Original subtitles

(Roddy McDowall) This is Malibu Creek State Park...

...located near the city of Los Angeles.

All of this once belonged...

...to one of Hollywood's biggest and most prestigious studios: Twentieth Century Fox.

Nicknamed "The Fox Ranch"...

...it was home to some of the most memorable motion pictures ever made.

But in 1968, this location was used for a very different kind of film.

Produced during one of the most turbulent periods in our nation's history...

...it explored religious, social and political themes...

...and managed to be wildly 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!

It's a madhouse!

Planet of the Apes spawned four sequels, two television series...

...and a mountain of merchandise.

It became a cultural phenomenon.

And it started as the vision of two men.

A French novelist named Pierre Boulle...

...and a Hollywood film producer named Arthur P Jacobs.

Born in 1922, Arthur Jacobs began his career as a messenger at MGM in the 1940s.

Energetic, forceful and full of ideas...

...he soon found himself working in their publicity department.

A master of promotion, he was eventually lured away by Warner Bros.

But Arthur wanted control of his own destiny.

In 1949, he left Warners to form his own public relations firm...

...and within two years his client roster included such high-profile celebrities as...

...Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart...

...Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn helped Jacobs make the transition from publicist to producer in the early 1960s.

She agreed to star in a film he was developing called What a Way To Go.

But, before production could begin, Marilyn Monroe died on August 5th, 1962.

Arthur had lost his star, but not his determination.

(wolf whistle)

(trailer) Hi, folks! In case you didn't know it, that's a girl - all girl.

Yeah! Shirley MacLaine.

Jacobs got his movie made.

The film became one of Fox's top moneymakers of 1964.

Arthur's reputation as a skilful, creative producer was assured.

Just after the film's release, Fox studio head, Richard Zanuck...

...showed his appreciation by agreeing to finance another Jacobs project...

...called Dr Dolittle.

Starring Rex Harrison, the film featured original songs...

...dazzling special effects, hundreds of extras...

...and a large supporting cast of trained animals.

The first film in which a human being - myself - actually talks to animals.

It was during Dolittle's lengthy preproduction phase...

...that Arthur approached Zanuck with an idea for another motion picture.

It, too, played with the concept of talking to the animals, but...

...in a much more serious way.

It was called Planet of the Apes.

In 1963, Jacobs had acquired the rights to a novel entitled La Planete Des singes...

...or The Monkey Planet...

...by one of France's most acclaimed authors, Pierre Boulle.

La Planete Des singes...

...told the story of three astronauts who travel to an alien world...

...where man is a primitive beast, dominated by a race of superintelligent apes.

Jacobs read the book shortly before its official publication...

...and quickly purchased the screen rights.

He felt that the concept would make for a visually intriguing...

...highly original motion picture.

But Boulle disagreed.

He considered the novel one of his lesser works, with no potential for screen success.

During the next few months, Jacobs commissioned sketches...

...depicting his concept of the apes' strange, alien world.

Seven different artists worked on various concepts as the story evolved.

He prepared a merchandising book for Planet of the Apes...

...like 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 marvellous at it.

(Roddy McDowall) Jacobs also contacted Rod Sterling...

...a prolific writer, most famous for his highly acclaimed Twilight Zone television series.

Intrigued by Boulle's novel, Sterling began adapting it into a screenplay.

But the challenge proved harder than anticipated.

After nearly a year, he completed more than 30 drafts.

With paintings and script in hand...

...Jacobs spent the next year pitching Planet of the Apes to all of the major studios.

But everywhere he went, he was met with the same response:

No.

Rejected and ridiculed...

...Jacobs reached back to his roots as a publicist.

He knew that only one thing got Hollywood executives excited about a project.

A star.

On June 5th, 1965, Arthur made an appointment...

...with one of the most respected and powerful actors in Hollywood:

Charlton Heston, a veteran of blockbusters like The Ten Commandments...

...and an Academy Award winner for his performance in Ben Hur.

I was approached by Arthur Jacobs with Pierre Boulle's novel Planet of the Apes...

...and a remarkable series of paintings of scenes in the picture that Arthur envisioned.

And it attracted me. I liked the idea of talking monkeys and the different civilisation...

...and it was simply a marvellous idea for a movie.

(Roddy McDowall) Heston also recommended a director, Franklin Schaffner...

...having just finished a film with him called The War Lord.

(Charlton Heston) So Arthur already had two key ingredients - a lead actor and a director.

And he would go from studio to studio and they would say...

..."What are you talking about? Spaceships? Talking monkeys?"

"You're outta your mind! That's Saturday-morning serials!"

(Roddy McDowall) Their reluctance isn't hard to imagine.

Looks like the real thing.

Up to that time, actors in ape costumes...

...were more often found in low-budget B-pictures...

...and tended to be more laughable than believable.

But, despite the obstacles...

...Jacobs persevered.

Finally Richard Zanuck, who then ran Fox, having just taken it over from his father...

...said "You know, let's have a meeting on this."

(Zanuck) I'd made a picture, too, with Arthur at that time...

...and we signed him to a multiple-picture deal.

So he presented the script, which needed a lot of work, with these sketches...

...and gave me a small 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 really gonna be actors, right? In makeup?"

"Not real monkeys." We said "Well, sure, of course."

And he said "What if people laugh at the makeups?"

You know, it could be some very humorous idea...

...if not done properly.

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 a jury-rigged set.

The whole test cost $5,000...

...which was the limit Dick would give us.

Good evening, Mr Thomas.

Feeling fine, I hope?

Considering I've been kept in a cage for six weeks, I'm fine. Yes.

Good.

The test featured Charlton Heston...

...and Hollywood legend Edward G Robinson as the orangutan leader, 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 filled 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 first? 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 artificial shaft.

Look closely and you might recognise James Brolin...

...playing the chimpanzee Cornelius.

What do you think you've found, Mr Cornelius?

Not found, Doctor. Lost. And I'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.

If 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.

Although primitive, it did the trick.

It proved that...

...the idea could work. It wasn't laughable.

(Roddy McDowall) After screening the test, Zanuck gave Jacobs the green light...

...he had long been waiting for.

Planet of the Apes would, at last, become a reality.

Planet of the Apes was scheduled to begin filming in the spring of 1967...

...leaving the filmmakers with only seven months to prepare...

...an uncomfortably short time for such an ambitious production.

Although there was still some dissatisfaction with the script...

...everyone agreed that the biggest challenge was the ape makeup.

Ben Nye's test had been a good start...

...but a makeup artist was needed with experience in prosthetics...

...lightweight latex appliances that could be moulded and used for long periods of time.

A call went out, and the man who answered it was John Chambers.

Chambers was a former World War Two medical technician...

...who had begun his career working in a veterans' hospital...

...designing prosthetic limbs and facial restorations for injured soldiers.

In the early 1950s, he moved to California...

...believing his unique skills would prove a valuable asset...

...to the newly emerging television industry.

His skill with prosthetics soon put him at the top of his profession.

Within a decade, he was developing creature makeups for shows like...

...The Munsters, The Outer Limits...

...and Lost in Space.

He even designed Mr Spock's famous ears for the Star Trek television series.

Chambers was innovative, clever and quick.

Skills that would be put to the test...

...when he began working on Planet of the Apes in January 1967.

The task was formidable.

Chambers had to design appliances...

...that could turn over 200 human beings into walking, talking apes...

...do it for under $1 million...

...and make it happen in less than four months.

When I saw the test film, I thought it was very good...

...for what they had just tried offhand...

...without any experimenting.

When you do people like that...

...you have to be very careful that you don't make the audience laugh at you...

...but laugh along with you.

(Roddy McDowall) With Fox's makeup lab at his disposal, Chambers got down to work.

The first order of business was to solve the technical challenges.

The makeup needed to suggest realistic mouth movements.

The appliances worked more with the facial muscles...

...showing the animation through the...

...actor creating the over-extensive smile or talk.

(Roddy McDowall) Surrounding himself with talented artists and newcomers...

...Chambers worked around the clock.

And extras were hired just to sit in for numerous makeup tests.

Arthur Jacobs called me one day and he said "We're not gettin' anywhere."

"We gotta get goin'." He said "See if you can help those guys."

I said "Anybody ever thought of...

...actually looking at an ape?"

He said "Yeah. If you think you can get us an ape, we'd love 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 walk 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 look a little more human in appearance.

The gorillas represented the ape military...

...and were given faces much fiercer than their real-life counterparts.

And the aristocratic orang-outangs were given a more noble visage.

What Chambers was creating for Planet of the Apes was not only ingenious...

...it was breaking new ground.

The actors actually were able to express emotion through those makeups.

It's kinda tough. And John Chambers made it work.

While John Chambers laboured on the makeup design...

...Arthur Jacobs turned his attention to the script.

Rod Serling's screenplay had remained faithful to the original novel...

...and depicted a technologically advanced society.

But the production team began to fear that the apes were too evolved.

Futuristic helicopters and cars would be too expensive to film.

The early designs were very high-tech civilisation...

...which meant you had to design all kinds of special vehicles and so on. And buildings.

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 buildings?"

And that's what we did.

(Roddy McDowall) After deciding on a more rustic and cost-efficient ape society...

...Jacobs contacted screenwriter Michael Wilson.

Wilson was an Academy Award winner who had earlier collaborated...

...on the screen adaptation of Pierre Boulle's The Bridge on the River Kwai.

(Mort Abrahams) Mike Wilson did a rewrite which was very close to being right.

We were already dealing with a science fiction... central idea.

And I had learned, because I'd done a lot of science fiction things on television...

...that you cannot present too many... science fiction ideas...

...and have them work, unless you had characters.

Believable human... or characters with human responses.

And we couldn't contain all the science fiction that Pierre had envisioned.

And we had to simplify it.

(Roddy McDowall) As it took shape...

...production designer William Creber began designing the more primitive ape society.

I needed to come up with some ape unearthly architecture...

...and so I looked at all the books I could find of... you know, to be inspired.

And I found in Turkey there's a troglodyte city carved into a mountain.

And I liked the shapes and that was a very strange place. And that was it.

It was like "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 filming drawing near...

...the production was hit by the unexpected loss of actor Edward G Robinson.

Voicing concerns over the lengthy makeup process...

...he decided to withdraw from the role 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 old."

And he said "That makeup just drove me crazy."

He said "I couldn't possibly do that, day after day." He said "I gotta pass."

(Roddy McDowall) Studio executives were also concerned...

...this time over the film's escalating budget.

On April 28th, only three weeks before filming was set to begin...

...the studio cut the production's 55-day shooting schedule by ten days.

All aspects of the production were affected...

...with the exception of the makeup and wardrobe budget...

...which remained at almost one million dollars.

Jacobs and the studio finally settled on a budget of $5.8 million.

And, on May 21st, 1967...

...Planet of the Apes went before the cameras...

...and Hollywood history was about to be made.

In less than an hour we'll finish 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.

It squashes a man's ego.

I feel lonely.

I 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?

Following a prologue establishing the character of astronaut George Taylor...

...the film's opening sequence depicted a dramatic spaceship crash.

Striving for realism, Franklin Schaffner and William Creber...

...came up with a simple yet effective visual approach.

I convinced Frank to do it subjective...

...as though you were looking out the front of the spaceship.

A whole montage of kind of tumbling, crashing.

You just see the hurtling at the water.

And then the screen goes black, and when it comes up...

...the camera pulls back, you're inside the spaceship.

She's sinking! Dodge! Read the atmosphere.

(Roddy McDowall) To show the astronauts' escape...

...a full-size mock-up of the ship's nose section was constructed out of plywood.

It was 24 feet long or longer, and we took that to Lake Powell and I anchored it in the lake.

Blow the hatch!

Abandon ship!

So those scenes with the guys comin' out of it, we rigged it all.

They could get inside and jump off of it.

It was in 300 feet of water.

(Roddy McDowall) A miniature and a detailed 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 actually be filmed...

...depicted the surviving astronauts' trek across a desert wilderness.

They were shot in a remote area surrounding the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona...

...by director of photography Leon Shamroy.

The location was desolate and treacherous.

Camera and sound equipment arrived by helicopter, foot and mule-pack team.

Jeff Burton, who played 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. It's not like that, Landon.

I'm a seeker too.

But my dreams aren't like yours. I 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 film, little figures move across the landscape.

The shooting went for days and days.

I said "Frank, why are you so particular about the opening sequence?"

He said "It sets the mood, the tone and the objective of the film."

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 film.

To hell with the scarecrows!

(Roddy McDowall) Most of the filming was at the Fox Ranch, where this scene was shot.

- Whoo-Hoo! - Hey! Yay! Yay!

This swimming hole was originally created for Arthur Jacobs' Dr Dolittle.

But the waterfall was enhanced for this production...

...courtesy of two dozen carefully hidden fire hoses.

Taylor, look!

Obviously the intent here was to show the astronauts from the touchdown...

...very gradually going into the green area.

(Taylor) They look more or less human but I think they're mute.

The logistics were tough. For example, we had to grow a field.

The location we selected on the ranch was perfectly equipped to grow corn.

If this is the best they've got around here, in six months we'll be running this planet.

(William Creber) Franklin wanted the corn six feet high.

(roaring)

We had, like, ten weeks.

We had sprinklers, you know, goin' 24 hours a day watering it.

And we'd fertilise the whole field with special fertiliser 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 Franklin 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 smiled and puffed his cigar. That was his sense of humour.

He destroyed that field of corn.

(Roddy McDowall) The cornfield hunt offered one of the most powerful...

...and disturbing sequences.

That sequence really 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 unlike 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) Helping to create an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere...

...was the experimental music score composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

Goldsmith utilised unusual instruments, like metal mixing bowls...

...a ram's horn...

...and a Brazilian cuica, which could recreate eight vocalisations.

At the conclusion of the hunt...

...Taylor is taken captive.

- Smile. - (all chuckle)

Now a prisoner of the apes...

...Taylor attempts to make contact with a sympathetic female 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 played by Kim Hunter...

...best known for her Academy Award-winning performance as Stella...

...in A Streetcar Named Desire.

My agent sent me a copy of the script...

...wanted to know whether I was interested, should he pursue it.

And I thought it was fascinating.

Eventually it came through and they flew 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 couldn't believe it. What we had to go through to get all of that on.

It took about five hours, the first time.

Not only in appliances, but all the other stuff that went with it.

The wig. We had fur on our hands.

I had to wear brown nail polish.

The only thing that was not covered in some way or another were my eyeballs.

We then, you know, did tests out in front of camera.

People asked me a lot "As an actress, didn't it bother you that they couldn't see you?"

Well, they saw the character I was playing. That's all I care about.

Julius!

I loved the character - Dr Zira.

- I 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 psychologist, of course, was interested in finding out about them.

Get me a collar and leash.

(Roddy McDowall) Another leading ape role was that of Cornelius...

...Zira's archaeologist 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.

"I 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. I'm not going to get into that battle.

(Roddy McDowall) Jacobs personally offered me the part of Cornelius...

...on a plane flight back from London.

I accepted immediately, intrigued by the technical challenge...

...of acting inside the elaborate ape makeup.

I remember Roddy McDowall saying that the trick for acting behind those makeups...

...was to overact with your face.

Then it would bleed through the makeup.

(Kim Hunter) If we didn't keep the appliances moving...

...they began to look like masks.

I got very used to making them move all the time.

We were doing all kinds of crazy things with our face all the time, to keep them moving.

Roddy and I had to kiss. And we had no sense of feeling.

We had to really work hard to make it look as if we were properly kissing each other...

...without squishing the appliances.

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 pivotal ape characters in the film was Dr Zaius...

...the elder orangutan statesman.

Inheriting the role after Edward G Robinson's departure...

...was the noted Shakespearean stage and screen actor, Maurice Evans.

(Richard Xanuck) People said "Why spend all 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.

People weren't expecting for a science fiction picture...

...to find that kind of talent.

And I think that was surprising and impressive to audiences.

And it certainly lent to the credibility of the piece.

You hear their voices, and it's their delivery. That was the key - unmistakable. 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 role of Taylor...

...was one of the most physically demanding of Charlton Heston's career.

In Planet of the Apes he's running around half-naked half the time.

He's getting beaten up by gorillas.

He's burned, he's almost lobotomised, castrated, almost killed.

Charlton Heston is not having his best day on Planet of the Apes.

If you look at a lot of Charlton Heston's earlier films...

...he's often playing these larger-than-life characters.

And he's a tremendous hero and vision of strength.

But in Planet of the Apes, all that's out the window...

and the audience's point of identification changed.

The Charlton Heston hero, who used to be counted on to win the day...

...all of a sudden is in a much more precarious position.

(ape screams)

So there's this sense of things aren't as secure and stable as we thought they were.

(gunshot)

Actors should be able to accept the circumstances...

...the premises of whatever project they're doing.

But it was a very unusual acting challenge. Painful.

So I could run apparently barefoot -

they had rubber booties that were moulded to be feet -

and that protected me from thorns.

We were doing some stuff where I'm running through the shrubbery...

...and people are throwing things at me.

And I said to Joe Canutt, who doubled me...

..."Would you mind just doing these last couple of run-throughs?" He says "No."

I said "What do you mean?" He said "You've been working all afternoon in poison ivy."

And so I was! He says "You'll notice it tomorrow." And I did!

(Roddy McDowall) Exhausted by the relentless schedule...

...and subjected to extremes in temperature...

...Heston came down with a bad case of the flu just before shooting this scene.

Fortunately, the actor's hoarse voice actually enhanced his performance.

- Taylor! Why did you run away? - Security police.

I'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 role of Nova, Taylor's mate, went to lovely Linda Harrison.

Linda, a former beauty queen...

...had made an appearance in the original Apes test film as Zira.

I was under contract at Fox and...

...I was also dating the head of the studio, Richard Zanuck.

And he said "I think there might be a part for you in it."

So I eventually got the part of Nova.

Everybody that was involved in it...

...they all realised that I was a neophyte.

I was, like, 21 years old. So they kind of took me under their wing.

Since I hadn't done acting that much, I think I went instinctively with her.

I thought about animal instincts.

The way she would move and react would be more like an animal would react...

...more from fear...

Where are you taking her?

...and would seem to be what the director wanted.

Damn you! You hairy scum!

Shut up, you freak!

- Julius, you... - I said shut up!

It's a madhouse!

A madhouse!

(Roddy McDowall) The Ape City and its surroundings...

...were constructed on the Fox Malibu ranch.

Urethane foam was just getting started in the film business...

...and to be able to spray this foam in shapes and carve it.

So we dreamed up a system...

...where we would sculpt the building out of pencil-rod metal and weld it all up.

And then we would cover the building with cardboard and then get inside that structure...

...and spray the foam against the cardboard and let it set up...

...and then peel the cardboard off so it left this sort of cement, but in these odd forms.

And I remember coming across an article by MIT a year or two later...

...how they'd come up with this system, and we'd already put it in the movies.

Do you acknowledge kinship with any of these creatures?

- With one of them, yes. - Identify 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 challenges on this film.

Take him inside!

They're small things, but I wanted to make sure they were realistic.

For instance, there was this one astronaut. The apes took him and gave him a lobotomy.

I went to my medical histories and books of surgery.

And I knew what the lobotomy scars looked like. Minor things like that.

Small, but done right.

(Roddy McDowall) But it was the ape makeup that created the biggest logistical problems.

Up to 80 makeup artists, hairstylists and wardrobe personnel...

...were required for scenes involving as many as 200 apes.

The number of craftsman utilised resulted in other Hollywood films being delayed...

...due to the unavailability of qualified makeup artists.

The principal actors got new appliances 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) Eventually the makeup process...

...which had originally taken up to six hours...

...was streamlined to a mere three.

But I had people that I had trained in my laboratory...

...and it flowed just like an assembly line.

They knew what they were doing.

(Roddy McDowall) Actors had refrigerated trailers to preserve appliances between shots.

We had to be very careful. In those days, of course, many people smoked.

And so we were all presented with cigarette holders...

...to keep the cigarettes far enough away from us.

And had to look into the mirror as we ate so we didn't destroy the appliances at lunch.

(John Chambers) The actor's chin would pop loose if it was overworked.

So we used to say, when lunch would come...

..."Don't get any hard foods that you have to chew. Get milkshakes, soft foods."

And when they'd come back from lunch...

...the lower chin'd be layin' down, and there was a...

...a sac in there, you know - a space.

And there would 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 unusual lunchtime occurrence.

There was kind of a self-segregation. The gorillas would all eat at one table...

...the chimpanzees would eat at another, and the orangutans would eat at another.

I have no explanation for that whatsoever. But it was true.

The gorillas sort of hung together and the chimps did and...

I didn't really talk to Maurice Evans much, as a matter of fact...

...while we were on the set together.

And I knew him fairly well 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 film.

Fascinating.

(Roddy McDowall) Ironically, the issues of class separation and prejudice...

...are one of the film's main themes.

You promised to speak to Dr Xaius about me.

I did. You know how he looks down his nose at chimpanzees.

The ape's society is given a distinct class structure.

The orangutans are the politicians.

Learned judges, my case is simple.

It is based on our first article of faith.

That the Almighty created the ape in his own image.

The chimpanzees are the scientists and intellectuals.

I discovered evidence...

...of a simian culture that existed long before the sacred scrolls were written.

The gorillas are the labourers and the military enforcers.

It was an allegorical device...

...used by the filmmakers to make some pointed observations about human society.

Why are all apes created equal?

Some apes, it seems, are more equal than others.

Michael Wilson said the key point of Planet of the Apes...

...was that it was more about the human predicament than about apes.

When Wilson wrote the final Planet of the Apes script...

...he brought much more of a political edge to it, reflecting his own experience:

being blacklisted during the McCarthy era.

The question is: have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

You refuse to answer that question?

- I have told you that I will... - All right.

- Stand away from the stand. - ...fight for the Bill of Rights...

Take this man away from the stand.

- My name is Taylor! - Bailiff! Silence the animal!

Probably the best example of Wilson's political perspective is the trial scene...

...where basically it's an inquisition that's held against Zira and Cornelius and Taylor.

By your leave, Mr President...

...this tribunal has not yet defined 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 politically, socially...

People have dissected it and added a lot of layers of meaning to it...

...that we... at least I, as the head of the studio, never thought of.

You didn't want the audience to go up the aisle...

...thinking anything but that they'd been entertained.

Maybe I was... in the dark.

Maybe there was some kind of hidden message...

...that Michael Wilson and Arthur Jacobs and these guys were trying to sneak through.

But I never saw it like that at all.

Without ever saying it...

...we were doing a political film.

We never even said it very loudly among ourselves...

...because at that time we were in Vietnam.

And a political picture was the last kind of film that the studio wanted.

The country was having very serious problems.

(Eric Greene) We had the assassination of John Kennedy.

We had the assassination of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther king Jr.

Race riots.

There were a lot of shocks to America's image of itself...

...and to America's sense of itself as a kind of stable democracy.

Dr Xaius...

...I know who I 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 controversial material...

...without the material being attacked as controversial...

...because it is slightly disguised.

You can hear "All humans look alike to most apes" or "Human see, human do".

And you can laugh it off if you want to.

But at the same time you can let it sink in as far as:

what is this saying about how groups interact...

...and how people in power view people 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 filthy loincloth.

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 girls passing coffee around walked behind me and said...

..."Mm, nice buns!"

The lighting people would 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 film!

There was a famous day when the gorillas were being made up at the studio...

...and then hauled 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 gorilla drivin' the station wagon down PCH...

...you know, stoppin' traffic.

(Roddy McDowall) An off-the-cuff gag on the set between Heston and Schaffner...

...resulted in one of the film'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.

While shooting this sequence, the star joked...

...that the director should film the ape tribunal performing the oldest of simian clichés.

I 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 looked at it, they said "Oh, my God!"

And Frank said "You think it's too much?" Then of course it appears in the final version.

(Roddy McDowall) Schaffner had a very specific vision for the film.

And its success owed much to his considerable abilities as a director.

He was a visionary. He was underrated as a director.

This really was his first step up.

We took a chance, really, because he hadn't done anything.

At least, I hadn't seen anything that indicated that he could give it scope and meaning.

And that's what it's all about. There's a lot of guys that are technically competent...

...but don't have a real vision, or enthusiasm. But he did.

(ape) Grab him!

(Roddy McDowall) As the film draws to its conclusion, Taylor escapes.

- Who are you? - So you can talk!

I'm Dr Xira's nephew. This abduction was her idea.

Cornelius!

He is pursued to an archaeological site in the forbidden zone.

- Lucius, don't fire at them! - You're all under arrest!

If there's any more shooting, Dr Xaius, you'll be the first to go. You can count on it.

There, an amazing discovery is made.

One that challenges the ape's dominant role.

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.

I don't say he was a man like I 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 conflict of civilisations, if you like.

What interested me particularly about it...

...was the dichotomy of Taylor's character.

He was a harsh, embittered man...

...who had become so disenchanted with his civilisation...

...that he literally leaves the earth.

You who are reading me now are a different breed.

I hope a better one.

And then he finds himself in an alien planet populated by apes.

And he is alone required to defend humankind.

I 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 could.

(Roddy McDowall) The final scenes were shot on the California coastline.

At Zuma Beach near Malibu.

Here, Taylor manages to subdue Dr Zaius and they face off in one final confrontation.

Don't try to follow us. I'm pretty handy with this.

Of that I'm sure.

All my life I've awaited your coming and dreaded it, like death itself.

Why?

I've terrified you from the first, Doctor. I still do.

You're afraid of me and you hate me. Why?

Because you're a man.

And you're right.

I have always known about man.

From the evidence, I 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.

It 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 find.

The film's ending was a source of controversy for the studio and filmmakers.

Shot, but later deleted, was a sequence revealing Nova's pregnancy.

We decided that the structure would be badly affected...

...changing her situation to a specific such as her being pregnant...

...cos you have to follow through.

If she's pregnant, that becomes an element of the story.

And now we're off to... something else entirely.

If Taylor and Nova have a child, will that child be able to speak?

Will that child have the same kind of intelligence as Taylor?

What if they breed a new race of intelligent humans? What could happen then?

But when you take that notion out...

...then this whole question about humans being able to have some kind of rebirth...

...gets eliminated, because really they weren't telling a story of possible salvation.

(Roddy McDowall) The ending that was used...

...had its genesis in one of Rod Serling's early script drafts.

It proved to be one of the most surprising...

...memorable and chilling climaxes in motion-picture history.

Oh, my God!

I'm back!

I'm home.

All the time, it was...

We finally really did it.

You maniacs!

You blew it up!

God damn you!

God damn you all to hell!

(Eric Greene) That final image is one of the most memorable scenes of '60s cinema.

The American hero is standing in front of this fallen icon of American expectation.

And it really speaks to this sense of all America's aspirations...

...the self-image that we had as defenders of liberty and the beacon of hope.

All of that now is laid waste - literally. It's in ruins.

It was really 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 all this time!"

(Roddy McDowall) The haunting image of a decayed Statue of Liberty...

...entails some interesting technical challenges.

We found a location at the end of Zuma Beach, which was about the right scale...

...and it had rocks with moss on 'em on the end of the beach...

...that looked kind of like disintegrated... bronze, or whatever.

So we integrated those rocks with the base of the statue...

...which was a painting by Emil Kosa, who was chief matte artist at the studio.

And Frank was lamenting 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 bluff on a dolly track...

...and shooting down over a foreground miniature.

And what it entailed was building the head and the torch, one half full-scale.

I had the grips build a tower...

...70 feet high...

...to get the right perspective.

Leon Shamroy was the cameraman and Leon was close to 70...

...and he looked 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 build it. I'll meet you at the top."

So Frank and I went up and made the shot. The rest was history.

(Roddy McDowall) Shooting was completed on August 10th, 1967...

...with the production coming in on time and on budget.

(trailer) Charlton Heston.

The world he finds 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 world premiere on February 8th, 1968.

It was a box-office smash, grossing over $26 million...

...and reaching audiences of all ages.

They build the cities, make the laws. The Gods.

Adults responded to its intelligent script and first-rate performances.

Man has no understanding.

Children thrilled to the film's adventure and fantasy elements.

Twentieth Century Fox transforms the motion-picture screen into...

The film also found favour with critics, who praised its uniqueness...

...timely political commentary and entertainment value.

Beyond your wildest dreams.

Planet of the Apes was nominated for two Academy Awards.

Best Costume Design and Best Original Score.

But special Academy recognition was reserved...

...for the innovative makeup wizard, John Chambers...

...who was awarded a special Oscar...

...for his outstanding achievement on Planet of the Apes.

The award was presented to him by Walter Matthau...

...and friend.

It's a madhouse!

It's a madhouse! A madhouse! It's a madhouse!

Planet of the Apes had reached a pinnacle of success that no one could have predicted.

It was now officially a phenomenon.

With audience interest at its peak, a meeting was called at Twentieth Century Fox...

...between the producers and elated studio executives.

Stan Huff, head of production, says "You gotta do a sequel."

I said "Stan, there's no way we can do a sequel. There's no place 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 sequel.

At the time of Planet of the Apes...

...no one was talking sequels very much, or at all.

For Twentieth Century Fox, at that period of time...

...this started the notion of recapturing the success of the first.

As thoughts inevitably turned towards a sequel...

...the producers faced an impossible challenge.

That half-buried Statue of Liberty had become a cinematic and cultural milestone...

...and it cast a very long shadow.

How could anyone go beyond the film's apocalyptic vision?

How could they go beyond the Planet of the Apes?

With studio pressure mounting for a sequel...

...Jacobs returned to two of the men who had helped make the original film so successful...

...Rod Serling and Pierre Boulle.

During the next few months, both men submitted a wide range of proposals.

Jacobs rejected them all...

...feeling the concepts did not provide the kind of visual shocks...

...that had made the original so successful.

Planet of the Apes was indeed proving a hard act to follow...

...until associate producer Mort Abrahams went to London...

...and met with Academy Award-winning screenwriter and poet Paul Dehn.

Dehn was known for his work on Cold War suspense thrillers...

...like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

He was also famous for co-writing the James Bond classic, Goldfiinger.

I was in London on something else entirely, and met with Paul...

...and told him frankly I was having trouble with this development of this idea.

He said "Let me toss it around."

He called me two or three days Later and said "I think I have an idea how to do this."

(Roddy McDowall) Working with Abrahams...

...he submitted his first outline in September 1968.

Called Planet of the Apes Revisited...

...it contained many ideas that would find their way into the final film...

...and one that would not:

the conception of a half-ape, half-human child, seen here in a rare screen test.

Curiously, the studio feared that the implied mating of species...

...could lose the film a G rating and take away their family audience.

With Franklin Schaffner already committed to Fox's big-budget epic, Patton...

...the job was given to veteran film and television director Ted Post.

But just after Post signed to direct the new Apes film, he threatened to resign...

...when told that Charlton Heston was unwilling to return as Taylor.

I had told Arthur that I don't think that a sequel will hold...

...without the original star being in it.

And they took a little bit of time to scratch their heads about that...

...and finally came up with a solution which hooked Chuck Heston back into the sequel.

Dick Zanuck called me. He said "Chuck, we have to do a sequel. This film is enormous."

I said "I don't wanna do a sequel. That's like the Andy Hardy series."

And he said "Chuck, I can't make the sequel if you're not in it."

And I said "Well, you got me, Richard...

...because we couldn't have made this film if you hadn't given it a go."

"So how about if I'm in the sequel but I get killed in the opening scene...

...and you pay me whatever you want and we'll give it to a school or something?"

He said "Ok, that's a deal." Then, as the script developed, he called and said...

..."Chuck, how about if we have you disappear in the first scene...

...and then you're killed in the last scene?"

And I said "Yeah, I guess. Ok, fine. What the heck."

(Roddy McDowall) With the crisis resolved, the production team still faced a final hurdle:

the studio's insistence on a reduced budget.

Since the release of the original Apes film...

...Fox had undergone a troubled financial period...

...where a string of big-budget musicals had performed below expectations.

Among them, Arthur Jacobs' Dr Dolittle.

They had a couple of failures, 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.

Settling on a budget of $3 million - barely half that of the original film -

Beneath the Planet of the Apes began filming in February 1969.

Don't look for it, Taylor.

You may not like what you find.

The story picked up exactly where the first film left off.

What will he find out there, Doctor?

His destiny.

Taylor rides off into the forbidden zone, accompanied by Nova...

...played once again by Linda Harrison.

After encountering a series of strange phenomenon...

...Taylor mysteriously disappears.

A new leading man then takes centre stage:

Brent, the leader and lone survivor of an astronaut rescue team sent to find Taylor.

Although Burt Reynolds was approached...

...the producers ultimately cast popular television actor James Franciscus.

Hey!

No. No, no, I don't wanna hurt you. I...

I just wanna know where I am.

When Brent meets Nova, he realises she is his only link to finding his lost comrade.

Taylor!

Is he hurt? Is he alive?

I think they picked Jim because he was like a version - a smaller version - of Heston.

They kinda looked alike, and a very strong voice and...

...took it very seriously.

You... take me... to Taylor.

(Roddy McDowall) Brent and Nova's search brings them to Ape City...

...most of which was still standing at the Fox Studio Ranch...

It's a city of apes!

...allowing the filmmakers to save valuable dollars 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 like this one...

...where the background apes were portrayed by extras in pull-over masks.

A cost-cutting device that proved a little too obvious.

The role of the gorilla military leader, General Ursus...

...was originally offered to Hollywood legend Orson Welles.

But when Welles declined, 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 familiar ape faces:

Zira, once again played by Kim Hunter.

Taylor?

No, not... not Taylor. My name's Brent.

You... talked.

And Dr Zaius, played by Maurice Evans.

As minister of science, it is my duty...

...to find out whether some other form of life exists.

- Where are you going? - Into the forbidden zone, with Ursus.

As fate would have it, I was directing a film in England at the time...

...and was unable to reprise my role of Cornelius.

The part went instead to British actor David Watson.

With the help of makeup, it was hoped that the audiences wouldn't notice the difference.

If 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 Taylor...

...the filmmakers hoped to give audiences an even more impressive visual...

...than the half-buried Statue of Liberty.

Their solution: bury the whole city of New York.

(William Creber) It was done almost for free.

I got photos out of books...

...and kind of imagined angles that would work...

...and I wrote a letter to the studio in New York...

...and asked them to specifically shoot these pictures.

We made big blow-ups and cut 'em up with a razor blade...

...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 civilisation.

Genetically altered beings who possess telepathic powers.

Your lips... don't move...

...but I can hear.

I know what you're thinking.

To save costs, this scene was actually shot on a set previously used in Fox's Hello Dolly.

- (rapid bleeps) - No, wait! Wait a minute!

I can't understand you...

By the way, that's Natalie Trundy playing the female mutant, Albina.

In real life, 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.

It's a primitive accomplishment. We use it when we must.

When we sing to our God.

Another Hello Dolly set was also transformed...

...into this chapel, where the mutants pray to a most unusual god.

The heavens declare the glory of the Bomb...

...and the firmament showeth His handiwork.

- I reveal my inmost self unto my God. - Unto my God.

The mutant society raised some new and unique makeup challenges...

...for director Ted Post and makeup designer John Chambers.

(Chambers) It looked like tissue that was destroyed by exposure to the atomic bomb.

It was challenging, how far we should create the mutation.

(Ted Post) In the makeup room, they showed me all the faces they had in mind...

...that would depict a mutant...

...with Cyclops one eye and three eyes...

...with the ear here, the ear there.

Everything was kind of jangled, mangled and disjointed, etc. It looked terrible to me.

So I looked at a book of anatomy, Gray's Anatomy...

...and saw a face that had been stripped of the epidermis...

...and saw the dermal region, with the vessels and the nerves.

I said "That's the kind of look I think would 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 subtle social satire of the first Apes film...

...gave way to more obvious and direct political commentary...

...as the apes moved closer to a planned military invasion of the forbidden zone.

It's the sense of this unnecessary war that the people are being led into...

...that the liberal youth and many of the intellectuals are opposed to...

...but that the political elite 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 like you would expect to see at the anti-Vietnam rallies.

Not one of the more subtle uses of political commentary...

...but a very direct paralleling of what was going on in the US at the time.

Advance!

(Roddy McDowall) The apes declare war...

...and a battle between mind and muscle begins.

Hold your positions!

Charlton Heston also makes his promised appearance near the end of the film.

- Taylor! - You're... Brent!

My God! Taylor!

And, as the ape-mutant war rages...

...the action moves towards its apocalyptic finale.

Someone at the pillar!

(cry of pain)

The ending was suggested by Heston himself...

...who was very wary of any more ape sequels.

It's Doomsday.

I said "How about if I set off this atom bomb and blow up the whole 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 sequels.

(trailer) The Planet of the Apes was only the beginning. What lies beneath may be the end.

Released on May 26th, 1970...

...Beneath the Planet of the Apes opened to a mixed critical reaction.

Invade!

(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 film made $14 million -

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 moderately successful. I don't know whether that's all we could have been.

But I think that's all we were.

Which is not to downplay the project at all, 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 logical conclusion.

The prophecies of the apes' sacred scrolls had come true.

The beast man had wielded his final weapon of destruction.

But, just four months after the film's release,..

...screenwriter Paul Dehn received a telegram from Arthur Jacobs.

"Apes exist. Sequel required."

Dehn was now faced with a seemingly insurmountable task.

How do you carry on after you've blown up the world?

While puzzling over the problem of how to create a third Apes adventure...

...Paul Dehn thought of astronaut Taylor's spaceship from the first film.

It gave him an idea.

- All right, open her up. - Open it up!

What if, just prior to the world's destruction in Beneath the Planet of the Apes...

...the abandoned craft had somehow been salvaged and repaired?

Now the story could move forward...

Welcome, gentlemen, to the United St...

...by bringing the apes back in time.

And, through the magic of science fiction...

...that's exactly what happened in Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

This time I was able to take the role of Cornelius...

...with Kim Hunter also returning as my wife, Zira.

There was also a third ape accompanying us on the journey: Dr Milo.

He was played by Sal Mineo, acclaimed for his role in Rebel Without a Cause.

Having only three apes made sense storywise... and budgetwise.

The number of makeups and effects was greatly reduced...

...and made it no problem to work within the film's $2.5 million budget.

Because number two did not do as well as number one did...

...number three should then not probably do as well as number two did.

So you've got to look at something more contained, which is what we tried to do.

Action! A little more on the left!

(Roddy McDowall) Filming began on November 30th, 1970...

...under the direction of Don Taylor.

Hey, Bill Creber, take your cue on action!

You must realise that mine was the third film of this particular series...

...and I inherited everything, practically.

I inherited the two actors, Roddy and Kim...

...who certainly knew more about the characters than I did.

The only thing that I didn't inherit was the plot. It was different. It was fresh.

(Roddy McDowall) The story showed the ape-onauts brought back to a laboratory...

...and put under scientific examination.

The two animal psychiatrists were played by Bradford Dillman...

...and Natalie Trundy, now making her second appearance in an Apes film.

Well, why doesn't she take it?

Because I loathe bananas!

- Xira! - I 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 Milo meets an untimely end early in the film...

...much to our disappointment, and to Sal Mineo's relief.

We did have to hug Sal a lot.

It was very, very difficult for him...

...being confined in the appliances.

He was not comfortable at all being a chimpanzee.

If you'll just be seated, we'll get right down to business.

Dr Dixon. As a zoologist, I know and respect your work...

...but if you want to turn a Presidential Inquiry...

...into a ventriloquist's act, I have to inform you...

And I have to inform you that these apes have the power of speech.

It was during the filming of this scene...

...that Kim and I had one of our most unusual experiences...

...while 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 Presidential Commission.

Roddy and I were facing the commission, which was up on a stage...

...sort of in a semicircle.

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 all those extras...

...of course, they shot us first.

Then the director said "Look, you and Roddy can start getting the appliances off...

...because we won't be shooting you the rest of the day."

"Just come back to be off camera for the Presidential Commission...

...for their questions, and respond to the other actors."

So it was marvellous. We started taking it off. But it was so weird.

"Roddy," I said, "are you feeling the same thing I'm feeling?"

It didn't feel like Zira and Cornelius when they started taking this stuff off.

I finally said "Stop taking it all off."

"Leave on some."

"I've gotta have it."

It just didn't work without the appliances.

The character just... sort of disappeared.

Internally I was thinking and feeling the same thing...

...but it didn't come out properly without the appliances.

It was very strange.

(Roddy McDowall) The film was primarily set in and around Los Angeles.

This helped the studio to control costs and keep the production close to home.

Address, please?

- The zoo. - (laughter)

It also gave us the opportunity to create some of the film's most memorable scenes...

...as Cornelius and Zira become media celebrities.

Dr Cornelius. Tell me, how do you find our women?

- Very human. - (laughter)

Many of these scenes were inspired by episodes in the original Pierre Boulle novel.

How do you like it, Cornelius?

Beastly.

...and recaptured much of the original film's humour and social satire.

- How is that? - Soothing...

...but very wet.

But the light-hearted tone of the film began to shift...

...when Zira offered this surprising revelation.

- It must have been the shock. - Shock, my foot!

I'm pregnant.

Eventually, fearful government officials put the apes into custody.

- Cornelius? - (Cornelius) Xira!

They made me tell them everything, Cornelius.

We can't live with lies.

After this, I 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 predominantly the heroes...

...and humans have become the antagonists.

And Zira and Cornelius, now they're the strangers in a strange land.

Kind of an inverse of Taylor'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? - I didn't mean to kill him.

- Please believe me. - I do, Cornelius, I 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 I'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?

I 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) Cornelius and Zira find temporary refuge in a travelling circus.

Look. Look at Heloise.

She's showing an expectant mother what to expect.

Mama. Mama.

- Xira... - I'm getting into practice.

The sympathetic circus owner, Armando, was played by Ricardo Montalban.

I identify very much with this man's compassion...

...for these so-called beasts...

...which were remarkably good and wonderful 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 powerful theme.

You have done enough to make us grateful to you for ever.

I did it because I 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 climax of the film takes place on an abandoned freighter...

...as Cornelius and Zira are brutally hunted down.

Xira.

I want that baby. If you won't give it to me, I'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 really not happy.

- (gunshots) - No!

(wails)

But in a science fiction film, you have a little more margin...

...to be able to express certain things.

So the public accepted the unhappy ending because it was truthful.

It wasn't just to make you sad.

It was: that's the way it is.

It's a love story. Paul and I - Paul Dehn, that is - we both said that to each other.

He said "That's what I wrote."

And a love story always ends unhappily.

Most love stories do.

That's what makes them a love story. So, there you are.

(Roddy McDowall) The film's ending caused much debate amongst the production team...

...the biggest question being: what if the studio asks for another sequel?

(Armando) All hands on the guy lines.

- Drop the bail ring! - Come on, let's go!

As soon as you get that canvas packed, I want every hand in the menagerie tent.

Producer Jacobs and screenwriter Dehn...

...decided not to paint themselves into another corner this time.

Intelligent 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.

Released in May, 1971...

...Escape from the Planet of the Apes proved to be another box-office success.

Adult audiences loved the humour and subtle social commentary of the film...

...and the elements of fantasy and adventure continued to captivate children.

The Apes films were still considered ideal family entertainment.

Planet of the Apes was becoming a full-grown franchise...

...and there seemed to be no end in sight.

Planning began for another instalment.

But, this time, the filmmakers would find themselves going down a darker path...

...than they ever had before.

One that threatened to lose them their loyal and profitable family audience.

The fourth Apes film began shooting on January 31st, 1972...

...under the direction of J Lee Thompson.

You just take the book.

He was a prolific craftsman whose credits included The Guns of Navarone...

...the original Cape Fear...

...and Arthur Jacobs' first production, What a Way to Go.

(Thompson) keep low. keep low.

Once again, the script was provided by Paul Dehn.

The title was Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

The film is set in a city of the future which resembles an oppressive police state.

- Go! - (screams)

A mysterious plague has wiped out all dogs and cats from the face of the earth.

Do.

Apes have been domesticated to take their place...

...and trained to perform like slaves.

No!

The main focus of the story is on a new central ape character.

- Are you authorised to dress him like that? - Oh, yes, sir.

He is Caesar, the now fully grown child of Cornelius and Zira.

A circus ape, huh?

- Circuses are past history. - Not while I live and breathe.

- All right, Senor Armando. Go ahead. - Thank you.

Come, come.

Owing to the loyalty of Arthur P Jacobs, I was given the leading role...

...and had the unique opportunity of playing my own son.

That was the great leap for Roddy, and that was wonderful because...

...it still brought his personality to the character.

Maybe he's not the same exact individual, but it's still his spirit coming through.

And then he became so identified with the series that the continuity to an audience is:

"Roddy McDowall 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 Natalie Trundy.

This time, however, she joined me behind the makeup for her role as the chimpanzee Lisa.

(Natalie Trundy) Arthur said "Natalina..." He used to call me Natalina.

I said "I know what you're gonna ask."

I really didn't wanna play 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 Montalban also returned as kindly circus owner Armando...

...Caesar's mentor and conscience.

- Did I 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 looked could be a little distracting.

So I had to concentrate more on thinking of him as an actor, not as a monkey.

I remember very distinctly the rapport with Roddy...

...when he's dying to speak in rebellion...

...of the mistreatment of his brothers and sisters.

(ape moans)

Lousy human bastards!

The theme was so important to make a parallel to the terrible thing of slavery.

Who said that?

I did.

He's a performing ape for my circus.

- A talking ape? - It'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 class...

...and is subjected to a brutal training process.

Take a good look at this specimen.

Caesar soon finds himself the prized object in a slave auction...

- Buy him. - 1500!

1500 from Mr MacDonald!

For His Excellency, Governor Breck.

...and becomes a servant to the governor, played by Don Murray.

Name yourself.

"Caesar."

A king.

Working in proximity to the human seat of power...

...Caesar learns the value 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...

...kills any notion that Caesar has of man's potential for good.

(roars)

He begins to plot a revolution...

...whose purpose is the ultimate destruction of mankind.

(screaming)

Action!

With a budget of only $1.7 million, the producers had difficulty finding a location...

...where they could film an epic revolution in a city of the future.

But, as luck would have it...

...there was a recently completed commercial and residential complex...

...right next to the studio.

Called Century City...

...it had been built on land that was formerly part of Twentieth Century Fox's backlot.

It was pretty new and had a lot of concrete stone and nice sharp angles.

So it became a kind of a natural thing that, if we could shoot there...

...we could 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, I understand the situation.

Assemble as large a force as you can and follow them.

(Roddy McDowall) Conquest also had striking costume and colour design...

...making it look unlike any other film in the series.

(Frank Capra Jr) The black costumes conveyed...

...this rigid and not-so-pleasant world of humans.

Not necessarily a dictatorship, but it seemed to be a pretty controlled society.

- They've reached the Plaza. - Good God! They're armed!

And organised.

No!

(J Lee Thompson) We definitely set out to give it a city look.

I suppose you'd call it, in its day, a modern look. And...

...we went for certain colours.

Ready!

Black and red were the primary colours we used in the film.

Aim!

At night we would highlight the costumes with cross-lighting...

...and opened it up as much as was possible.

And I think that helped the picture look more expensive than it was.

Fire!

(Roddy McDowall) In the scenes where the ape revolution reaches its zenith...

...director Thompson pushed for a level of on-screen violence...

...that had never been seen in an Apes film before.

In the first preview at Phoenix...

...mothers took their children, running down the aisles, to get out of the theatre...

...because of the bloodiness 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 felt that that would be a successful turn for the series.

We were always concerned about the level of violence we could put in...

...because it was still a young people's picture.

The censor wouldn't pass the film the first time.

Too much blood and too much gore.

Fox wanted to try and retain the family audience...

...and they made us cut it a great deal.

It was a violent film...

...and politically very disturbing.

(Roddy McDowall) Dehn and Thompson modelled the apes' revolt...

...on the 1965 Watts Riots...

...an event that had left an indelible impression on the American landscape.

(Eric Greene) In 1972, there's no way any major studio was gonna release a film...

...where the hero was the leader of the Watts Riots.

But you could release a film where the leader of an ape-slave revolution is your hero.

You can capture the audience's attention, and try to get people...

...to maybe rethink the way they were looking at the current events of the time.

That's one of the beauties of well-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 lot of discussion...

...about the political aspect of the film.

Eventually, we showed it in Inglewood...

...and a largely black audience cheered.

Caesar!

- By what right are you spilling blood? - The slaves' right to punish his persecutors.

Caesar. I, a descendant of slaves, am asking you to show humanity.

But I was not born human.

The African-American audience was very vocal. They'd get up and yell and scream...

...all on the side of the apes. It was like: revolution has come.

Where there is fire, 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 originally shot, Caesar's final speech...

...was a militant call for revolution.

(whimpers) No.

But, responding to test audience reaction...

...the studio and producer Jacobs decided to alter this speech in postproduction.

I was called in to record some additional lines, ending the film on a more hopeful 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.

If 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 violence, racial unrest.

Issues that were strongly influencing popular movie entertainment in 1972.

Films like 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 fiction.

But, despite the initial test reactions, parental outcries and a final PG rating...

...Conquest still 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 inevitable sequel.

And, for the first time, producer Arthur Jacobs and the studio...

...found themselves at a crossroads.

Had Conquest gone too far in succumbing to the trend of escalating screen violence?

Was it possible to move the story forward and still make a family picture?

Soon after Conquest's release in 1972...

...producer Arthur Jacobs once again asked Paul Dehn...

...to develop and script the fifth Apes feature.

Dehn quickly submitted a treatment entitled Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

It continued the story of Caesar as he fights against a group of human rebels...

...who possess an atomic bomb.

Ultimately, Caesar is killed by one of his own generals...

...and a group of ape politicians and military commanders...

...hold final governance over the Planet of the Apes.

But Dehn's outline was rejected. Arthur thought it was too bleak and too violent...

...for the more upbeat film that both he and the studio wanted to make.

Dehn reshaped the story and script.

But two new writers were also 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 film that had starred Charlton Heston.

Keeping the title Battle for the Planet of the Apes...

...the fifth Apes film went into production on January 2nd, 1973...

...with a budget of $1.8 million.

J Lee Thompson returned to direct...

...having impressed both Jacobs and associate producer Frank Capra Jr...

...with the epic and visual flair he had achieved on Conquest.

Right from the start, Arthur said "We're gonna make a kid picture...

...and something that will appeal to families."

We had no real political implications.

It was simply a kids' science fiction film.

(Roddy McDowall) For me, it was back to the makeup chair to play Caesar again.

I was anxious to do it because I'd enjoyed the role even more than the part of Cornelius.

Seen only in a brief prologue and epilogue...

...the role of the Lawgiver had little screen time...

...but proved a most notable casting choice:

legendary producer, writer, director and actor, John Huston.

"In 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 leader Caesar...

...just a few years after he has led the ape revolution.

A nuclear war has occurred...

...and Caesar now rules over a surviving band of apes and humans.

- No humans in Council! - They are here because I sent for them.

The two species have forged a fragile coexistence.

The apes are also working with the humans to educate themselves...

...and have begun forming their own laws.

- Read me what I'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 I 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 longer militant and angry...

Cornelius.

...but patient and benevolent.

Father.

- I'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 felt...

...seemed to be a logical situation for him.

And it was also more attractive as a character...

...that he becomes a more paternalistic and a sort of a healer...

...rather than a revolutionary character.

(Roddy McDowall) Natalie Trundy again signed on to play my wife, Lisa.

This was the fourth Apes film for both of us.

I don't want to have to remember my husband. I want to love him now.

Look. Virgil will be with us. Now, we'll take good care.

There it is... or was.

Some carefully placed rubble and a clever matte painting...

...created the illusion of a bombed-out forbidden city...

...where a group of radiation-scarred humans continued to live.

Governor, look!

Somebody's breached the warning system at F6.

For the interior of the forbidden city...

...the producers used the Hyperion water treatment plant located in Los Angeles.

This background radiation alone will give us 300 roentgens per hour.

Another interesting casting note: the orangutan Virgil...

...was played by singer/songwriter Paul Williams.

Can anything live down here? I mean, for long?

Oh, yes. But in the end, not recognisably.

(Frank Capra Jr) The series began to be more and more human-orientated.

We were thinking in terms of time always...

...because these long makeup sessions cut the time of filming down.

It was difficult to get enough apes because of the time constraints of the makeup.

And actually audiences wanted to see more and more ape-orientated shots.

So it worked counterproductively.

(Roddy McDowall) When the humans from the forbidden city attack...

Aldo will make the future... with this!

...Caesar engages in a power struggle with the commander of the military, General Aldo...

We want guns!

...played by the noted character actor, Claude Akins.

We will smash the humans! And then, we will smash Caesar!

Look!

Caesar's son.

Father!

To the barricade!

Like all the entries in the series...

...Battle for the Planet of the Apes contained plenty of rousing action sequences.

(J Lee Thompson) It was very low-budget...

...so we had to reduce everything.

I had to come in closer, not use so many people. Come in closer...

Here they come.

...and rely more on quick cuts.

Then, putting it all together, it gave a feel of a lot of numbers and a big battle.

Fall back! Fall back!

It's a pity that they downgraded the budget for each film...

...instead of trying to go bigger and better.

But that was a decision taken by the money people...

...and we had to live with it.

Now! Fight like apes!

(Roddy McDowall) Near the film's conclusion 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 films.

No.

No, Virgil.

(apes chanting) Ape has killed ape.

Caesar also discovers that Aldo is responsible for the death of his son...

Ape has never killed ape...

...let alone an ape child.

...and one final battle for the Planet of the Apes is fought.

Aaargh!

As I 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.

Although Jacobs ultimately wanted to send a positive social message...

...the film's final image is rather ambiguous.

Is the statue of Caesar crying a tear of joy because man and ape are finally 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 impossibility?

The human way is violence and death.

These questions would never be resolved...

...because, during the early stages of production...

...it had been decided that this would be the final chapter in the Apes series.

And that is how it was advertised when it reached theatres in May of 1973.

We felt like we had come pretty far.

Again, production-value wise, we'd gotten to a point...

...where we'd practically boxed ourselves in.

If we went any further into the future and told a continuing story...

...it would have been a much more expensive picture.

(Roddy McDowall) But the story wasn't over.

Battle had done surprisingly well at the box office...

...and the CBS network had recently garnered tremendous ratings...

...with the broadcast premieres of the first three films.

Although Jacobs and Fox briefly considered producing another Apes movie...

...it was agreed that the future of the franchise might best be explored...

...in the uncharted universe of television.

Jacobs had considered a Planet of the Apes television series as early as 1971.

But the continued success of the theatrical features delayed his plans for two years.

He had also been busy on a number of non-Ape films...

...that included Woody Allen's Play it Again, Sam...

...and family musicals like Goodbye, Mr Chips and Tom Sawyer.

But during the production of his latest...

...a musical adaptation of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn...

...Arthur Jacobs died of a heart attack.

He was only 51 years old.

Arthur was very, very tough. But everybody loved him.

But he was always there. Always on the set.

I tell you, the man worked 29 hours, eight days a week.

He was with everything, all the time.

He was just wonderful. He was an extraordinary man.

Arthur's strongest point...

...was his intense sense of the meticulous.

But it generated results.

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 help of writers Anthony Wilson and Art Wallace...

...they began to hammer out a workable concept.

And, on September 13th, 1974...

...Planet of the Apes premiered on CBS.

I starred, along with Ron Harper and James Naughton.

They played astronauts Alan Virdon and Peter Burke...

...who are propelled through a time warp and land on Earth in the year 3085.

By the way, their vehicle was the same plywood spaceship used in the original film.

Well, we could've landed in a worse place.

Soon they're captured and find themselves face to face...

...with a favourite Apes feature film character, Dr Zaius...

...now played by stage actor Booth Colman.

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, I really don't know about... it 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 help of a sympathetic ape named Galen, 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 television frequently winds up in a kind of a formulaic role.

Who's the bad guy and how will you escape?

(Roddy McDowall) Week after week, the trio was pursued...

...by the ape military commander, General Urko.

I'll quarrel with anything that keeps these two humans alive.

Urko was played by Mark Lenard, best known for his portrayal of Mr Spock's father...

...in another famous science fiction series, Star Trek.

The show tried to retain the elements that had made the motion picture so successful.

Drama.

Urko! You kill me, you kill yourself!

A bit of humour.

- There's a smell about you. - Well, nobody's perfect.

Some social commentary.

These humans, they think they're as good as we are.

And plenty of action.

(James Naughton) We were always whackin' some guy over the head with a stick...

...or drop-kicking a guy in a monkey suit.

We had apes Fallin' out of trees everyhere.

(Roddy McDowall) The television series' most loyal audience were children.

But network executives claimed this was not the audience advertisers wanted to attract.

The show was also scheduled up against two of the highest-rated comedies of the day:

Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man.

It wasn't long before the inevitable happened.

On December 6th, 1974, after only four months and 13 episodes...

...Planet of the Apes was cancelled.

And, for the first time in its history, the future of Apes was uncertain.

(trailer) In the beginning, there was Planet of the Apes.

And the most exciting series in motion-picture history began.

Although the demise of the television series had proved disappointing to fans...

...its premiere had been accompanied by a media blitz...

...that included the re-release of all five films to theatres in 1974.

(trailer) Now is your chance to go ape.

Twentieth Century Fox, long aware of Apes' popularity with children...

...also launched an extensive marketing and merchandising campaign...

...encouraging kids all over the country to "Go ape".

It was phenomenally successful.

There were 60 companies that were licensed to turn out something like 300 items...

...and just this flood of Apes products on the market.

(Roddy McDowall) Ape action figures, masks, posters, games...

...lunch boxes and colouring books.

There was even a Planet of the Apes wastepaper basket.

(Eric Greene) I think Apes helped pave the way for later films like Star Wars...

...where you had mass merchandising blitzes, which are now common, not extraordinary.

(trailer) Return to the Planet of the Apes!

In 1975, NBC TV launched Return to the Planet of the Apes...

...a half-hour Saturday morning cartoon series...

...that depicted a more evolved simian culture.

- We got all of 'em, Urko. - Good. Take them to Ape City.

As in the original novel, apes were finally allowed to drive cars...

...and fly airplanes.

Though the animated series lasted only one year...

...other Ape incarnations proved to have greater longevity.

More than three decades after the premiere of the first film...

...Apes references still manage to find their way into American pop culture.

♪ THE SIMPSONS ♪

♪ I hate every ape I see ♪

♪ From chimpan A to chimpan X ♪

♪ No, you'll never make a monkey out of me ♪

(whistling)

From films and television to merchandising and memorabilia...

...Planet of the Apes and its numerous sequels...

...have conquered audiences all over the world.

And people continue to be captivated, for many different reasons.

I think it just struck people's imagination. It was different. And it still is.

You led me around on a leash!

- We thought you were inferior. - Now you know better.

They're just as valid now as when they first came out.

They probably will be 30 years from now.

We have heads as well as hands.

I call upon men to let us use them.

Some of the social statements, unfortunately, 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 possibility we could do something horrible...

...lurks in our consciousness.

To me, that is the element which has stirred so much interest.

It's Doomsday.

The films hold up as a way of getting at those issues in an accessible, entertaining way.

I'd like to kiss you goodbye.

You're so damned ugly.

(J Lee Thompson) Planet of the Apes depended on characterisation...

...as well as adventure.

If you've got good characters, they'll stand the test of time.

If man was superior, why didn't he survive?

Those particular stories have had a kind of a timeless theme...

...with premises that were very, very applicable to...

...what people were feeling, what people should feel.

It has relevance in that it, as a film...

...took a step up in that genre.

(Don Taylor) Apes is a trailblazer in this genre.

It probably helped to push into the things that have happened since.

I think the makeup, of course, is the most innovative.

For the first time, really, these were actors working...

...and emotions coming through this makeup.

I was a guy that helped make those pictures work...

...and it's a wonderful feeling, to go that long...

...and that those pictures stand up as well as they have.

I believe they have a life of their own.

I don't think you can kill totally the Planet of the Apes.

There will always be an audience.

I still get fan mail from all over the world.

I think it's gonna carry, carry, carry, carry on.

It appeals to everybody.

Little kids, grown-ups, anybody...

...because it widens the avenue of the imagination.

Ape and man, ancestors and brothers, their fates hopelessly intertwined.

One holds the secret of the past...

...the other, the key to the future.

But which is which?

Planet of the Apes holds up a mirror and asks us simply to look at ourselves.

At our fears and prejudices.

At our hopes and dreams.

But, as a new millennium dawns...

...can we expect more exciting adventures on the Planet of the Apes?

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the stars.

Or maybe...

...right here...

...on Earth.