(Roddy McDowall)|This is MaIibu Creek State Park,...
..Iocated near the city of Los AngeIes.
AII of this once beIonged...
..to one of HoIIywood's biggest and most|prestigious studios: Twentieth Century Fox.
Nicknamed ''The Fox Ranch'',...
..it was home to some of the most|memorabIe motion pictures ever made.
But in 1968, this Iocation was used|for a very different kind of fiIm.
Produced during one of the most|turbuIent periods in our nation's history,...
..it expIored reIigious,|sociaI and poIiticaI themes...
..and managed to be wiIdIy|entertaining at the same time.
World gone insane.
Upside-down civilisation.
Take your stinking paws off me,|you damn dirty ape!
The only good human is a dead human!
My God, it's a city of apes!
Now! Fight like apes!
lt's a madhouse!
Planet of the Apes spawned four sequeIs,|two teIevision series...
..and a mountain of merchandise.
It became a cuIturaI phenomenon.
And it started as the vision of two men.
A French noveIist named Pierre BouIIe...
..and a HoIIywood fiIm producer|named Arthur P Jacobs.
Born in 1922, Arthur Jacobs began his career|as a messenger at MGM in the 1940s.
Energetic, forcefuI and fuII of ideas,...
..he soon found himseIf working|in their pubIicity department.
A master of promotion, he was|eventuaIIy Iured away by Warner Bros.
But Arthur wanted controI of his own destiny.
In 1949, he Ieft Warners|to form his own pubIic reIations firm,...
..and within two years his cIient roster|incIuded such high-profiIe ceIebrities as...
..Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart,...
..Judy GarIand and MariIyn Monroe.
MariIyn heIped Jacobs make the transition|from pubIicist to producer in the earIy 1960s.
She agreed to star in a fiIm he was|deveIoping caIIed What a Way To Go.
But, before production couId begin,|MariIyn Monroe died on August 5th, 1962.
Arthur had Iost his star,|but not his determination.
(wolf whistle)
(trailer) Hi, folks! ln case|you didn't know it, that's a girl- all girl.
Yeah! Shirley MacLaine.
Jacobs got his movie made.
The fiIm became one of Fox's|top moneymakers of 1964.
Arthur's reputation as a skiIfuI,|creative producer was assured.
Just after the fiIm's reIease,|Fox studio head, Richard Zanuck,...
..showed his appreciation by agreeing|to finance another Jacobs project...
..caIIed Dr Dolittle.
Starring Rex Harrison,|the fiIm featured originaI songs,...
..dazzIing speciaI effects,|hundreds of extras...
..and a Iarge supporting cast|of trained animaIs.
The fiirst fiilm in which a human being -|myself- actually talks to animals.
It was during DoIittIe's Iengthy|preproduction phase...
..that Arthur approached Zanuck|with an idea for another motion picture.
It, too, pIayed with the concept|of taIking to the animaIs, but...
..in a much more serious way.
It was caIIed Planet of the Apes.
In 1963, Jacobs had acquired the rights|to a noveI entitIed La plante des singes,...
..or The Monkey Planet,...
..by one of France's|most accIaimed authors, Pierre BouIIe.
La plante des singes...
..toId the story of three astronauts|who traveI to an aIien worId...
..where man is a primitive beast,|dominated by a race of superinteIIigent apes.
Jacobs read the book shortIy before|its officiaI pubIication...
..and quickIy purchased the screen rights.
He feIt that the concept|wouId make for a visuaIIy intriguing,...
..highIy originaI motion picture.
But BouIIe disagreed.
He considered the noveI one of his Iesser|works, with no potentiaI for screen success.
During the next few months,|Jacobs commissioned sketches...
..depicting his concept|of the apes' strange, aIien worId.
Seven different artists worked on|various concepts as the story evoIved.
He prepared a merchandising book|for Planet of the Apes...
..Iike nothing I have seen before or since.
It was about 130 pages of ideas.
And that's what Arthur was - an idea man.|And he was marveIIous at it.
(Roddy McDowall)|Jacobs aIso contacted Rod SerIing,...
..a proIific writer, most famous for his highIy|accIaimed Twilight Xone teIevision series.
Intrigued by BouIIe's noveI,|SerIing began adapting it into a screenpIay.
But the chaIIenge|proved harder than anticipated.
After nearIy a year,|he compIeted more than 30 drafts.
With paintings and script in hand,...
..Jacobs spent the next year pitching|Planet of the Apes to aII of the major studios.
But everyhere he went,|he was met with the same response:
No.
Rejected and ridicuIed,...
..Jacobs reached back to his roots|as a pubIicist.
He knew that onIy one thing got HoIIywood|executives excited about a project.
A star.
On June 5th, 1965,|Arthur made an appointment...
..with one of the most respected|and powerfuI actors in HoIIywood:
CharIton Heston, a veteran of bIockbusters|Iike The Ten Commandments,...
..and an Academy Award winner|for his performance in Ben Hur.
I was approached by Arthur Jacobs with|Pierre BouIIe's noveI Planet of the Apes...
..and a remarkabIe series of paintings of|scenes in the picture that Arthur envisioned.
And it attracted me. I Iiked the idea of taIking|monkeys and the different civiIisation...
..and it was simpIy|a marveIIous idea for a movie.
(Roddy McDowall) Heston aIso recommended|a director, FrankIin Schaffner,...
..having just finished|a fiIm with him caIIed The War Lord.
(Charlton Heston) So Arthur aIready had two|key ingredients - a Iead actor and a director.
And he wouId go from studio to studio|and they wouId say...
..''What are you taIking about?|Spaceships? TaIking monkeys?''
''You're outta your mind!|That's Saturday-morning seriaIs!''
(Roddy McDowall)|Their reIuctance isn't hard to imagine.
Looks like the real thing.
Up to that time, actors in ape costumes...
..were more often found|in Iow-budget B-pictures...
..and tended to be|more IaughabIe than beIievabIe.
But, despite the obstacIes,...
..Jacobs persevered.
FinaIIy Richard Zanuck, who then ran Fox,|having just taken it over from his father,...
..said ''You know,|Iet's have a meeting on this.''
(Zanuck) I'd made a picture, too,|with Arthur at that time...
..and we signed him|to a muItipIe-picture deaI.
So he presented the script, which needed|a Iot of work, with these sketches...
..and gave me a smaII pitch on it...
..and I read it over the weekend|and was captivated by it.
But I had some reservations.
Dick Zanuck said ''These monkeys, they're|reaIIy gonna be actors, right? In makeup?''
''Not reaI monkeys.''|We said ''WeII, sure, of course.''
And he said ''What if|peopIe Iaugh at the makeups?''
You know,|it couId be some very humorous idea,...
..if not done properIy.
And I asked him...
..to make this test.
(Roddy McDowall) On March 8th, 1966, Arthur|and his team went to Fox and shot the test.
We erected ajury-rigged set.
The whoIe test cost $5,000,...
..which was the Iimit Dick wouId give us.
Good evening, Mr Thomas.
Feeling fiine, l hope?
Considering l've been kept in a cage|for six weeks, l'm fiine. Yes.
Good.
The test featured CharIton Heston...
..and HoIIywood Iegend Edward G Robinson|as the orangutan Ieader, Dr Zaius.
Man here is an animal.
Man here was an animal.|He had no civilisation.
He wore no clothes, he thought|no thoughts, he spoke no language.
Just a few feet from this tent,|you found a cemetery.
Built and fiilled by a civilised race.
A race which, according to you, never got|beyond a crawl and a couple of grunts.
You found more than a cemetery, Doctor.|You found a question.
Which came fiirst? The chicken or the egg?|The ape or the man?
Dr Xaius? You'd better take a look at this.
We found it in some kind of artifiicial shaft.
Look cIoseIy and you might|recognise James BroIin...
..pIaying the chimpanzee CorneIius.
What do you think you've found,|Mr Cornelius?
Not found, Doctor. Lost.|And l'm afraid that would be a birthright.
Mama!
Mama!
They had a language.
While we swung from trees,...
..they had a language.
Well, you were right, Mr Thomas.|We have uncovered a question.
Now we must unearth an answer.
lf man had a civilisation here,|what happened to it?
You'd better go and supervise|the preparations for our departure.
(Roddy McDowall)|The makeup was the work of Ben Nye,...
..the head of Fox's makeup department.
AIthough primitive, it did the trick.
It proved that...
..the idea couId work. It wasn't IaughabIe.
(Roddy McDowall) After screening the test,|Zanuck gave Jacobs the green Iight...
..he had Iong been waiting for.
Planet of the Apes wouId, at Iast,|become a reaIity.
Planet of the Apes was scheduIed|to begin fiIming in the spring of 1967,...
..Ieaving the fiImmakers|with onIy seven months to prepare,...
..an uncomfortabIy short time|for such an ambitious production.
AIthough there was stiII some|dissatisfaction with the script,...
..everyone agreed that the biggest chaIIenge|was the ape makeup.
Ben Nye's test had been a good start,...
..but a makeup artist was needed|with experience in prosthetics,...
..Iightweight Iatex appIiances that couId be|mouIded and used for Iong periods of time.
A caII went out, and the man|who answered it was John Chambers.
Chambers was a former WorId War Two|medicaI technician...
..who had begun his career|working in a veterans' hospitaI,...
..designing prosthetic Iimbs and|faciaI restorations for injured soIdiers.
In the earIy 1950s, he moved to CaIifornia,...
..beIieving his unique skiIIs|wouId prove a vaIuabIe asset...
..to the newIy emerging teIevision industry.
His skiII with prosthetics soon put him|at the top of his profession.
Within a decade, he was deveIoping creature|makeups for shows Iike...
..The Munsters, The Outer Limits,...
..and Lost in Space.
He even designed Mr Spock's famous ears|for the Star Trek teIevision series.
Chambers was innovative, cIever and quick.
SkiIIs that wouId be put to the test...
..when he began working on|Planet of the Apes in January 1967.
The task was formidabIe.
Chambers had to design appIiances...
..that couId turn over 200 human beings|into waIking, taIking apes,...
..do it for under $1 miIIion...
..and make it happen|in Iess than four months.
When I saw the test fiIm,|I thought it was very good,...
..for what they had just tried offhand,...
..without any experimenting.
When you do peopIe Iike that,...
..you have to be very carefuI that|you don't make the audience Iaugh at you,...
..but Iaugh aIong with you.
(Roddy McDowall) With Fox's makeup Iab|at his disposaI, Chambers got down to work.
The first order of business|was to soIve the technicaI chaIIenges.
The makeup needed to suggest|reaIistic mouth movements.
The appIiances worked more|with the faciaI muscIes,...
..showing the animation through the...
..actor creating|the over-extensive smiIe or taIk.
(Roddy McDowall) Surrounding himseIf|with taIented artists and newcomers,...
..Chambers worked around the cIock.
And extras were hired just to sit in|for numerous makeup tests.
Arthur Jacobs caIIed me one day and he said|''We're not gettin' anywhere.''
''We gotta get goin'.''|He said ''See if you can heIp those guys.''
I said ''Anybody ever thought of...
..actuaIIy Iooking at an ape?''
He said ''Yeah. If you think you can|get us an ape, we'd Iove to see it.''
So I went back to Arthur|and I said ''They need an ape.''
He said ''Get 'em one.''
The next day I waIk into makeup with|a chimpanzee, and these guys went crazy!
(Roddy McDowall) Next, design choices were|made to differentiate various types of apes.
Chimps, who were sympathetic|to man in the story,...
..were made to Iook|a IittIe more human in appearance.
The goriIIas represented the ape miIitary...
..and were given faces much fiercer|than their reaI-Iife counterparts.
And the aristocratic orang-outangs|were given a more nobIe visage.
What Chambers was creating for|Planet of the Apes was not onIy ingenious,...
..it was breaking new ground.
The actors actuaIIy were abIe to express|emotion through those makeups.
It's kinda tough.|And John Chambers made it work.
WhiIe John Chambers Iaboured|on the makeup design,...
..Arthur Jacobs turned his attention|to the script.
Rod SerIing's screenpIay had remained|faithfuI to the originaI noveI,...
..and depicted|a technoIogicaIIy advanced society.
But the production team began to fear|that the apes were too evoIved.
Futuristic heIicopters and cars|wouId be too expensive to fiIm.
The earIy designs were|very high-tech civiIisation,...
..which meant you had to design aII kinds|of speciaI vehicIes and so on. And buiIdings.
And Frank said|''I don't have enough budget as it is.''
He said ''Why don't we say|it's a very primitive society...
..and they use horse and wagons|and very primitive buiIdings?''
And that's what we did.
(Roddy McDowall) After deciding on a more|rustic and cost-efficient ape society,...
..Jacobs contacted|screenwriter MichaeI WiIson.
WiIson was an Academy Award winner|who had earIier coIIaborated...
..on the screen adaptation of Pierre BouIIe's|The Bridge on the River Kwai.
(Mort Abrahams) Mike WiIson did a rewrite|which was very cIose to being right.
We were aIready deaIing|with a science fiction... centraI idea.
And I had Iearned, because I'd done|a Iot of science fiction things on teIevision,...
..that you cannot present too many...|science fiction ideas,...
..and have them work,|unIess you had characters.
BeIievabIe human...|or characters with human responses.
And we couIdn't contain aII the science|fiction that Pierre had envisioned.
And we had to simpIify it.
(Roddy McDowall) As it took shape,...
..production designer WiIIiam Creber began|designing the more primitive ape society.
I needed to come up with some|ape unearthIy architecture,...
..and so I Iooked at aII the books I couId find|of... you know, to be inspired.
And I found in Turkey there's|a trogIodyte city carved into a mountain.
And I Iiked the shapes and that was|a very strange pIace. And that was it.
It was Iike ''That's what we're gonna do.|I don't know how.''
But we had our meeting with the director|and Arthur and they said ''Yeah!''
(Roddy McDowall)|With the start of fiIming drawing near,...
..the production was hit by the unexpected|Ioss of actor Edward G Robinson.
Voicing concerns over|the Iengthy makeup process,...
..he decided to withdraw|from the roIe of Dr Zaius.
When we got to make the picture and|we said ''Eddy, we gotta have a go'',...
..he said ''Guys, I can't do it.''
He said ''My heart's shot.''|He said ''I'm too oId.''
And he said ''That makeup|just drove me crazy.''
He said ''I couIdn't possibIy do that,|day after day.'' He said ''I gotta pass.''
(Roddy McDowall)|Studio executives were aIso concerned,...
..this time over the fiIm's escaIating budget.
On ApriI 28th, onIy three weeks|before fiIming was set to begin,...
..the studio cut the production's|55-day shooting scheduIe by ten days.
AII aspects of the production were affected...
..with the exception of the makeup|and wardrobe budget,...
..which remained at aImost|one miIIion doIIars.
Jacobs and the studio finaIIy settIed|on a budget of $5.8 miIIion.
And, on May 21st, 1967,...
..Planet of the Apes|went before the cameras...
..and HoIIywood history|was about to be made.
ln less than an hour we'll fiinish|our sixth month out of Cape Kennedy.
The earth has aged nearly 700 years|since we left it.
While we've aged hardly at all.
Seen from out here, space is... boundless.
lt squashes a man's ego.
l feel lonely.
l leave the 20th century with no regrets.|But... one more thing:
Does man, that marvel of the universe, that|glorious paradox who sent me to the stars,...
..still make war against his brother?
FoIIowing a proIogue estabIishing|the character of astronaut George TayIor,...
..the fiIm's opening sequence|depicted a dramatic spaceship crash.
Striving for reaIism,|FrankIin Schaffner and WiIIiam Creber...
..came up with a simpIe|yet effective visuaI approach.
I convinced Frank to do it subjective,...
..as though you were Iooking out|the front of the spaceship.
A whoIe montage|of kind of tumbIing, crashing.
You just see the hurtIing at the water.
And then the screen goes bIack,|and when it comes up,...
..the camera puIIs back,|you're inside the spaceship.
She's sinking! Dodge! Read the atmosphere.
(Roddy McDowall)|To show the astronauts' escape,...
..a fuII-size mock-up of the ship's nose|section was constructed out of pIywood.
It was 24 feet Iong or Ionger, and we took that|to Lake PoweII and I anchored it in the Iake.
Blow the hatch!
Abandon ship!
So those scenes with the guys|comin' out of it, we rigged it aII.
They couId get inside and jump off of it.
It was in 300 feet of water.
(Roddy McDowall) A miniature|and a detaiIed matte painting...
..were used for the shots of the sinking ship.
Going.
Going.
Gone.
OK, we're here to stay.
(Roddy McDowall)|The first sequences to actuaIIy be fiImed...
..depicted the surviving astronauts'|trek across a desert wiIderness.
They were shot in a remote area surrounding|the CoIorado River in Utah and Arizona...
..by director of photography Leon Shamroy.
The Iocation was desoIate and treacherous.
Camera and sound equipment arrived|by heIicopter, foot and muIe-pack team.
Jeff Burton, who pIayed astronaut Dodge,|fainted from the heat,...
..which often reached 120 degrees.
You're no seeker.
You thought life on Earth was meaningless.|You despise people.
So what did you do? You ran out.
No, no. lt's not like that, Landon.
l'm a seeker too.
But my dreams aren't like yours. l can't help|thinking somewhere in the universe...
..there has to be something|better than man. Has to be.
(Mort Abrahams) At the beginning of the fiIm,|IittIe figures move across the Iandscape.
The shooting went for days and days.
I said ''Frank, why are you so particuIar|about the opening sequence?''
He said ''It sets the mood, the tone|and the objective of the fiIm.''
We're going.|We don't know where we're going.
We have no idea of what's going to happen.
Scarecrows?
Let's see.
And that sets the body of the fiIm.
To hell with the scarecrows!
(Roddy McDowall) Most of the fiIming was|at the Fox Ranch, where this scene was shot.
- Whoo-hoo!|- Hey! Yay! Yay!
This swimming hoIe was originaIIy|created for Arthur Jacobs' Dr Dolittle.
But the waterfaII was enhanced|for this production,...
..courtesy of two dozen|carefuIIy hidden fire hoses.
Taylor, look!
ObviousIy the intent here was to show|the astronauts from the touchdown...
..very graduaIIy going into the green area.
(Taylor) They look more or less human|but l think they're mute.
The Iogistics were tough.|For exampIe, we had to grow a fieId.
The Iocation we seIected on the ranch|was perfectIy equipped to grow corn.
lf this is the best they've got around here,|in six months we'll be running this planet.
(William Creber)|FrankIin wanted the corn six feet high.
(roaring)
We had, Iike, ten weeks.
We had sprinkIers, you know,|goin' 24 hours a day watering it.
And we'd fertiIise the whoIe fieId|with speciaI fertiIiser and, you know,...
..everything to pump this stuff up|because of the amount of time we had.
And about three days before shooting,|we had eight feet.
So I went back to FrankIin Schaffner|on the set.
I said ''Hey, Frank, we got the corn. It's|gonna be eight feet.'' He said ''I said six feet.''
And I said ''What do you want me to do?''|He says ''Mow it at six feet'',...
..you know, then smiIed and puffed his cigar.|That was his sense of humour.
He destroyed that fieId of corn.
(Roddy McDowall) The cornfieId hunt|offered one of the most powerfuI...
..and disturbing sequences.
That sequence reaIIy had to grip you...
..and convince you right away|what you were gonna see...
..was going to be extraordinary,...
..was going to be shocking, was going to be|unIike anything you'd ever seen before.
I knew right away we'd made|the right decision with Schaffner...
..when I saw how he was shooting|that sequence. He hit it.
(Roddy McDowall) HeIping to create|an eerie, otherworIdIy atmosphere...
..was the experimentaI music score|composed by Jerry GoIdsmith.
GoIdsmith utiIised unusuaI instruments,|Iike metaI mixing bowIs,...
..a ram's horn,...
..and a BraziIian cuica,|which couId recreate eight vocaIisations.
At the concIusion of the hunt,...
..TayIor is taken captive.
- Smile.|- (all chuckle)
Now a prisoner of the apes,...
..TayIor attempts to make contact|with a sympathetic femaIe chimpanzee...
..named Dr Zira.
Well, Bright Eyes. ls our throat feeling better?
That Bright Eyes is remarkable.
He keeps trying to form words.
You know what they say.|Human see, human do.
Zira was pIayed by kim Hunter,...
..best known for her Academy|Award-winning performance as SteIIa...
..in A Streetcar Named Desire.
My agent sent me a copy of the script,...
..wanted to know whether I was interested,|shouId he pursue it.
And I thought it was fascinating.
EventuaIIy it came through and they fIew me|out to LA for the costume tests.
So I figured I'd be going|to the costume department, right?
No. Went to John Chambers' department.
And I couIdn't beIieve it. What we had|to go through to get aII of that on.
It took about five hours, the first time.
Not onIy in appIiances,|but aII the other stuff that went with it.
The wig. We had fur on our hands.
I had to wear brown naiI poIish.
The onIy thing that was not covered|in some way or another were my eyebaIIs.
We then, you know, did tests|out in front of camera.
PeopIe asked me a Iot ''As an actress, didn't|it bother you that they couIdn't see you?''
WeII, they saw the character I was pIaying.|That's aII I care about.
Julius!
I Ioved the character - Dr Zira.
- l told you what you'd get!|- Julius, don't hurt him!
And I thought the script had much to say.
Julius!
Everybody seems afraid around those|creatures that are different from us.
Natural-born thieves, aren't they?
Zira, as a psychoIogist, of course,|was interested in finding out about them.
Get me a collar and leash.
(Roddy McDowall) Another Ieading|ape roIe was that of CorneIius,...
..Zira's archaeoIogist husband.
What about your theory?
The existence of someone|like Taylor might prove it.
Do you want to get my head chopped off?.
A missing link between|the unevolved primate...
- ..and the ape.|- (Taylor bangs table)
- Touchy, isn't he?|- Hm.
''l am not a missing link.''
Well, if he were a missing link, the sacred|scrolls wouldn't be worth their parchment.
Well, maybe they're not.
(laughs) Oh, no, thank you.|l'm not going to get into that battle.
(Roddy McDowall) Jacobs personaIIy|offered me the part of CorneIius...
..on a pIane fIight back from London.
I accepted immediateIy,|intrigued by the technicaI chaIIenge...
..of acting inside the eIaborate ape makeup.
I remember Roddy McDowaII saying that|the trick for acting behind those makeups...
..was to overact with your face.
Then it wouId bIeed through the makeup.
(Kim Hunter) If we didn't|keep the appIiances moving,...
..they began to Iook Iike masks.
I got very used to|making them move aII the time.
We were doing aII kinds of crazy things with|our face aII the time, to keep them moving.
Roddy and I had to kiss.|And we had no sense of feeIing.
We had to reaIIy work hard to make it Iook|as if we were properIy kissing each other...
..without squishing the appIiances.
Cornelius!
Man has no understanding.
He can be taught a few simple tricks.|Nothing more.
To suggest that we can learn anything|about the simian nature...
..from the study of man is sheer nonsense.
(Roddy McDowall) One of the pivotaI|ape characters in the fiIm was Dr Zaius,...
..the eIder orangutan statesman.
Inheriting the roIe|after Edward G Robinson's departure...
..was the noted Shakespearean stage|and screen actor, Maurice Evans.
(Richard Xanuck) PeopIe said|''Why spend aII the money on the actors?''
''You never see their faces.''
To be convincing,...
..and for the idea to work,|we had to have great actors.
PeopIe weren't expecting|for a science fiction picture...
..to find that kind of taIent.
And I think that was surprising|and impressive to audiences.
And it certainIy Ient|to the credibiIity of the piece.
You hear their voices, and it's their deIivery.|That was the key - unmistakabIe. Voices.
Man is a nuisance.
He eats up his food supplies in the forest,...
..then migrates to our green belts|and ravages our crops.
The sooner he is exterminated the better.
The roIe of TayIor...
..was one of the most physicaIIy|demanding of CharIton Heston's career.
In Planet of the Apes he's running around|haIf-naked haIf the time.
He's getting beaten up by goriIIas.
He's burned, he's aImost Iobotomised,|castrated, aImost kiIIed.
CharIton Heston is not having|his best day on Planet of the Apes.
If you Iook at a Iot|of CharIton Heston's earIier fiIms,...
..he's often pIaying|these Iarger-than-Iife characters.
And he's a tremendous hero|and vision of strength.
But in Planet of the Apes,|aII that's out the window,...
and the audience's|point of identification changed.
The CharIton Heston hero,|who used to be counted on to win the day,...
..aII of a sudden is|in a much more precarious position.
(ape screams)
So there's this sense of things aren't as|secure and stabIe as we thought they were.
(gunshot)
Actors shouId be abIe|to accept the circumstances,...
..the premises of|whatever project they're doing.
But it was a very unusuaI|acting chaIIenge. PainfuI.
So I couId run apparentIy barefoot -
they had rubber booties|that were mouIded to be feet -
and that protected me from thorns.
We were doing some stuff|where I'm running through the shrubbery...
..and peopIe are throwing things at me.
And I said to Joe Canutt, who doubIed me,...
..''WouId you mind just doing these Iast|coupIe of run-throughs?'' He says ''No.''
I said ''What do you mean?'' He said ''You've|been working aII afternoon in poison ivy.''
And so I was! He says|''You'II notice it tomorrow.'' And I did!
(Roddy McDowall) Exhausted|by the reIentIess scheduIe...
..and subjected to|extremes in temperature,...
..Heston came down with a bad case of the fIu|just before shooting this scene.
FortunateIy, the actor's hoarse voice|actuaIIy enhanced his performance.
- Taylor! Why did you run away?|- Security police.
l'm in charge of this man.
He is in the custody|of the ministry of science.
Take your stinking paws off me,...
..you damn dirty ape!
No one'll listen to me.
Only you.
You.
Nova.
You... Nova.
No...
Yeah. Me Tarzan, you Jane.
(Roddy McDowall) The roIe of Nova,|TayIor's mate, went to IoveIy Linda Harrison.
Linda, a former beauty queen,...
..had made an appearance|in the originaI Apes test fiIm as Zira.
I was under contract at Fox and...
..I was aIso dating the head of the studio,|Richard Zanuck.
And he said ''I think there might be|a part for you in it.''
So I eventuaIIy got the part of Nova.
Everybody that was invoIved in it,...
..they aII reaIised that I was a neophyte.
I was, Iike, 21 years oId.|So they kind of took me under their wing.
Since I hadn't done acting that much,|I think I went instinctiveIy with her.
I thought about animaI instincts.
The way she wouId move and react|wouId be more Iike an animaI wouId react,...
..more from fear,...
Where are you taking her?
..and wouId seem to be|what the director wanted.
Damn you! You hairy scum!
Shut up, you freak!
- Julius, you...|- l said shut up!
lt's a madhouse!
A madhouse!
(Roddy McDowall)|The Ape City and its surroundings...
..were constructed on the Fox MaIibu ranch.
Urethane foam was just getting started|in the fiIm business...
..and to be abIe to spray this foam|in shapes and carve it.
So we dreamed up a system...
..where we wouId scuIpt the buiIding|out of penciI-rod metaI and weId it aII up.
And then we wouId cover the buiIding with|cardboard and then get inside that structure...
..and spray the foam against the cardboard|and Iet it set up...
..and then peeI the cardboard off so it Ieft|this sort of cement, but in these odd forms.
And I remember coming across an articIe|by MIT a year or two Iater,...
..how they'd come up with this system,|and we'd aIready put it in the movies.
Do you acknowledge kinship|with any of these creatures?
- With one of them, yes.|- ldentify him, then. Speak to him.
Landon?
Landon.
You did it.
You cut up his brain, you bloody baboon!
(president) Stop him!
Comparative to the makeup for the apes,...
..there were other|makeup chaIIenges on this fiIm.
Take him inside!
They're smaII things, but I wanted|to make sure they were reaIistic.
For instance, there was this one astronaut.|The apes took him and gave him a Iobotomy.
I went to my medicaI histories|and books of surgery.
And I knew what the Iobotomy scars|Iooked Iike. Minor things Iike that.
SmaII, but done right.
(Roddy McDowall) But it was the ape makeup|that created the biggest IogisticaI probIems.
Up to 80 makeup artists, hairstyIists|and wardrobe personneI...
..were required for scenes|invoIving as many as 200 apes.
The number of craftsman utiIised resuIted|in other HoIIywood fiIms being deIayed...
..due to the unavaiIabiIity|of quaIified makeup artists.
The principaI actors|got new appIiances every day.
So I taught everyone|how to run the foam rubber.
I had 'em workin' night and day|for some weeks,...
..to run enough rubber|so we had enough to go around.
(Roddy McDowall)|EventuaIIy the makeup process,...
..which had originaIIy taken up to six hours,...
..was streamIined to a mere three.
But I had peopIe|that I had trained in my Iaboratory,...
..and it fIowed just Iike an assembIy Iine.
They knew what they were doing.
(Roddy McDowall) Actors had refrigerated|traiIers to preserve appIiances between shots.
We had to be very carefuI. In those days,|of course, many peopIe smoked.
And so we were aII presented|with cigarette hoIders...
..to keep the cigarettes|far enough away from us.
And had to Iook into the mirror as we ate|so we didn't destroy the appIiances at Iunch.
(John Chambers) The actor's chin|wouId pop Ioose if it was overworked.
So we used to say,|when Iunch wouId come,...
..''Don't get any hard foods that you have|to chew. Get miIkshakes, soft foods.''
And when they'd come back from Iunch,...
..the Iower chin'd be Iayin' down,|and there was a...
..a sac in there, you know - a space.
And there wouId be peas and carrots in 'em.
I didn't mind. It didn't take much time|to put 'em back on.
(Roddy McDowall) Many on the set noticed|another unusuaI Iunchtime occurrence.
There was kind of a seIf-segregation.|The goriIIas wouId aII eat at one tabIe,...
..the chimpanzees wouId eat at another,|and the orangutans wouId eat at another.
I have no expIanation for that whatsoever.|But it was true.
The goriIIas sort of hung together|and the chimps did and...
I didn't reaIIy taIk to Maurice Evans much,|as a matter of fact,...
..whiIe we were on the set together.
And I knew him fairIy weII but...|he was an orangutan. One of those others.
The actors were never conscious of it.
They just drifted to their companions.|To their...
To the same...
..groupings as in the fiIm.
Fascinating.
(Roddy McDowall) IronicaIIy, the issues|of cIass separation and prejudice...
..are one of the fiIm's main themes.
You promised to speak to Dr Xaius about me.
l did. You know how|he looks down his nose at chimpanzees.
The ape's society is given|a distinct cIass structure.
The orangutans are the poIiticians.
Learned judges, my case is simple.
lt is based on our fiirst article of faith.
That the Almighty created the ape|in his own image.
The chimpanzees are the scientists|and inteIIectuaIs.
l discovered evidence...
..of a simian culture that existed|long before the sacred scrolls were written.
The goriIIas are the Iabourers|and the miIitary enforcers.
It was an aIIegoricaI device...
..used by the fiImmakers to make some|pointed observations about human society.
Why are all apes created equal?
Some apes, it seems,|are more equal than others.
MichaeI WiIson said|the key point of Planet of the Apes...
..was that it was more about|the human predicament than about apes.
When WiIson wrote|the finaI Planet of the Apes script,...
..he brought much more of a poIiticaI edge|to it, refIecting his own experience:
being bIackIisted during the McCarthy era.
The question is: have you ever been|a member of the Communist Party?
You refuse to answer that question?
- l have told you that l will...|- All right.
- Stand away from the stand.|- ..fiight for the Bill of Rights...
Take this man away from the stand.
- My name is Taylor!|- Bailiff! Silence the animal!
ProbabIy the best exampIe of WiIson's|poIiticaI perspective is the triaI scene,...
..where basicaIIy it's an inquisition that's heId|against Zira and CorneIius and TayIor.
By your leave, Mr President,...
..this tribunal has not yet defiined|the purpose for this inquiry.
At the very least, this man has the right to|know whether there's a charge against him.
The accused is a non-ape|and therefore has no rights under ape law.
Then why is he called the accused?
Your Honours must think him|guilty of something.
Let us warn our friends...
..that they endanger their own careers|by defending this animal.
(Richard Xanuck) I saw this|more as an adventure piece.
I didn't see it as any kind of breakthrough|piece, either poIiticaIIy, sociaIIy...
PeopIe have dissected it and added|a Iot of Iayers of meaning to it...
..that we... at Ieast I, as the head|of the studio, never thought of.
You didn't want the audience|to go up the aisIe...
..thinking anything|but that they'd been entertained.
Maybe I was... in the dark.
Maybe there was|some kind of hidden message...
..that MichaeI WiIson and Arthur Jacobs|and these guys were trying to sneak through.
But I never saw it Iike that at aII.
Without ever saying it,...
..we were doing a poIiticaI fiIm.
We never even said it|very IoudIy among ourseIves...
..because at that time we were in Vietnam.
And a poIiticaI picture was|the Iast kind of fiIm that the studio wanted.
The country was having|very serious probIems.
(Eric Greene) We had|the assassination of John kennedy.
We had the assassination of civiI rights|Ieaders Iike Martin Luther king Jr.
Race riots.
There were a Iot of shocks|to America's image of itseIf...
..and to America's sense of itseIf|as a kind of stabIe democracy.
Dr Xaius,...
..l know who l am.
But who are you?
How in hell did this upside-down|civilisation get started?
Huh! You may well call it upside-down,...
..since you occupy its lowest level.|And deservedly so.
Science fiction can be a way|of presenting controversiaI materiaI...
..without the materiaI|being attacked as controversiaI...
..because it is sIightIy disguised.
You can hear ''AII humans Iook aIike|to most apes'' or ''Human see, human do''.
And you can Iaugh it off if you want to.
But at the same time|you can Iet it sink in as far as:
what is this saying about|how groups interact...
..and how peopIe in power|view peopIe who aren't in power?
You can cut pieces out of me.|You've got the power.
Return this creature to his cage.
But you do it out of fear!
Remember that! Because you're afraid of me!|What are you afraid of, Doctor?
(Roddy McDowall) But serious|thematic content on the screen...
..did not prohibit a sense of fun on the set.
(Charlton Heston) I remember|when we did the courtroom scene...
..where they take the fiIthy IoincIoth.
These rags he's wearing|give off a stench that's offensive.
I think that was my first nude scene,...
..and when they were setting up the shot,...
..one of the coffee girIs passing coffee|around waIked behind me and said...
..''Mm, nice buns!''
The Iighting peopIe|wouId speak of us as monkeys,...
..and then they'd kid us with...|bringing us bananas.
I got to hate bananas|during the course of the fiIm!
There was a famous day when the goriIIas|were being made up at the studio...
..and then hauIed out to Fox Ranch|in a station wagon.
And they took over from the driver one day|and they pushed him down in the back seat.
So you have this goriIIa|drivin' the station wagon down PCH,...
..you know, stoppin' traffic.
(Roddy McDowall) An off-the-cuff gag|on the set between Heston and Schaffner...
..resuIted in one of the fiIm's|most famous scenes.
Let us assume|that the prisoner's story is false.
But if he did not come from another planet,...
..then surely he sprang from our own.
WhiIe shooting this sequence,|the starjoked...
..that the director shouId fiIm the ape tribunaI|performing the oIdest of simian cIichs.
l have found no physiological defect|to explain why humans are mute.
- Objection!|- Sustained!
(Zira) Their speech organs are adequate.|The flaw lies not in anatomy, but in the brain.
- Objection!|- Sustained!
(Mort Abrahams)|Frank said ''I want you to see this.''
This was the examination|before the three judges.
And of course, when the executives|Iooked at it, they said ''Oh, my God!''
And Frank said ''You think it's too much?''|Then of course it appears in the finaI version.
(Roddy McDowall) Schaffner had|a very specific vision for the fiIm.
And its success owed much to his|considerabIe abiIities as a director.
He was a visionary.|He was underrated as a director.
This reaIIy was his first step up.
We took a chance, reaIIy,|because he hadn't done anything.
At Ieast, I hadn't seen anything that indicated|that he couId give it scope and meaning.
And that's what it's aII about. There's a Iot|of guys that are technicaIIy competent,...
..but don't have a reaI vision,|or enthusiasm. But he did.
(ape) Grab him!
(Roddy McDowall) As the fiIm draws|to its concIusion, TayIor escapes.
- Who are you?|- So you can talk!
l'm Dr Xira's nephew.|This abduction was her idea.
Cornelius!
He is pursued to an archaeoIogicaI site|in the forbidden zone.
- Lucius, don't fiire at them!|- You're all under arrest!
lf there's any more shooting, Dr Xaius,|you'll be the fiirst to go. You can count on it.
There, an amazing discovery is made.
One that chaIIenges the ape's dominant roIe.
You say these things were found|at the same level as that doll?
Whoever owned them|must have been in pretty bad shape.
He wore false teeth.
And eyeglasses.
l don't say he was a man|like l knew at home,...
..but he must have been a close relative.|He had all the same weaknesses.
He was a weak,...
..fragile animal.
But he was here before you...
- ..and he was better than you are.|- That's lunacy!
(doll) Mama!
(doll) Mama!
Dr Xaius, would an ape make a human doll...
..that talks?
It was a confIict of civiIisations, if you Iike.
What interested me particuIarIy about it...
..was the dichotomy of TayIor's character.
He was a harsh, embittered man...
..who had become so disenchanted|with his civiIisation...
..that he IiteraIIy Ieaves the earth.
You who are reading me now|are a different breed.
l hope a better one.
And then he finds himseIf|in an aIien pIanet popuIated by apes.
And he is aIone|required to defend humankind.
l oughta kill you right now.
Come on!
It's an interesting dichotomy and I...
..I tried to get as much out of it as I couId.
(Roddy McDowall) The finaI scenes|were shot on the CaIifornia coastIine.
At Zuma Beach near MaIibu.
Here, TayIor manages to subdue Dr Zaius|and they face off in one finaI confrontation.
Don't try to follow us.|l'm pretty handy with this.
Of that l'm sure.
All my life l've awaited your coming|and dreaded it, like death itself.
Why?
l've terrifiied you from the fiirst, Doctor.|l still do.
You're afraid of me and you hate me. Why?
Because you're a man.
And you're right.
l have always known about man.
From the evidence, l believe his wisdom|must walk hand in hand with his idiocy.
His emotions must rule his brain.
He must be a warlike creature|who gives battle...
..to everything around him, even himself.
What evidence?|There were no weapons in that cave.
The forbidden zone was once a paradise.
Your breed made a desert of it... ages ago.
lt still doesn't give me the why.
A planet where apes evolved from men.
There's gotta be an answer.
Don't look for it, Taylor.
You may not like what you fiind.
The fiIm's ending was a source of|controversy for the studio and fiImmakers.
Shot, but Iater deIeted, was a sequence|reveaIing Nova's pregnancy.
We decided that the structure|wouId be badIy affected,...
..changing her situation to a specific|such as her being pregnant,...
..cos you have to foIIow through.
If she's pregnant,|that becomes an eIement of the story.
And now we're off to...|something eIse entireIy.
If TayIor and Nova have a chiId,|wiII that chiId be abIe to speak?
WiII that chiId have the same kind|of inteIIigence as TayIor?
What if they breed a new race of inteIIigent|humans? What couId happen then?
But when you take that notion out,...
..then this whoIe question about humans|being abIe to have some kind of rebirth...
..gets eIiminated, because reaIIy they weren't|teIIing a story of possibIe saIvation.
(Roddy McDowall)|The ending that was used...
..had its genesis in one of Rod SerIing's|earIy script drafts.
It proved to be one of the most surprising,...
..memorabIe and chiIIing cIimaxes|in motion-picture history.
Oh, my God!
l'm back!
l'm home.
All the time, it was...
We fiinally really did it.
You maniacs!
You blew it up!
God damn you!
God damn you all to hell!
(Eric Greene) That finaI image is one of|the most memorabIe scenes of '60s cinema.
The American hero is standing in front|of this faIIen icon of American expectation.
And it reaIIy speaks to|this sense of aII America's aspirations,...
..the seIf-image that we had as defenders|of Iiberty and the beacon of hope.
AII of that now is Iaid waste - IiteraIIy.|It's in ruins.
It was reaIIy designed|not to send a message,...
..but to throw in a big surprise,|from an audience standpoint.
So they say ''Oh, my goodness!|Look where we've been aII this time!''
(Roddy McDowall) The haunting image|of a decayed Statue of Liberty...
..entaiIs some interesting|technicaI chaIIenges.
We found a Iocation at the end of Zuma|Beach, which was about the right scaIe,...
..and it had rocks with moss on 'em|on the end of the beach...
..that Iooked kind of Iike disintegrated...|bronze, or whatever.
So we integrated those rocks|with the base of the statue,...
..which was a painting by EmiI kosa,|who was chief matte artist at the studio.
And Frank was Iamenting that he|just didn't want to cut to the master shot.
He wanted to introduce the statue,|but you don't know what it is.
And so I had envisioned, you know,|being up on the bIuff on a doIIy track...
..and shooting down|over a foreground miniature.
And what it entaiIed was buiIding|the head and the torch, one haIf fuII-scaIe.
I had the grips buiId a tower...
..70 feet high...
..to get the right perspective.
Leon Shamroy was the cameraman|and Leon was cIose to 70,...
..and he Iooked at this 70-foot tower|and he says ''I'm not goin' up there.''
So he didn't go up there.
And the first assistant director was...|had acrophobia. He wasn't goin' up there.
Frank handed me the megaphone. He says|''You buiId it. I'II meet you at the top.''
So Frank and I went up and made the shot.|The rest was history.
(Roddy McDowall) Shooting was|compIeted on August 10th, 1967...
..with the production coming in|on time and on budget.
(trailer) Charlton Heston.
The world he fiinds out in the galaxy...
..will challenge every idea|you've ever had of civilisation.
A planet where man|is the lowest order of living things...
..and the superior beings are... apes.
(Roddy McDowall) Planet of the Apes had|its worId premiere on February 8th, 1968.
It was a box-office smash,|grossing over $26 miIIion...
..and reaching audiences of aII ages.
They build the cities,|make the laws. The Gods.
AduIts responded to its inteIIigent|script and first-rate performances.
Man has no understanding.
ChiIdren thriIIed to the fiIm's|adventure and fantasy eIements.
Twentieth Century Fox transforms|the motion-picture screen into...
The fiIm aIso found favour with critics,|who praised its uniqueness,...
..timeIy poIiticaI commentary|and entertainment vaIue.
Beyond your wildest dreams.
Planet of the Apes was nominated|for two Academy Awards.
Best Costume Design|and Best OriginaI Score.
But speciaI Academy recognition|was reserved...
..for the innovative|makeup wizard, John Chambers,...
..who was awarded a speciaI Oscar...
..for his outstanding achievement|on Planet of the Apes.
The award was presented to him|by WaIter Matthau...
..and friend.
lt's a madhouse!
lt's a madhouse! A madhouse!|lt's a madhouse!
Planet of the Apes had reached a pinnacIe|of success that no one couId have predicted.
It was now officiaIIy a phenomenon.
With audience interest at its peak, a meeting|was caIIed at Twentieth Century Fox...
..between the producers|and eIated studio executives.
Stan Huff, head of production, says|''You gotta do a sequeI.''
I said ''Stan, there's no way we can|do a sequeI. There's no pIace to go.''
I don't wanna do a thing on Mars.
He said ''You have to find a way.''
I had never thought of a sequeI.
At the time of Planet of the Apes,...
..no one was taIking sequeIs|very much, or at aII.
For Twentieth Century Fox,|at that period of time,...
..this started the notion|of recapturing the success of the first.
As thoughts inevitabIy turned|towards a sequeI,...
..the producers faced|an impossibIe chaIIenge.
That haIf-buried Statue of Liberty had|become a cinematic and cuIturaI miIestone,...
..and it cast a very Iong shadow.
How couId anyone go|beyond the fiIm's apocaIyptic vision?
How couId they go beyond|the Planet of the Apes?
With studio pressure mounting for a sequeI,...
..Jacobs returned to two of the men who had|heIped make the originaI fiIm so successfuI,...
..Rod SerIing and Pierre BouIIe.
During the next few months, both men|submitted a wide range of proposaIs.
Jacobs rejected them aII,...
..feeIing the concepts did not provide|the kind of visuaI shocks...
..that had made the originaI so successfuI.
Planet of the Apes was indeed|proving a hard act to foIIow...
..untiI associate producer Mort Abrahams|went to London...
..and met with Academy Award-winning|screenwriter and poet PauI Dehn.
Dehn was known for his work|on CoId War suspense thriIIers...
..Iike The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
He was aIso famous for cowriting|the James Bond cIassic, Goldfiinger.
I was in London on something eIse entireIy,|and met with PauI...
..and toId him frankIy I was having troubIe|with this deveIopment of this idea.
He said ''Let me toss it around.''
He caIIed me two or three days Iater and said|''I think I have an idea how to do this.''
He said ''Let me toss it around.''
He caIIed me two or three days Iater and said|''I think I have an idea how to do this.''
(Roddy McDowall) Working with Abrahams,...
..he submitted his first outIine|in September 1968.
CaIIed Planet of the Apes Revisited,...
..it contained many ideas that wouId|find their way into the finaI fiIm...
..and one that wouId not:
the conception of a haIf-ape, haIf-human|chiId, seen here in a rare screen test.
CuriousIy, the studio feared that|the impIied mating of species...
..couId Iose the fiIm a G rating|and take away their famiIy audience.
With FrankIin Schaffner aIready committed|to Fox's big-budget epic, Patton,...
..the job was given to veteran fiIm|and teIevision director Ted Post.
But just after Post signed to direct|the new Apes fiIm, he threatened to resign...
..when toId that CharIton Heston|was unwiIIing to return as TayIor.
I had toId Arthur that I don't think|that a sequeI wiII hoId...
..without the originaI star being in it.
And they took a IittIe bit of time|to scratch their heads about that...
..and finaIIy came up with a soIution which|hooked Chuck Heston back into the sequeI.
Dick Zanuck caIIed me. He said ''Chuck, we|have to do a sequeI. This fiIm is enormous.''
I said ''I don't wanna do a sequeI.|That's Iike the Andy Hardy series.''
And he said ''Chuck, I can't|make the sequeI if you're not in it.''
And I said ''WeII, you got me, Richard,...
..because we couIdn't have made this fiIm|if you hadn't given it a go.''
''So how about if I'm in the sequeI|but I get kiIIed in the opening scene,...
..and you pay me whatever you want|and we'II give it to a schooI or something?''
He said ''Ok, that's a deaI.'' Then,|as the script deveIoped, he caIIed and said...
..''Chuck, how about if we have you|disappear in the first scene...
..and then you're kiIIed in the Iast scene?''
And I said ''Yeah, I guess.|Ok, fine. What the heck.''
(Roddy McDowall) With the crisis resoIved,|the production team stiII faced a finaI hurdIe:
the studio's insistence on a reduced budget.
Since the reIease of the originaI Apes fiIm,...
..Fox had undergone|a troubIed financiaI period...
..where a string of big-budget musicaIs|had performed beIow expectations.
Among them, Arthur Jacobs' Dr Dolittle.
They had a coupIe of faiIures, and the board|of directors got very anxious about that.
They didn't want to invest any more|than they had to. So the order came down:
cut the budgets of every production|that was being made at that time.
SettIing on a budget of $3 miIIion|- bareIy haIf that of the originaI fiIm -
Beneath the Planet of the Apes|began fiIming in February 1969.
Don't look for it, Taylor.
You may not like what you fiind.
The story picked up|exactIy where the first fiIm Ieft off.
What will he fiind out there, Doctor?
His destiny.
TayIor rides off into the forbidden zone,|accompanied by Nova,...
..pIayed once again by Linda Harrison.
After encountering a series|of strange phenomenon,...
..TayIor mysteriousIy disappears.
A new Ieading man then takes centre stage:
Brent, the Ieader and Ione survivor of an|astronaut rescue team sent to find TayIor.
AIthough Burt ReynoIds was approached,...
..the producers uItimateIy cast|popuIar teIevision actor James Franciscus.
Hey!
No. No, no, l don't wanna hurt you. l...
l just wanna know where l am.
When Brent meets Nova, he reaIises she is|his onIy Iink to finding his Iost comrade.
Taylor!
ls he hurt? ls he alive?
I think they picked Jim because he was Iike|a version - a smaIIer version - of Heston.
They kinda Iooked aIike,|and a very strong voice and...
..took it very seriousIy.
You... take me... to Taylor.
(Roddy McDowall) Brent and Nova's search|brings them to Ape City,...
..most of which was stiII standing|at the Fox Studio Ranch,...
lt's a city of apes!
..aIIowing the fiImmakers to save|vaIuabIe doIIars on set construction.
The only thing|that counts in the end is power.
Naked, merciless force!
But budgetary constraints did become|evident in crowd scenes Iike this one...
..where the background apes were portrayed|by extras in puII-over masks.
A cost-cutting device|that proved a IittIe too obvious.
The roIe of the goriIIa miIitary Ieader,|GeneraI Ursus,...
..was originaIIy offered|to HoIIywood Iegend Orson WeIIes.
But when WeIIes decIined, the noted|character actor, James Gregory, stepped in...
..and gave a rousing performance.
The only good human...
..is a dead human!
Nova takes Brent into the city...
..and the audience is reintroduced|to some famiIiar ape faces:
Zira, once again pIayed by kim Hunter.
Taylor?
No, not... not Taylor. My name's Brent.
You... talked.
And Dr Zaius, pIayed by Maurice Evans.
As minister of science, it is my duty...
..to fiind out|whether some other form of life exists.
- Where are you going?|- lnto the forbidden zone, with Ursus.
As fate wouId have it, I was directing a fiIm|in EngIand at the time...
..and was unabIe|to reprise my roIe of CorneIius.
The part went instead|to British actor David Watson.
With the heIp of makeup, it was hoped that|the audiences wouIdn't notice the difference.
lf you are caught by the gorillas,|you must remember one thing.
- What's that?|- Never to speak.
As Brent and Nova go underground|in their search for TayIor,...
..the fiImmakers hoped to give audiences|an even more impressive visuaI...
..than the haIf-buried Statue of Liberty.
Their soIution:|bury the whoIe city of New York.
(William Creber) It was done aImost for free.
I got photos out of books...
..and kind of imagined|angIes that wouId work...
..and I wrote a Ietter|to the studio in New York...
..and asked them to specificaIIy|shoot these pictures.
We made big bIow-ups|and cut 'em up with a razor bIade...
..and then had the matte artist|kinda touch 'em up.
And that was our matte shots.
(Roddy McDowall)|Here, in the forgotten city,..
..Brent and Nova|encounter a mutant civiIisation.
GeneticaIIy aItered beings|who possess teIepathic powers.
Your lips... don't move...
..but l can hear.
l know what you're thinking.
To save costs, this scene was actuaIIy shot|on a set previousIy used in Fox's Hello Dolly.
- (rapid bleeps)|- No, wait! Wait a minute!
l can't understand you...
By the way, that's NataIie Trundy|pIaying the femaIe mutant, AIbina.
In reaI Iife, she was Mrs Arthur P Jacobs.
Are we to understand that|you were in the city of the apes?
- You're talking.|- Certainly we can talk.
lt's a primitive accomplishment.|We use it when we must.
When we sing to our God.
Another Hello Dolly set|was aIso transformed...
..into this chapeI, where the mutants|pray to a most unusuaI god.
The heavens declare the glory of the Bomb,...
..and the fiirmament showeth His handiwork.
- l reveal my inmost self unto my God.|- Unto my God.
The mutant society raised|some new and unique makeup chaIIenges...
..for director Ted Post|and makeup designer John Chambers.
(Chambers) It Iooked Iike tissue that was|destroyed by exposure to the atomic bomb.
It was chaIIenging,|how far we shouId create the mutation.
(Ted Post) In the makeup room, they showed|me aII the faces they had in mind...
..that wouId depict a mutant,...
..with CycIops one eye and three eyes,...
..with the ear here, the ear there.
Everything was kind ofjangIed, mangIed and|disjointed, etc. It Iooked terribIe to me.
So I Iooked at a book of anatomy,|Gray's Anatomy,...
..and saw a face that had been|stripped of the epidermis...
..and saw the dermaI region,|with the vesseIs and the nerves.
I said ''That's the kind of Iook|I think wouId make the mutants work for me.''
And they went ahead and made it that way.
O God, bless, we pray You...
May the blessing of the Bomb Almighty...
..our great army|and its supreme commander,...
..and the fellowship of the Holy Fallout...
..on the eve of a holy war...
..descend on us all this day...
Amen.
(Roddy McDowall) The subtIe|sociaI satire of the first Apes fiIm...
..gave way to more obvious and direct|poIiticaI commentary...
..as the apes moved cIoser to a pIanned|miIitary invasion of the forbidden zone.
It's the sense of this unnecessary war|that the peopIe are being Ied into,...
..that the IiberaI youth and many|of the inteIIectuaIs are opposed to,...
..but that the poIiticaI eIite winds up backing.
There's one scene|where there is a chimpanzee protest,...
..with the chimpanzees|carrying protest signs saying...
- Peace and freedom!|- Get 'em out of the way.
Very much Iike you wouId expect|to see at the anti-Vietnam raIIies.
Not one of the more subtIe uses|of poIiticaI commentary,...
..but a very direct paraIIeIing of|what was going on in the US at the time.
Advance!
(Roddy McDowall) The apes decIare war,...
..and a battIe between|mind and muscIe begins.
Hold your positions!
CharIton Heston aIso makes his promised|appearance near the end of the fiIm.
- Taylor!|- You're... Brent!
My God! Taylor!
And, as the ape-mutant war rages...
..the action moves towards|its apocaIyptic finaIe.
Someone at the pillar!
(cry of pain)
The ending was suggested|by Heston himseIf,...
..who was very wary of any more ape sequeIs.
lt's Doomsday.
I said ''How about if I set off this atom bomb|and bIow up the whoIe earth?''
And they said ''That's very good.''
Man is evil,|capable of nothing but destruction!
And I thought, that's the end of the sequeIs.
(trailer) The Planet of the Apes was only the|beginning. What lies beneath may be the end.
ReIeased on May 26th, 1970,...
..Beneath the Planet of the Apes|opened to a mixed criticaI reaction.
lnvade!
(trailer) The gorillas are on the march.
Human mutants strike back with new,|frightening weapons of the mind.
But there was no debating|its success at the box office.
The fiIm made $14 miIIion -
over three times its production cost.
(trailer) Can a planet long endure,|half ape, half human?
The answer lies|Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
Rated G.
I'd say we were moderateIy successfuI. I don't|know whether that's aII we couId have been.
But I think that's aII we were.
Which is not to downpIay the project at aII,|but to be honest about it.
The surprise of the first picture|was not to be topped.
With Beneath the Planet of the Apes,...
..the ape saga now seemed to have reached|a IogicaI concIusion.
The prophecies of the apes'|sacred scroIIs had come true.
The beast man had wieIded|his finaI weapon of destruction.
But, just four months after the fiIm's reIease,..
..screenwriter PauI Dehn|received a teIegram from Arthur Jacobs.
''Apes exist. SequeI required.''
Dehn was now faced with|a seemingIy insurmountabIe task.
How do you carry on|after you've bIown up the worId?
WhiIe puzzIing over the probIem of|how to create a third Apes adventure,...
..PauI Dehn thought of astronaut TayIor's|spaceship from the first fiIm.
It gave him an idea.
- All right, open her up.|- Open it up!
What if, just prior to the worId's destruction|in Beneath the Planet of the Apes,...
..the abandoned craft had somehow|been saIvaged and repaired?
Now the story couId move forward...
Welcome, gentlemen, to the United St...
..by bringing the apes back in time.
And, through the magic of science fiction,...
..that's exactIy what happened|in Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
This time I was abIe to|take the roIe of CorneIius,...
..with kim Hunter aIso returning|as my wife, Zira.
There was aIso a third ape accompanying us|on the journey: Dr MiIo.
He was pIayed by SaI Mineo, accIaimed|for his roIe in Rebel Without a Cause.
Having onIy three apes made sense|storyise... and budgetwise.
The number of makeups and effects|was greatIy reduced,...
..and made it no probIem to work|within the fiIm's $2.5 miIIion budget.
Because number two did not do|as weII as number one did,...
..number three shouId then|not probabIy do as weII as number two did.
So you've got to Iook at something more|contained, which is what we tried to do.
Action! A IittIe more on the Ieft!
(Roddy McDowall)|FiIming began on November 30th, 1970...
..under the direction of Don TayIor.
Hey, Bill Creber, take your cue on action!
You must reaIise that mine was|the third fiIm of this particuIar series,...
..and I inherited everything, practicaIIy.
I inherited the two actors, Roddy and kim,...
..who certainIy knew more|about the characters than I did.
The onIy thing that I didn't inherit was|the pIot. It was different. It was fresh.
(Roddy McDowall) The story showed the|ape-onauts brought back to a Iaboratory...
..and put under scientific examination.
The two animaI psychiatrists|were pIayed by Bradford DiIIman...
..and NataIie Trundy, now making|her second appearance in an Apes fiIm.
Well, why doesn't she take it?
Because l loathe bananas!
- Xira!|- l don't believe it.
Use your heads and start thinking.
Now that they know we can speak,|how much will we tell them?
Milo!
The character of Dr MiIo|meets an untimeIy end earIy in the fiIm,...
..much to our disappointment,|and to SaI Mineo's reIief.
We did have to hug SaI a Iot.
It was very, very difficuIt for him,...
..being confined in the appIiances.
He was not comfortabIe at aII|being a chimpanzee.
lf you'll just be seated,|we'll get right down to business.
Dr Dixon. As a zoologist,|l know and respect your work,...
..but if you want to turn|a Presidential lnquiry...
..into a ventriloquist's act,|l have to inform you...
And l have to inform you|that these apes have the power of speech.
It was during the fiIming of this scene...
..that kim and I had|one of our most unusuaI experiences...
..whiIe working on an Apes picture.
- Have you a name?|- Xira.
(public gasps)
- One might as well be talking to a parrot.|- A parrot?!
(laughter)
(Kim Hunter) We had to face|this PresidentiaI Commission.
Roddy and I were facing the commission,|which was up on a stage,...
..sort of in a semicircIe.
And we were here,|and behind us were members of press.
Does the other one talk?
- Only when she lets me.|- (laughter)
So, in order to get rid of aII those extras,...
..of course, they shot us first.
Then the director said ''Look, you and Roddy|can start getting the appIiances off...
..because we won't be shooting you|the rest of the day.''
''Just come back to be off camera|for the PresidentiaI Commission,...
..for their questions,|and respond to the other actors.''
So it was marveIIous. We started taking it off.|But it was so weird.
''Roddy,'' I said,|''are you feeIing the same thing I'm feeIing?''
It didn't feeI Iike Zira and CorneIius|when they started taking this stuff off.
I finaIIy said ''Stop taking it aII off.''
''Leave on some.''
''I've gotta have it.''
It just didn't work without the appIiances.
The characterjust... sort of disappeared.
InternaIIy I was thinking|and feeIing the same thing,...
..but it didn't come out properIy|without the appIiances.
It was very strange.
(Roddy McDowall) The fiIm was|primariIy set in and around Los AngeIes.
This heIped the studio to controI costs|and keep the production cIose to home.
Address, please?
- The zoo.|- (laughter)
It aIso gave us the opportunity to create|some of the fiIm's most memorabIe scenes...
..as CorneIius and Zira|become media ceIebrities.
Dr Cornelius. Tell me,|how do you fiind our women?
- Very human.|- (laughter)
Many of these scenes were inspired by|episodes in the originaI Pierre BouIIe noveI.
How do you like it, Cornelius?
Beastly.
..and recaptured much of the originaI fiIm's|humour and sociaI satire.
- How is that?|- Soothing,...
..but very wet.
But the Iight-hearted tone of the fiIm|began to shift...
..when Zira offered this surprising reveIation.
- lt must have been the shock.|- Shock, my foot!
l'm pregnant.
EventuaIIy, fearfuI government officiaIs|put the apes into custody.
- Cornelius?|- (Cornelius) Xira!
They made me tell them everything,|Cornelius.
We can't live with lies.
After this, l doubt we shall|be allowed to live at all.
You have evidence, Mr President, that|one day talking apes will dominate Earth.
Now, what do you expect me to do about it?
Alter what you believe to be the future|by slaughtering two innocents,...
..or rather three, now that|one of them is pregnant?
Herod tried that and Christ survived.
Do you want their progeny|to dominate the world?
The commission unanimously recommends...
..that the birth of the female ape's|unborn child should be prevented.
Savages! They are savages!
This is a major change in the series...
..because now the apes are|predominantIy the heroes...
..and humans have become the antagonists.
And Zira and CorneIius, now they're|the strangers in a strange Iand.
kind of an inverse of TayIor's situation.
They treated you like dirt.
Ma'am. Sir. Chow time.
You better have your soup and oranges|for the sake of that... little monkey...
The apes killed their orderly.
- Where are they?|- On the run.
Now they've killed,|and for that they must be killed.
Because they bring it back|to modern-day America,...
..it shifts the focus away from the future|to the present, to the here and now.
- Cornelius, what have you done?|- l didn't mean to kill him.
- Please believe me.|- l do, Cornelius, l do. But they won't.
And it opens the door for a much more direct|address to the America of the time.
We'll catch 'em sooner or later.
That's what l'm worried about- later.|Later we'll do something about pollution.
Later we'll tackle the population explosion.
Later we'll do something about|the nuclear war.
We think we got all the time in the world.
How much time has the world got?
l think my pains have begun.
Let me get this straight.
You are asking me to risk imprisonment|for the sake of two fugitive apes?
The answer is a thousand times... yes.
(Roddy McDowall) CorneIius and Zira|find temporary refuge in a traveIIing circus.
Look. Look at Heloise.
She's showing an expectant mother|what to expect.
Mama. Mama.
- Xira...|- l'm getting into practice.
The sympathetic circus owner, Armando,|was pIayed by Ricardo MontaIban.
I identify very much|with this man's compassion...
..for these so-caIIed beasts,...
..which were remarkabIy|good and wonderfuI and kind.
(Lewis) There, that's good.
Come on.
Because the message, to me,|was man's inhumanity to man,...
..that we have not conquered prejudice.
Are we ever going to|conquer prejudice? Ever?
That's a very powerfuI theme.
You have done enough|to make us grateful to you for ever.
l did it because|l like chimpanzees best of all apes.
And you, the best of all chimpanzees.
And if it is man's destiny|one day to be dominated,...
..then, oh, please God,|let him be dominated by such as you.
Thank you.
(Roddy McDowall) The cIimax of the fiIm|takes pIace on an abandoned freighter...
..as CorneIius and Zira|are brutaIIy hunted down.
Xira.
l want that baby.|lf you won't give it to me, l'll shoot.
- My God, stop him!|- (gunshot)
(Ricardo Montalban) What's interesting to me|about the Planet of the Apes is that...
..the endings were reaIIy not happy.
- (gunshots)|- No!
(wails)
But in a science fiction fiIm,|you have a IittIe more margin...
..to be abIe to express certain things.
So the pubIic accepted the unhappy ending|because it was truthfuI.
It wasn'tjust to make you sad.
It was: that's the way it is.
It's a Iove story. PauI and I - PauI Dehn,|that is - we both said that to each other.
He said ''That's what I wrote.''
And a Iove story aIways ends unhappiIy.
Most Iove stories do.
That's what makes them a Iove story.|So, there you are.
(Roddy McDowall) The fiIm's ending caused|much debate amongst the production team,...
..the biggest question being: what if|the studio asks for another sequeI?
(Armando) All hands on the guy lines.
- Drop the bail ring!|- Come on, let's go!
As soon as you get that canvas packed,|l want every hand in the menagerie tent.
Producer Jacobs and screenwriter Dehn...
..decided not to paint themseIves|into another corner this time.
lntelligent creature.
But then, so were your mother and father.
Mama.
Mama. Mama. Mama.
(trailer) Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
Their adventures are|completely fresh, completely new.
ReIeased in May, 1971,...
..Escape from the Planet of the Apes|proved to be another box-office success.
AduIt audiences Ioved the humour|and subtIe sociaI commentary of the fiIm,...
..and the eIements of fantasy and adventure|continued to captivate chiIdren.
The Apes fiIms were stiII considered|ideaI famiIy entertainment.
Planet of the Apes was becoming|a fuII-grown franchise...
..and there seemed to be no end in sight.
PIanning began for another instaIment.
But, this time, the fiImmakers wouId find|themseIves going down a darker path...
..than they ever had before.
One that threatened to Iose them|their IoyaI and profitabIe famiIy audience.
The fourth Apes fiIm|began shooting on January 31st, 1972...
..under the direction of J Lee Thompson.
You just take the book.
He was a proIific craftsman whose credits|incIuded The Guns of Navarone,...
..the originaI Cape Fear,...
..and Arthur Jacobs'|first production, What a Way to Go.
(Thompson) keep Iow. keep Iow.
Once again, the script|was provided by PauI Dehn.
The titIe was|Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
The fiIm is set in a city of the future|which resembIes an oppressive poIice state.
- Go!|- (screams)
A mysterious pIague has wiped out|aII dogs and cats from the face of the earth.
Do.
Apes have been domesticated|to take their pIace...
..and trained to perform Iike sIaves.
No!
The main focus of the story|is on a new centraI ape character.
- Are you authorised to dress him like that?|- Oh, yes, sir.
He is Caesar, the now fuIIy grown|chiId of CorneIius and Zira.
A circus ape, huh?
- Circuses are past history.|- Not while l live and breathe.
- All right, Senor Armando. Go ahead.|- Thank you.
Come, come.
Owing to the IoyaIty of Arthur P Jacobs,|I was given the Ieading roIe...
..and had the unique opportunity|of pIaying my own son.
That was the great Ieap for Roddy,|and that was wonderfuI because...
..it stiII brought his personaIity|to the character.
Maybe he's not the same exact individuaI,|but it's stiII his spirit coming through.
And then he became so identified with the|series that the continuity to an audience is:
''Roddy McDowaII in Planet of the Apes.''
Well, for heaven's sakes! A circus!
- (gorilla grunts)|- (Caesar screeches)
Home, Lisa.
Making her third appearance in the series|was NataIie Trundy.
This time, however, she joined me behind the|makeup for her roIe as the chimpanzee Lisa.
(Natalie Trundy) Arthur said ''NataIina...''|He used to caII me NataIina.
I said ''I know what you're gonna ask.''
I reaIIy didn't wanna pIay an ape,|having seen what everyone went through.
You know, for the makeup, there were|hours and hours of that... crap. (laughs)
Of course I did it.
(Roddy McDowall) Ricardo MontaIban aIso|returned as kindIy circus owner Armando,...
..Caesar's mentor and conscience.
- Did l do all right?|- Yes, yes, yes.
But try to walk a little more|like a primitive chimpanzee.
After 20 years, you've picked up|evolved habits from me.
That could be dangerous. Even fatal.
(PA) Attention. Attention.|Disperse apes gathering in the mall.
(Ricardo Montalban) Facing Roddy, the way|he Iooked couId be a IittIe distracting.
So I had to concentrate more on thinking|of him as an actor, not as a monkey.
I remember very distinctIy|the rapport with Roddy...
..when he's dying to speak in rebeIIion...
..of the mistreatment|of his brothers and sisters.
(ape moans)
Lousy human bastards!
The theme was so important to make|a paraIIeI to the terribIe thing of sIavery.
Who said that?
l did.
He's a performing ape for my circus.
- A talking ape?|- lt's right! The ape spoke!
- (crowd) Yeah!|- No! No, they're mistaken.
We better take him|to headquarters for interrogation.
When Armando is arrested,|Caesar hides among the ape servant cIass...
..and is subjected to a brutaI training process.
Take a good look at this specimen.
Caesar soon finds himseIf|the prized object in a sIave auction...
- Buy him.|- 1500!
1500 from Mr MacDonald!
For His Excellency, Governor Breck.
..and becomes a servant to the governor,|pIayed by Don Murray.
Name yourself.
''Caesar.''
A king.
Working in proximity|to the human seat of power,...
..Caesar Iearns the vaIue of power...
No!
..and force.
(screams)
About your sworn statement|that the circus ape is incapable of speech.
Hell, no!
Armando's death|at the hand of the government...
..kiIIs any notion that Caesar has|of man's potentiaI for good.
(roars)
He begins to pIot a revoIution,...
..whose purpose is|the uItimate destruction of mankind.
(screaming)
Action!
With a budget of onIy $1.7 miIIion, the|producers had difficuIty finding a Iocation...
..where they couId fiIm|an epic revoIution in a city of the future.
But, as Iuck wouId have it,...
..there was a recentIy compIeted|commerciaI and residentiaI compIex...
..right next to the studio.
CaIIed Century City,...
..it had been buiIt on Iand that was formerIy|part of Twentieth Century Fox's backIot.
It was pretty new and had a Iot of|concrete stone and nice sharp angIes.
So it became a kind of a naturaI thing|that, if we couId shoot there,...
..we couId create a city of the future,|but not so far removed from today.
The main band of rioting apes are,|at this very moment, marching on the city.
Commander, l understand the situation.
Assemble as large a force|as you can and follow them.
(Roddy McDowall) Conquest aIso had|striking costume and coIour design,...
..making it Iook unIike|any other fiIm in the series.
(Frank Capra Jr)|The bIack costumes conveyed...
..this rigid and|not-so-pIeasant worId of humans.
Not necessariIy a dictatorship, but|it seemed to be a pretty controIIed society.
- They've reached the Plaza.|- Good God! They're armed!
And organised.
No!
(J Lee Thompson) We definiteIy|set out to give it a city Iook.
I suppose you'd caII it,|in its day, a modern Iook. And...
..we went for certain coIours.
Ready!
BIack and red were|the primary coIours we used in the fiIm.
Aim!
At night we wouId highIight|the costumes with cross-Iighting...
..and opened it up as much as was possibIe.
And I think that heIped the picture|Iook more expensive than it was.
Fire!
(Roddy McDowall) In the scenes where|the ape revoIution reaches its zenith,...
..director Thompson pushed|for a IeveI of on-screen vioIence...
..that had never been seen|in an Apes fiIm before.
In the first preview at Phoenix,...
..mothers took their chiIdren, running down|the aisIes, to get out of the theatre...
..because of the bIoodiness of the riots.
Shoot them! Shoot them all!
(gunfiire)
(Frank Capra Jr) We made a conscious|decision to go to more action-adventure.
It was feIt that that wouId be|a successfuI turn for the series.
We were aIways concerned about|the IeveI of vioIence we couId put in...
..because it was stiII a young peopIe's picture.
The censor wouIdn't|pass the fiIm the first time.
Too much bIood and too much gore.
Fox wanted to try and retain|the famiIy audience...
..and they made us cut it a great deaI.
It was a vioIent fiIm,...
..and poIiticaIIy very disturbing.
(Roddy McDowall) Dehn and Thompson|modeIIed the apes' revoIt...
..on the 1965 Watts Riots,...
..an event that had Ieft an indeIibIe|impression on the American Iandscape.
(Eric Greene) In 1972, there's no way|any major studio was gonna reIease a fiIm...
..where the hero was|the Ieader of the Watts Riots.
But you couId reIease a fiIm where the Ieader|of an ape-sIave revoIution is your hero.
You can capture the audience's attention,|and try to get peopIe...
..to maybe rethink the way they were|Iooking at the current events of the time.
That's one of the beauties of|weII-done science fiction.
Why did you turn us into slaves?
Because your kind were once our ancestors.
And there's still an ape|curled up inside of every man.
The beast that must be|whipped into submission.
You are that beast, Caesar.
When we hate you, we're...
..we're hating the dark side of ourselves.
(J Lee Thompson)|We had quite a Iot of discussion...
..about the poIiticaI aspect of the fiIm.
EventuaIIy, we showed it in IngIewood...
..and a IargeIy bIack audience cheered.
Caesar!
- By what right are you spilling blood?|- The slaves'right to punish his persecutors.
Caesar. l, a descendant of slaves,|am asking you to show humanity.
But l was not born human.
The African-American audience was very|vocaI. They'd get up and yeII and scream,...
..aII on the side of the apes.|It was Iike: revoIution has come.
Where there is fiire, there is smoke.
And, in that smoke, from this day forward,...
..my people will crouch and conspire...
..and plot and plan|for the inevitable day of man's downfall.
And we shall build our own cities in which|there will be no place for humans,...
..except to serve our ends.
And we shall found our own armies,|our own religion,...
..our own dynasty!
And that day is upon you... now!
(Roddy McDowall)|As originaIIy shot, Caesar's finaI speech...
..was a miIitant caII for revoIution.
(whimpers) No.
But, responding to test audience reaction,...
..the studio and producer Jacobs decided|to aIter this speech in postproduction.
I was caIIed in to record some additionaI|Iines, ending the fiIm on a more hopefuI note.
But now...
Now we will put away our hatred.
Now we will put down our weapons.
And we, who are not human,...
..can afford to be humane.
lf it is man's destiny to be dominated,...
..it is God's will...
..that he be dominated with compassion.
So, cast out your vengeance.
Tonight, we have seen...
..the birth of the Planet of the Apes!
(screeching)
War, urban vioIence, raciaI unrest.
Issues that were strongIy infIuencing|popuIar movie entertainment in 1972.
FiIms Iike Dirty Harry,...
..The French Connection,...
..Shaft, and yes,...
..even Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
(trailer) Watch the screen explode|as man faces ape...
..in the most horrifying spectacle|in the annals of science fiiction.
But, despite the initiaI test reactions,|parentaI outcries and a finaI PG rating,...
..Conquest stiII found|an audience at the box office.
This will be the end of human civilisation|and the world will belong to a planet of apes!
Once again, Fox was asking|for the inevitabIe sequeI.
And, for the first time,|producer Arthur Jacobs and the studio...
..found themseIves at a crossroads.
Had Conquest gone too far in succumbing|to the trend of escaIating screen vioIence?
Was it possibIe to move the story forward|and stiII make a famiIy picture?
Soon after Conquest's reIease in 1972,...
..producer Arthur Jacobs|once again asked PauI Dehn...
..to deveIop and script the fifth Apes feature.
Dehn quickIy submitted a treatment entitIed|Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
It continued the story of Caesar as he|fights against a group of human rebeIs...
..who possess an atomic bomb.
UItimateIy, Caesar is kiIIed|by one of his own generaIs...
..and a group of ape poIiticians|and miIitary commanders...
..hoId finaI governance|over the PIanet of the Apes.
But Dehn's outIine was rejected. Arthur|thought it was too bIeak and too vioIent...
..for the more upbeat fiIm that|both he and the studio wanted to make.
Dehn reshaped the story and script.
But two new writers were aIso hired|to give a fresh perspective.
They were John and Joyce Corrington,|a husband-and-wife team...
..who had found science fiction success|with The Omega Man,...
..a recent fiIm|that had starred CharIton Heston.
keeping the titIe|Battle for the Planet of the Apes,...
..the fifth Apes fiIm|went into production on January 2nd, 1973...
..with a budget of $1.8 miIIion.
J Lee Thompson returned to direct,...
..having impressed both Jacobs and|associate producer Frank Capra Jr...
..with the epic and visuaI fIair|he had achieved on Conquest.
Right from the start, Arthur said|''We're gonna make a kid picture...
..and something that wiII appeaI to famiIies.''
We had no reaI poIiticaI impIications.
It was simpIy a kids' science fiction fiIm.
(Roddy McDowall) For me, it was back|to the makeup chair to pIay Caesar again.
I was anxious to do it because I'd enjoyed|the roIe even more than the part of CorneIius.
Seen onIy in a brief proIogue and epiIogue,...
..the roIe of the Lawgiver|had IittIe screen time,...
..but proved a most notabIe casting choice:
Iegendary producer, writer,|director and actor, John Huston.
''ln the beginning,|God created beast and man...
..so that both might live in friendship|and share dominion over a world of peace.''
''The surface of the world|was ravaged by the vilest war.''
''Our saviour led a remnant|of those who survived...
..in search of greener pastures,...
..where ape and human might|forever live in friendship,...
..according to divine will.''
The story focused on the ape Ieader Caesar...
..just a few years after|he has Ied the ape revoIution.
A nucIear war has occurred...
..and Caesar now ruIes over|a surviving band of apes and humans.
- No humans in Council!|- They are here because l sent for them.
The two species have forged|a fragiIe coexistence.
The apes are aIso working with the humans|to educate themseIves...
..and have begun forming their own Iaws.
- Read me what l've written.|- ''Ape shall never kill ape.''
''Ape shall never kill ape.''
Shall ape ever kill man?
Oh, if only my mother and father,|whom l was too young to remember,...
..if only they'd lived.
Perhaps they would have taught me|if it was right to kill evil...
..so that good should prevail.
In keeping with Jacob's new concept,|Caesar's character was softened.
Cornelius.
He is no Ionger miIitant and angry,...
Cornelius.
..but patient and benevoIent.
Father.
- l'm going on a journey.|- Mm... What will you bring me back?
What would you like?
More nuts for my squirrel. He's growing fast.
So are you.
One day you will be as tall as a king.
This was very much part|of the arc of what we feIt...
..seemed to be a IogicaI situation for him.
And it was aIso|more attractive as a character...
..that he becomes a more paternaIistic|and a sort of a heaIer,...
..rather than a revoIutionary character.
(Roddy McDowall) NataIie Trundy|again signed on to pIay my wife, Lisa.
This was the fourth Apes fiIm for both of us.
l don't want to have to remember|my husband. l want to love him now.
Look. Virgil will be with us.|Now, we'll take good care.
There it is... or was.
Some carefuIIy pIaced rubbIe|and a cIever matte painting...
..created the iIIusion|of a bombed-out forbidden city...
..where a group of|radiation-scarred humans continued to Iive.
Governor, look!
Somebody's breached|the warning system at F6.
For the interior of the forbidden city,...
..the producers used the Hyperion water|treatment pIant Iocated in Los AngeIes.
This background radiation alone|will give us 300 roentgens per hour.
Another interesting casting note:|the orangutan VirgiI...
..was pIayed by|singer/songwriter PauI WiIIiams.
Can anything live down here?|l mean, for long?
Oh, yes. But in the end, not recognisably.
(Frank Capra Jr) The series|began to be more and more human-oriented.
We were thinking in terms of time aIways,...
..because these Iong makeup sessions|cut the time of fiIming down.
It was difficuIt to get enough apes because of|the time constraints of the makeup.
And actuaIIy audiences wanted to see|more and more ape-oriented shots.
So it worked counterproductiveIy.
(Roddy McDowall) When the humans|from the forbidden city attack,...
Aldo will make the future... with this!
..Caesar engages in a power struggIe with the|commander of the miIitary, GeneraI AIdo,...
We want guns!
..pIayed by the noted character actor,|CIaude Akins.
We will smash the humans!|And then, we will smash Caesar!
Look!
Caesar's son.
Father!
To the barricade!
Like aII the entries in the series,...
..Battle for the Planet of the Apes contained|pIenty of rousing action sequences.
(J Lee Thompson) It was very Iow-budget,...
..so we had to reduce everything.
I had to come in cIoser,|not use so many peopIe. Come in cIoser...
Here they come.
..and reIy more on quick cuts.
Then, putting it aII together, it gave|a feeI of a Iot of numbers and a big battIe.
Fall back! Fall back!
It's a pity that they downgraded|the budget for each fiIm...
..instead of trying to go bigger and better.
But that was a decision|taken by the money peopIe...
..and we had to Iive with it.
Now! Fight like apes!
(Roddy McDowall) Near the fiIm's concIusion|the mutant humans are defeated.
No! No, no, no! Don't kill them.|Take them prisoner.
But the action is tempered by a much more|pacifistic tone than in previous Apes fiIms.
No.
No, Virgil.
(apes chanting) Ape has killed ape.
Caesar aIso discovers that AIdo|is responsibIe for the death of his son...
Ape has never killed ape,...
..let alone an ape child.
..and one finaI battIe|for the PIanet of the Apes is fought.
Aaargh!
As l look at apes and humans...
..living in friendship, harmony and at peace...
..now, some 600 years after Caesar's death,...
..at least we wait with hope for the future.
Lawgiver, who knows about the future?
Perhaps only the dead.
AIthough Jacobs uItimateIy wanted|to send a positive sociaI message,...
..the fiIm's finaI image is rather ambiguous.
Is the statue of Caesar crying a tear ofjoy|because man and ape are finaIIy at peace?
- We have a destiny too.|- Respecting each other.
As equals.
Or is it a tear of sorrow because|he knows that is an impossibiIity?
The human way is violence and death.
These questions wouId never be resoIved...
..because,|during the earIy stages of production,...
..it had been decided that this wouId be|the finaI chapter in the Apes series.
And that is how it was advertised|when it reached theatres in May of 1973.
We feIt Iike we had come pretty far.
Again, production-vaIue wise,|we'd gotten to a point...
..where we'd practicaIIy boxed ourseIves in.
If we went any further into the future|and toId a continuing story,...
..it wouId have been|a much more expensive picture.
(Roddy McDowall) But the story wasn't over.
Battle had done surprisingIy weII|at the box office,...
..and the CBS network|had recentIy garnered tremendous ratings...
..with the broadcast premieres|of the first three fiIms.
AIthough Jacobs and Fox briefIy considered|producing another Apes movie,...
..it was agreed that the future of the franchise|might best be expIored...
..in the uncharted universe of teIevision.
Jacobs had considered a Planet of the Apes|teIevision series as earIy as 1971.
But the continued success of the theatricaI|features deIayed his pIans for two years.
He had aIso been busy|on a number of non-Ape fiIms,...
..that incIuded Woody AIIen's|Play lt Again, Sam...
..and famiIy musicaIs Iike|Goodbye, Mr Chips and Tom Sawyer.
But during the production of his Iatest,...
..a musicaI adaptation of|Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn,...
..Arthur Jacobs died of a heart attack.
He was onIy 51 years oId.
Arthur was very, very tough.|But everybody Ioved him.
But he was aIways there. AIways on the set.
I teII you, the man worked|29 hours, eight days a week.
He was with everything, aII the time.
He was just wonderfuI.|He was an extraordinary man.
Arthur's strongest point...
..was his intense sense of the meticuIous.
But it generated resuIts.
He was one of a kind, and I do miss him.
(Roddy McDowall)|With Jacobs' death, the Apes TV series...
..was in the hands of Twentieth Century Fox.
With the heIp of writers|Anthony WiIson and Art WaIIace,...
..they began to hammer out|a workabIe concept.
And, on September 13th, 1974,...
..Planet of the Apes premiered on CBS.
I starred,|aIong with Ron Harper and James Naughton.
They pIayed|astronauts AIan Virdon and Peter Burke,...
..who are propeIIed through a time warp|and Iand on Earth in the year 3085.
By the way, their vehicIe was the same|pIywood spaceship used in the originaI fiIm.
Well, we could've landed in a worse place.
Soon they're captured|and find themseIves face to face...
..with a favourite Apes|feature fiIm character, Dr Zaius,...
..now pIayed by stage actor Booth CoIman.
Do you want this sacrilege and heresy|to infect the rest of the humans?
Certainly not, Urko.
And by questioning them,|we will learn how to avoid it.
Galen, you want to visit|our time period, don't you?
Oh... Look, l really don't know about...|lt would be interesting, wouldn't it?
Maybe the humans who made that grenade|are still on Earth.
- And maybe they have the knowledge to...|- To what?
Build a spaceship and a computer?
- Yeah! Maybe.|- What's a computer?
With the heIp of a sympathetic ape|named GaIen, the astronauts escape.
Watch out!
We kind of became The Fugitive. Each week|we were caught, and then we escaped.
That's what each show was about.
And I think that teIevision frequentIy|winds up in a kind of a formuIaic roIe.
Who's the bad guy and how wiII you escape?
(Roddy McDowall)|Week after week, the trio was pursued...
..by the ape miIitary commander,|GeneraI Urko.
l'll quarrel with anything|that keeps these two humans alive.
Urko was pIayed by Mark Lenard, best known|for his portrayaI of Mr Spock's father...
..in another famous science fiction series,|Star Trek.
The show tried to retain the eIements that|had made the motion picture so successfuI.
Drama.
Urko! You kill me, you kill yourself!
A bit of humour.
- There's a smell about you.|- Well, nobody's perfect.
Some sociaI commentary.
These humans,|they think they're as good as we are.
And pIenty of action.
(James Naughton) We were aIways whackin'|some guy over the head with a stick...
..or drop-kicking a guy in a monkey suit.
We had apes faIIin' out of trees everyhere.
(Roddy McDowall) The teIevision series'|most IoyaI audience were chiIdren.
But network executives cIaimed this was not|the audience advertisers wanted to attract.
The show was aIso scheduIed up against two|of the highest-rated comedies of the day:
Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man.
It wasn't Iong before the inevitabIe happened.
On December 6th, 1974,|after onIy four months and 13 episodes,...
..Planet of the Apes was canceIIed.
And, for the first time in its history,|the future of Apes was uncertain.
(trailer) ln the beginning,|there was Planet of the Apes.
And the most exciting series|in motion-picture history began.
AIthough the demise of the teIevision series|had proved disappointing to fans,...
..its premiere had been accompanied|by a media bIitz...
..that incIuded the re-reIease|of aII five fiIms to theatres in 1974.
(trailer) Now is your chance to go ape.
Twentieth Century Fox, Iong aware of|Apes' popuIarity with chiIdren,...
..aIso Iaunched an extensive|marketing and merchandising campaign,...
..encouraging kids|aII over the country to ''Go ape''.
It was phenomenaIIy successfuI.
There were 60 companies that were Iicensed|to turn out something Iike 300 items...
..and just this fIood|of Apes products on the market.
(Roddy McDowall) Ape action fiigures,|masks, posters, games,...
..Iunch boxes and coIouring books.
There was even a Planet of the Apes|wastepaper basket.
(Eric Greene) I think Apes heIped|pave the way for Iater fiIms Iike Star Wars,...
..where you had mass merchandising bIitzes,|which are now common, not extraordinary.
(trailer) Return to the Planet of the Apes!
In 1975, NBC TV Iaunched|Return to the Planet of the Apes,...
..a haIf-hour Saturday morning|cartoon series,...
..that depicted a more evoIved simian cuIture.
- We got all of 'em, Urko.|- Good. Take them to Ape City.
As in the originaI noveI,|apes were finaIIy aIIowed to drive cars...
..and fIy airpIanes.
Though the animated series|Iasted onIy one year,...
..other Ape incarnations|proved to have greater Iongevity.
More than three decades|after the premiere of the first fiIm,...
..Apes references stiII manage to|find their way into American pop cuIture.
# THE SlMPSONS
# l hate every ape l see
# From chimpan A to chimpan X
# No, you'll never make a monkey out of me
(whistling)
From fiIms and teIevision|to merchandising and memorabiIia,...
..Planet of the Apes|and its numerous sequeIs...
..have conquered audiences|aII over the worId.
And peopIe continue to be captivated,|for many different reasons.
I think itjust struck peopIe's imagination.|It was different. And it stiII is.
You led me around on a leash!
- We thought you were inferior.|- Now you know better.
They're just as vaIid now|as when they first came out.
They probabIy wiII be 30 years from now.
We have heads as well as hands.
l call upon men to let us use them.
Some of the sociaI statements,|unfortunateIy, remain with us.
Planet of the Apes|brings them back to our attention.
- What's the difference? You're all monkeys.|- Please! Do not say ''monkey''.
The only thing that counts|in the end is power!
Naked, merciless force!
(Linda Harrison) The possibiIity|we couId do something horribIe...
..Iurks in our consciousness.
To me, that is the eIement|which has stirred so much interest.
lt's Doomsday.
The fiIms hoId up as a way of getting at those|issues in an accessibIe, entertaining way.
l'd like to kiss you goodbye.
You're so damned ugly.
(J Lee Thompson) Planet of the Apes|depended on characterisation...
..as weII as adventure.
If you've got good characters,|they'II stand the test of time.
lf man was superior, why didn't he survive?
Those particuIar stories|have had a kind of a timeIess theme...
..with premises that were very,|very appIicabIe to...
..what peopIe were feeIing,|what peopIe should feeI.
It has reIevance in that it, as a fiIm,...
..took a step up in that genre.
(Don Taylor)|Apes is a traiIbIazer in this genre.
It probabIy heIped to push into|the things that have happened since.
I think the makeup, of course,|is the most innovative.
For the first time, reaIIy,|these were actors working...
..and emotions coming through this makeup.
I was a guy that heIped|make those pictures work,...
..and it's a wonderfuI feeIing,|to go that Iong...
..and that those pictures stand up|as weII as they have.
I beIieve they have a Iife of their own.
I don't think you can kiII totaIIy|the Planet of the Apes.
There wiII aIways be an audience.
I stiII get fan maiI from aII over the worId.
I think it's gonna carry, carry, carry, carry on.
It appeaIs to everybody.
LittIe kids, grown-ups, anybody,...
..because it widens|the avenue of the imagination.
Ape and man, ancestors and brothers,|their fates hopeIessIy intertwined.
One hoIds the secret of the past,...
..the other, the key to the future.
But which is which?
Planet of the Apes hoIds up a mirror|and asks us simpIy to Iook at ourseIves.
At our fears and prejudices.
At our hopes and dreams.
But, as a new miIIennium dawns,...
..can we expect more exciting adventures|on the PIanet of the Apes?
Perhaps the answer Iies|somewhere in the stars.
Or maybe...
..right here...
..on Earth.