1968

DIRECTOR: FRANKLIN J. SCHAFFNER PRODUCER: ARTHUR P. JACOBS SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL WILSON AND ROD SERLING, BASED ON THE NOVEL BY PIERRE BOULLE STARRING: CHARLTON HESTON (GEORGE TAYLOR), RODDY MCDOWALL (CORNELIUS), KIM HUNTER (ZIRA), MAURICE EVANS (DR. ZAIUS), JAMES WHITMORE (PRESIDENT OF THE ASSEMBLY), JAMES DALY (HONORIOUS), LINDA HARRISON (NOVA), LOU WAGNER (LUCIUS)

Planet of the Apes

TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX, 1968 • COLOR, 112 MINUTES

An astronaut travels two thousand years through time and space, crash-landing on a strange planet where apes are the dominant species and humans are treated like animals.

America in 1968 was a world turned upside down. Youth revolted against the age-old establishment, peaceful protest movements ended in violence, and humans first orbited the moon. It was the perfect time for a movie about a planet where apes evolved from men. The original Planet of the Apes was a smash hit in this turbulent era, grossing over $26 million and commencing one the most successful franchises in movie history. It was followed by four sequels and more than one twenty-first-century reboot.

Charlton Heston as Taylor

Charlton Heston and Kim Hunter

No one foresaw such a pop-culture phenomenon, not even Pierre Boulle, who dreamed up the concept. Boulle (author of The Bridge on the River Kwai) had little faith in his 1963 novel La planète des singes (Monkey Planet), believing it had no potential as a movie. Publicist-turned-producer Arthur P. Jacobs disagreed. He had been trying to make a film of Boulle’s novel since 1964, despite resistance from Hollywood. Armed with a clever script by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, Jacobs had a difficult time selling the film’s unusual premise of an astronaut stuck on a planet run by simians. According to Charlton Heston, who was the first actor to sign on, Jacobs “would go from studio to studio and they would say, ‘What are you talking about? Spaceships? Talking monkeys? You’re out of your mind.’”

Finally, Richard Zanuck, son of former Twentieth Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck and heir to the Fox studio, saw the idea’s potential and took a chance on Planet of the Apes. When filming began in the spring of 1967, the studio kept the production top secret; all sets were closed, any photos of the apes strictly forbidden. This generated a buzz, and kept the film’s shock value intact. For first-time viewers, the surprise was undiluted when, thirty-two minutes into the film, gorillas in military uniforms appear on horseback, shooting rifles at humans as Jerry Goldsmith’s spine-tingling musical score punctuates the action. Master makeup artist John Chambers created the ape looks, while veteran performers Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, and Maurice Evans brought the latex to life with their distinct vocalizations and body language. As the sensitive, intelligent chimps Cornelius and Zira, McDowall and Hunter represent the only salvation for our hero, Taylor.

When the movie was released, the world saw a whole new type of sci-fi epic, and a very different Charlton Heston. Misanthropic astronaut Taylor was quite a departure from the class of characters Heston was known for playing in films like Ben-Hur (1959)—heroic, dignified, and often biblical. In Planet of the Apes, he is captured in a net, dragged in the dirt, beaten, shot, caged, stripped naked, repeatedly sprayed with a water hose, and pulled around by a collar and leash. Though the film’s bleak ending played on “ban the bomb”–era fears, the story’s hope lies in the character arc of Heston’s Taylor, who emerges from the ordeal with a greater respect for humanity than when he started. He also speaks some memorable lines that typify the movie’s perverse humor: “Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”

A world in which humans are the lowest order of species allows for some pointed social satire. The apes in charge not only enforce a strict class hierarchy—orangutans at the top, chimpanzees in the middle, gorillas at the bottom—but they adhere blindly to religious doctrines in the face of opposing scientific fact. Co-producer Mort Abrahams recalled, “Without ever saying it, we were doing a political film…. The country was having very serious problems.” Planet of the Apes is a perfect example of science fiction using an alternate world to address topics normally too sacred to touch.

The string of sequels was popular, but none ever reached the caliber of the first film until Fox rebooted the franchise in 2011 with an acclaimed series of latter-day sequels concerning chimpanzee Caesar (Andy Serkis), the son of Cornelius. Starting it all was the 1968 original, a case in which every element came together—acting, writing, direction, makeup, set design, and music—to exemplify, as Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas wrote in 1968, “the collaborative art of Hollywood at its best.”

Robert Gunner, Dianne Stanley, Charlton Heston, and Jeff Burton as the original four astronauts

Taylor on the run

Kim Hunter is transformed into Zira.

Roddy McDowall as Cornelius

FAR-OUT FACTS

John Chambers received a special Academy Award for his groundbreaking ape makeup. The movable latex masks, hairpieces, and body paint took two-and-a-half hours to apply to the actors and set the studio back $1 million.

Roddy McDowall based Cornelius’s physical movements on the walk and mannerisms of Groucho Marx.

Taylor’s iconic last line “God damn you all to hell” almost didn’t make it past the censors. “I kept arguing that it wasn’t swearing,” Heston said. “Taylor was specifically appealing to God to damn all those people that ended the world. It was literal…. I said, ‘What do want me to say, ‘Shucks, darn you?’”

MIND-BLOWING MOMENT

The final scene where Taylor discovers the Statue of Liberty embedded in the sand was a shocking twist conceived by Rod Serling. Serling borrowed the idea from a 1960 Twilight Zone episode titled “I Shot an Arrow into the Air,” in which a trio of stranded astronauts realizes the planet they landed on is actually Earth.

KEEP WATCHING

SOYLENT GREEN (1973)

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011)