In 1968....

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were shot.

U.S. forces were fighting in Southeast Asia.

The Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia.

There were riots and protests all over the world.

The Apollo 8 crew made the first manned flight (orbit only) to the Moon.

In 1968, too, I was only five years old and living in Bogota, Colombia, so even though 20th Century Fox released it there as El planeta de los simios, I did not get to see this adaptation of Pierre Boulle's science fiction novel until we had moved back to the States in the early 1970s and it was shown as a CBS Late Show movie on TV.

Written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton), Planet of the Apes is a well-written and tightly-paced tale starring Charlton Heston as astronaut George Taylor, the sole survivor of a four-man crew which crash lands on a bizarre planet where apes are the dominant life form and humans are basically animals in cages.

Although Boulle's novel depicted a more technologically-advanced ape society equivalent to that of 1950s Earth, Schaffner and producer Arthur P. Jacobs didn't have a large-enough budget.  Thus "the planet of the apes" is a very strange mix of extremely harsh wilderness with the ape cities being located in cave-like complexes and the apes themselves armed with 20th Century-like firearms, rubber truncheons and fire hoses.

The film begins in space and is set sometime in the then-near future, with Taylor and three other astronauts cruising in deep space on a vessel which has interiors that are somewhat reminiscent of the USS Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In other words, the ship doesn't look as low-budget as the then-still running Star Trek TV series' USS Enterprise bridge, and not too unrelated to the real Apollo space capsules then in use.

The spacecraft then experiences a strange malfunction, and Taylor and two others survive a crash-landing (in a lake) on a planet that is eerily similar to Earth.  The terrain is harsh, yes, but there's some water and the air is breathable.

Unfortunately, the three survivors (the lone woman of the crew dies when her life support equipment fails before the crash) are in for a nasty shock.  Horse-riding apes with nets and guns capture them, and in the process, Taylor is separated from his crewmates and finds himself in Ape City.

Taylor is then "given" by the Ruling Council to human-behaviorist Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) and her husband-to-be and archaeologist Cornelius (Roddy McDowell), for research purposes. 

Zira and Cornelius are young and are trying to prove a politically- and socially-incorrect theory: that apes evolved from humankind.

Leader of the hunt: I don't understand these animal psychologists. What is Dr. Zira trying to prove?
Dr. Zaius: That man can be domesticated.
[the hunt leader begins to laugh in disbelief]

This, of course, is frowned upon by the older generation of apes personified by Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), who wears the two (and intellectually incompatible) hats of Minister of Science and Defender of the Faith.

Zira notices that the new "ward" she has is different from the other humans...more bellicose and seemingly more intelligent....so she gives him the moniker "Bright Eyes."


At first, Zira and Cornelius think that Bright Eyes is the elusive missing link between "primitive" humans and "advanced" apes, but when Taylor, enraged at being mistreated by a guard, talks, they're flabbergasted.

[the first words ever spoken by a human to the apes]
George Taylor: Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!

Of course, the discovery that a human being can talk - and therefore think - sends shivers throughout the simian society, and the film becomes both allegorical (Zira and Cornelius being the young upstarts who challenge their elders, just as youths in 1968 were challenging the established order all over Earth) and satirical (with the Creationism-vs.-Evolution argument turned on its head).

Because more than 40 years have passed since Planet of the Apes and spun off a sextet of sequels, a TV series and a remake by Tim Burton, I'll stop the plot summary right there.  Either the reader knows the plot twist at the end and is familiar with the series, or the reader has never seen any of the films and is blissfully unaware of how the movie ends.

My Take: Though I think the make-up effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey were better and more realistic, I think the ape masks and outfits were so well-done that the viewer doesn't stop in mid-scene and thinks, "Hey, that's Samantha Stephens' dad, Maurice, in the orangutan suit!" 

On the contrary.  Even with the apes' sometimes stiff-looking makeup and the need for them to wear human-like outfits, audiences buy the scenario because Serling and Wilson took the sometimes hard-to-read novel by Boulle (not one of my favorite authors) and give the characters believable lines and motives.

The film also has a few genuinely funny bits added to its science-fiction/action adventure plot.  Some are visual jokes (there's a bit in Taylor's "trial" where we see three apes doing the See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil gestures), while others are acerbic exchanges between characters:

Dr. Zaius: I see you've brought the female of your species. I didn't realize that man could be monogamous.
George Taylor: On this planet, it's easy.

While this film isn't as technologically advanced or as fun to watch as the original Star Wars Trilogy, it is still a good example of 1960s science fiction filmmaking and a rare movie that's better than the book it's based on.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12