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Planet of the Apes
a Arthur P. Jacobs production
Plot (Spoiler Alert)Four astronauts have been traveling through space for 700 years. Their ship crashes on an unknown planet and one of the astronauts has died during hypersleep. The planet they’ve crash landed on is ruled by apes and the human species are the animals. Two of the astronauts get killed and one of them, Taylor, is injured to the throat. Taylor is tested on by ape scientists. One of the ape scientists, Zira, finds Taylor interesting of how he doesn’t act like other humans. Taylor is unable to speak, but he finds his way to communicate to her by writing words on paper. Shortly after his throat heals and he is able to speak. Dr. Zaius, the Minister of Science, knows there is something up and it concerns him. Zira and her fiancé, Cornelius, help Taylor find out the truth about what lies in a location known as the Forbidden Zone. What they find out is that man ruled the planet before ape. Dr. Zaius knew the truth the whole time and knew that someone like Taylor would show up. Taylor goes his separate ways shortly after only to find he has been on his home planet this whole time after seeing the Statue of Liberty destroyed. 
Blaine: Author Pierre Boulle had a fascination with apes expressions and movement of how human like they look after taking a trip to the zoo once. He thought "what would an ape society be like? and what implications be of a planet that was ruled by apes?” That encouraged Pierre to write his second best novel, “Planet of the Apes”. Pierre didn’t see his creation as a movie. Two producers known as the King Brothers came to Pierre, but the problem was they made low budget gagster and monster movies, so it wouldn’t work with them because they would have made it into a monster movie. Another producer came ways after them, Arthur P. Jacobs. Jacobs was a man who believed in big pictures with stories people wanted to see. He also filled up his movies with big movie stars. Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. After the success of “What A Way to Go!”, Jacobs proved himself as a skillful creative producer. During the pre-production of the film “Dr. Dolittle”, Arthur Jacobs approached Fox Studio Head, Richard D. Zanuck, the idea for another motion picture called “Planet of the Apes”. Jacobs had read the book shortly after it was published and quickly purchased the screen rights to it. He felt it could be a visual intriguing and original motion picture. Of course Pierre Boulle disagreed. For a few months Jacobs had sketches put together of what it could look like done by seven artists. Jacobs also contacted Rod Serling, creator of “The Twilight Zone” TV series, to write the screenplay. Rod Serling was intrigued with the novel after reading it, but it was a challenge for him adapting it into a script. Arthur Jacobs pitching the idea to studios, but their answer was no. Jacobs knew the only idea to change their minds was to add a star to the project. In 1965, Arthur had met up with Charlton Heston, one of the most respected and powerful actors known to man. What attracted Charlton Heston to the project was the idea of talking apes and the different civilization. He thought it was a marvalis idea for a movie. Heston recommended a director for the project, Franklin J. Schaffner, who he had previously worked with on the Medieval warfare film, “The War Lord”. Even with a star and a director, the executives didn’t take it seriously because movies like that where more B movies. Richard Zanuck had just taken over Fox Studios and he wanted to take a look at that idea. Zanuck felt the script needed more work, but he was captivated by it. He also wanted to make sure that the apes would be actors and not primates. He didn’t want audiences laughing at the makeup, he wanted it to be done properly. So Zanuck asked Arthur to make this short video that would be a test. They shot that test in ’66 and it cost five thousand dollars. It featured Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson as Dr. Zaius, James Brolin as Cornelius and Linda Harrison and Zira. The makeup of that test video proved that it could work. After that Richard Zanuck gave Arthur Jacobs the green light that he had been awaiting for a while. The film had seven months to prepare itself before principal photography began and the biggest challenge was the ape makeup. They needed someone with experience in prosthetics. John Chambers was a former World War II technician who began working his career in a veterans hospital designing prosthetic limbs for injured soldiers. He moved to California in the early 1950s believing his unique skills would be a good asset to the television industry. He developed creature makeups for “The Monsters”, “The Outer Limits”, “Lost in Space” and Mr. Spock’s ears on “Star Trek”. John Chambers was quick and skilled which is what they needed for “Planet of the Apes”. Chambers worked around the clock with talented artists on his side. A chimpanzee was brought in as a model to help with the looks of the makeup designs. John Chambers found a way to make prosthetics so that the actors could do expressions through makeup. Originally the screenplay Rob Serling had written and the art work the artists did were more true to the novel, but the production team felt the apes were too evolved. Adding futuristic cars and helicopters would be too expensive and there wasn’t enough budget to make it happen. It was suggested that it be more primitive and so they did that instead. Jacobs had contacted Michael Wilson to make the changes to the script and production designer, William Creber, began working on designs of a more primitive ape society. William looked at books that could be inspiring and he found one on Turkey about a city carved into a mountain. It was clear to him that it should be the look of the ape city. Edward Robinson was going to play Dr. Zaius, but he left the project because he didn’t want to wear the ape makeup. It was already too much for him wearing the prosthetics after they did that test video. He would later be replaced by screen actor, Maurice Evans. Kim Hunter’s agent sent her a copy of the script and she found it to be fascinating. So she was flown to L.A. and she believed she would start off in the costume department, but she went to John Chambers department. Kim Hunter plays Zira in the film and couldn’t believe what they had to go through to apply all that makeup on. The first time it took five hours. Kim Hunter was asked as an actress if it bothered her that nobody could see it was that same woman from “A Streetcar Named Desire”? All that mattered to her was that she was bringing a completely different character to life. She loved Zira. Roddy McDowall was offered the part of Cornelius on a plane flight back from London. He accepted the part quickly intrigued by the challenge of acting behind the ape makeup. People were asking why they were spending money on actors who’s faces you can’t see, but they needed great actors to make the project convincing and make it work. The actors and extras would have to be careful with the ape makeup. They use cigarette holders to help them smoke. They would have to look at a mirror as they ate lunch so that way they couldn’t destroy the appliances. They weren’t allowed to eat hard foods because the chin part wasn’t supposed to stretch out far. Zira was played by Linda Harrison in the test video. Linda was under contract with Fox, but later she was given the part of Nova, Taylor’s mate who can’t think. Linda hadn’t done much acting, but she had thought about animal instincts, the way Nova would move and react more from fear. On May of 1967 “Planet of the Apes” began principal photography. The desert scene towards the beginning of the film was shot in a remote area surrounding the Colorado river in Utah and Arizona. The camera and sound equipment would arrive by helicopter, foot and a mule pack team. The temperature would be a hundred and twenty degrees. One of the three actors who plays an astronaut passed out because of the temperature. The desert would then later be edited with a waterfall shot in a different location. That water fall scene was shot at the Fox Ranch. The waterfall was enhanced with two dozen well hidden fire hoses. The sequence with the hunt had to grip and convince audiences right away of what they were going to see was going to be extraordinary, shocking and unlike anything anyone has ever seen before because you couldn’t see what was after the humans until a minute later. “Planet of the Apes” was one of Charlton Heston’s most physically demanding of his career. He was being beaten up by gorillas, running around, having fruit thrown at him, being grabbed by the neck and other stuff. It was painful and challenging for Heston. He would wear these rubber booties made to look like they were bear feet to protect him from running through thorns. Heston came down with the flu before shooting that scene where he is running through the ape city, but he did the scene anyway because the director told him to. 
During the hearing scene the orangutans are ignoring what Dr. Zira is talking about man and ape being related or something by doing a three wise monkey pose. That was Franklin Schaffner's idea to make it look funny. Frank Schaffner had a specific vision of the film and they say the success owed his abilities as a director. There was an ending they shot for the film showing that Nova was pregnant, but they decided not to add it because then that would become an element to the story leading something entirely new where they breed a new race of a intelligent humans. I think it would be interesting for an ending seeing Taylor and Nova have a life together and raising a child together. I can imagine how it would look like. I would like to see how it originally looked. One of Robe Serling’s script drafts was used to replace it. It became one of the most surprising and memorable endings of all time. The location for the Statue of Liberty ending was shot at the end of Zuma Beach because it was a right scale. The Statue you see in that ending is actually a painting by one of the artists at the studio. Director Franklin Schaffner wanted it to be a mystery of what Taylor is looking at and why he is so upset. Then it would be revealed to be the Statue of Liberty. I’ve seen parodies of that ending before so I knew what to expect when I saw it for the first time, but still it gave me the chills just from hearing those waves and no music score in the background. Production wrapped after that on August of 1967 and everything went on time as planned. “Planet of the Apes” became a box office smash after it’s release grossing over twenty six million dollars. John Chambers received an honorary oscar for make-up achievement for the film. After “Planet of the Apes” became a huge success, Fox had a sequel in mind and ended up making four of them after the first. They all became successful and the writers and producers always prepared themselves of what happens next after the last film. My rating on “Planet of the Apes” is five out of five stars. test footage Parodies The Simpsons 
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