise seems like they went to the well one too many times. The group of apes seems small, the group of humans seem small and the battle is pretty underwhelming. There is still enough to like, and Roddy McDowell has a lot to do with that, even though this Caesar isn’t so blood thirsty like the previous movie. I can never be disappointed with Severn Darden as Kolp, even though how he became the leader following Conquest is hard to believe in a world other than Don Murray didn’t want to come back (and Hari Rhodes made the same choice). Paul Williams was a great addition as Virgil (Claude Akins also, but not as much) and I liked the John Huston flashback aspect. However, kind of like my thoughts about he film, I still don’t know what to think about the crying statue. Perhaps The Simpsons said it best, Stop the Planet of the Apes. I Want to Get Off!
Keith Rainville: The letter G used to signify something very different. It used to mean that exposing kids to machine-gun toting apes blasting a dime-sized bloody hole in a man’s forehead was fine. Showing children agonized simians crucified upside down and set afire while the statue of their god leaked blood from every orifice was standard fare. Toddlers just loved it when religious zealots yanked off their human skin masks revealing grotesque radioactive mutants underneath. Violently choking a bikini-clad cavewoman in a water fountain was all the rage on the playground, and what nigh-pubescent teen didn’t love seeing an embittered bloody astronaut dedicate his death rattle to triggering a golden phallic atomic bomb that incinerates his entire planet?
All this joy and more was to be had in the single most f’d up G-RATED movie of all time, Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Spawned from a film already rife with fascist black-leather clad gorillas beating humans with clubs, nearly naked men and women in chains and cages, and profound allusions to our inevitable nuclear apocalypse, the sequel just had to go extra, and added everything described above and more. And it was all Rated G… just like Dumbo or Herbie the Love Bug or The Cat From Outer Space.
Charlton Heston reduced himself to an aggrandized cameo (for an outrageous bag, too) so Wish.com Charlton Heston stand-in James Franciscus takes the lead, with admirable vigor. The astounding Nova gets a lot more screen time to the objection of no one, Roddy McDowell’s absence in the Cornelius role was hardly noticed with his and Zira’s screen time also reduced. Instead, the gorilla military machine took the star spotlight under the bulbous-helmeted General Ursus, as did the wasteland known as the Forbidden Zone.
While Planet of the Apes was a sci-fi movie set on a distant planet that in its very last scene blasts itself back to Earth and into the Post Apocalyptic genre, for Beneath that cat was out of the bag, and it’s a genuine P.A. film from minute one. The ‘beneath’ aspect comes in the third act as our heroes descend into the melted and twisted now-subterranean ruins of New York City and encounter another race of human survivors — mentally gifted mutants who worship a nuclear missile like a pagan god. But the ape army is right behind them and suffice to say, things don’t go well.
While the initial theatrical run may have ostensibly been for adults, the new ‘Go Ape’ push of the franchise in the mid-70s on TV and toy shelves meant kids were now the primary audience, and Beneath was high on the list of media that utterly mind-f*cked generations of impressionable twerps like me.
And don’t even start me on the Power Records comic book/audio adaptation. The artwork in this dagger of childhood trauma was more grisly than anything in the movie, particularly the mutant revealing scenes, Good God!
Regardless of Taylor’s fatalistic intent and despite the effectiveness of the Alpha/Omega bomb, the G-Rated mayhem didn’t end here…
Keith Rainville: There was a time, unlike the enlightened landscape of today’s harmonious American landscape, that white people were really really scared of black folks. No, no, it’s hard to relate to now, I know, but it’s true… and such troubling subjects as race riots and societal revolution were enough to transport the formerly G-Rated POTA franchise into R-rated territory (albeit briefly) for the first time in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
With the budget ever decreasing, the new creative direction of J. Lee Thompson (Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear) and franchise writer Paul Dehn (Goldfinger) solved all sorts of problems by setting the entire film in the just-completed Century City Plaza, an ultra-mod Los Angeles campus that has stood-in for dystopian future cities ever since. Simian couture was replaced with color-coded prison jumpsuits (saving costuming budget and time) and much of the props were recycled from Irwin Allen TV shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. It all would have been an embarrassing downgrade, except the over-achieving lead actors saved it all with superb and inspired work. The result was a movie that had balls like no other in the series, and went right for the throat on some genuinely combustible social issues of the time.
Dehn would replace the atomic fear of the first two films with the dread of race riots amid totalitarianism. A couple decades after the events of Escape, a plague has wiped out all cats and dogs, and bereft of pets, society has adopted apes as domestic companions. This however quickly turns into outright slavery, with the simian population kept in line by fascistic government officials right out of Cold War East Germany. Navigating this ugly new world is the now fully grown and increasingly enraged Ceasar, who seeing his kind violently suppressed starts to plot… and plan…
What follows is Roddy McDowell’s best work under the make-up, and that was a high bar already. His pathos is genuine, his anger is fiery, and the work he does with his eyes alone is remarkable. A pivotal scene where he reveals himself to be the son of Cornelius and Zira to a sympathetic black government officer (Harry Rhodes) is just remarkable.
Fanatically driving the human police state is Governor Breck, played so over-the-top by Don Murray there are stretches of spastic dialog that would make William Shatner blush. His lunatic level speeches are topped only by McDowell’s climactic manifesto, an unforgettable expulsion of rage delivered with Shakespearian ferocity as man’s world burns.
Depending on which version of the film you see, the ending has widely varying impact. As originally seen for decades, the brutal cut initially slammed with an R-rating was edited down to a gelded PG, with some kills removed and new Ceasar dialog added quelling the ape riot with a sudden gesture of mercy. The original cut was only seen in Japan until the Blu Ray era when we were all finally treated to the film’s original unmitigated vision, and it was jaw-dropping in its severity.
The fact that this film could affect me so in two different cuts, in two different eras of my life, really says something…
Chris the Brain: Escape from the Planet of the Apes is the least action packed of the five original Apes films, but for me it always packed the most emotional punch.
The third film in the franchise turned the tables from the original, with Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) traveling back in time to Earth’s past much to the shock of the humans that were still running the world… including a young M. Emmet Walsh.
Zira and Cornelius quickly become media sensations after they reveal that they are highly intelligent, have the ability to speak and come from the Earth’s future. But in classic Planet of the Apes fashion a startling revelation changes everything, in this case the news that Zira is with child. It is a revelation that does not sit well with the President of the United States’ chief scientific advisor, Dr. Otto Hasslein, who was easily one of the most hated characters of my childhood since he wanted to eliminate Zira and Cornelius’ unborn child in an attempt to change the inevitable fall of man.
The end of the movie is like a Shakespearean tragedy followed by another classic Planet of the Apes twist to set up the final two films in the pentalogy.
Chad Cruise: A true masterpiece in filmmaking and one of the greatest movie twists in the history of cinema. I’ve always felt like the picture was overshadowed by just how iconic the final scenes are. It’s been spoofed by everyone from The Simpsons to Spaceballs, and no one grew up in this era without telling one of your friends to “Get your hands off me you damned dirty ape!” It’s no surprise to anyone that this film holds down the number 1 spot with ease.
Charlton Heston is about as Alpha Male as you can be in American cinema and next to John Wayne or maybe Clint Eastwood, not many could stack up against his raw machismo. I think his style of delivery works perfectly for the atmosphere and it never feels too ridiculous considering he’s surrounded by folks wearing hairy facemasks and walking with a bit of a hunchback. Speaking of the hair, the costumes and prosthetics look fantastic and the great Roddy McDowall is outstanding as the brilliant Cornelius. Alongside his wife Zira (Kim Hunter), they develop a relationship with Heston’s Taylor that is destined to change everything about this world of Apes. Linda Harrison gets a special nod for playing mute beauty Nova. Without a doubt, one of my first crushes and a great addition to the story arc.
