Planet of the Apes (1968)

Director:

Franklin J. Schaffner

Writers:

Michael Wilson (screenplay) and
Rod Serling (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

3 April 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Mystery | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Somewhere in the universe there must be something better than man. In a matter of time, an astronaut will wing through the centuries and find the answer. He may find the most terrifying one of all on the planet where apes are the rulers and man the beast.

Plot:

An astronaut crew crash lands on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species, and humans are the oppressed and enslaved.

Plot Keywords:

Ape | Planet | Astronaut | Escape | Trial

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 5 wins

Cast

Charlton Heston	...	George Taylor
Roddy McDowall	...	Cornelius
Kim Hunter	...	Zira
Maurice Evans	...	Dr. Zaius
James Whitmore	...	President of the Assembly
James Daly	...	Honorious
Linda Harrison	...	Nova
Robert Gunner	...	Landon
Lou Wagner	...	Lucius
Woodrow Parfrey	...	Maximus
Jeff Burton	...	Dodge
Buck Kartalian	...	Julius
Norman Burton	...	Hunt Leader
Wright King	...	Dr. Galen
Paul Lambert	...	Minister
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gene O'Donnell	...	(unconfirmed)
Army Archerd	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
James Bacon	...	Ape (uncredited)
Erlynn Mary Botelho	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
Priscilla Boyd	...	Human #1 (uncredited)
Eldon Burke	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
David Chow	...	Chimpanzee (uncredited)
Billy Curtis	...	Child Ape (uncredited)
Frank Delfino	...	Child Ape (uncredited)
Buddy Douglas	...	Child Ape (uncredited)
Chuck Fisher	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
William Graeff Jr.	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
Irvin 'Zabo' Koszewski	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
Norma Jean Kron	...	Chimpanzee (uncredited)
Robert Lombardo	...	Gorilla Photographer (uncredited)
Jerry Maren	...	Child Ape (uncredited)
Cass Martin	...	Chimpanzee (uncredited)
Steve Merjanian	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
Harry Monty	...	Child Ape (uncredited)
John Michael Quijada	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
Smokey Roberds	...	Chimpanzee (uncredited)
Dave Rodgers	...	Gorilla (uncredited)
Jane Ross	...	Human (uncredited)
George Sasaki	...	Chimpanzee (uncredited)
Felix Silla	...	Child Gorilla (uncredited)
Emory Souza	...	Child Ape (uncredited)
Dianne Stanley	...	Astronaut Stewart (uncredited)
Joe Tornatore	...	Gorilla (uncredited)

Directed by
Franklin J. Schaffner

Writing credits
Michael Wilson		(screenplay) and
Rod Serling		(screenplay)
Pierre Boulle		(novel)

Produced by
Mort Abrahams	....	associate producer
Arthur P. Jacobs	....	producer

Original Music by
Jerry Goldsmith

Cinematography by
Leon Shamroy		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Hugh S. Fowler

Art Direction by
William J. Creber		(as William Creber)
Jack Martin Smith

Set Decoration by
Norman Rockett		(set decorations)
Walter M. Scott

Costume Design by
Morton Haack		(costumes designed by)

Makeup Department
John Chambers	....	creative makeup designer
Edith Lindon	....	hairstyling
Ben Nye	....	makeup artist
Daniel C. Striepeke	....	makeup artist (as Dan Striepeke)
Ken Chase	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Peter R.J. Deyell	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
John Enzarella	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Verne Langdon	....	special makeup effects artist (uncredited)
Leo Lotito Jr.	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Paul Malcolm	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Eve Newing	....	hairdresser (uncredited)
Ken Osborne	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Sharleen Rassi	....	hair stylist (uncredited)
Howard Smit	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Josephine Turner	....	wig maker (uncredited)
Jan Van Uchelen	....	hair stylist (uncredited)
Marvin G. Westmore	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Gene Witham	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Fuminori Ôhashi	....	makeup advisor (uncredited)

Production Management
William Eckhardt	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
William Kissell	....	assistant director (as William Kissel)
Robert Doudell	....	second assistant director (uncredited)
Murray Schwartz	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Ray Barone	....	painter (uncredited)
Wah Chang	....	special props (uncredited)
Don B. Greenwood	....	props (uncredited)
Greg C. Jensen	....	set constructor (uncredited)
Donald L. Nobles	....	construction coordinator (uncredited)
Pat O'Connor	....	props (uncredited)
Bob Steffenson	....	props (uncredited)

Sound Department
David Dockendorf	....	sound
Herman Lewis	....	sound

Special Effects by
Vernon Archer	....	special effects (uncredited)
Johnny Borgese	....	special effects (uncredited)
Bill Clove	....	special effects (uncredited)
Glen Galvin	....	special effects (uncredited)
Marlin Jones	....	special effects (uncredited)
Ralph Winigar	....	special effects (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
L.B. Abbott	....	special photographic effects
Art Cruickshank	....	special photographic effects
Emil Kosa Jr.	....	special photographic effects

Stunts
Lightning Bear	....	stunts (uncredited)
Eldon Burke	....	stunts (uncredited)
Steven Burnett	....	stunts (uncredited)
Joe Canutt	....	stunt coordinator (uncredited)
Tap Canutt	....	stunts (uncredited)
Nick Dimitri	....	stunts (uncredited)
Tom Dittman	....	stunts (uncredited)
Bennie E. Dobbins	....	stunts (uncredited)
Louie Elias	....	stunts (uncredited)
Tony Epper	....	stunt double (uncredited)
Fritz Ford	....	stunt double (uncredited)
William Graeff Jr.	....	stunts (uncredited)
Kent Hays	....	stunts (uncredited)
Eddie Hice	....	stunts (uncredited)
Whitey Hughes	....	stunts (uncredited)
Loren Janes	....	stunts (uncredited)
J. David Jones	....	aerial stunts (uncredited)
Kim Kahana	....	stunts (uncredited)
Gene LeBell	....	stunts (uncredited)
Terry Leonard	....	stunts (uncredited)
Lars Lundgren	....	stunts (uncredited)
Frank Orsatti	....	stunts (uncredited)
Regis Parton	....	stunts (uncredited)
John Michael Quijada	....	stunts (uncredited)
Glenn Randall Jr.	....	stunts (uncredited)
Dave Rodgers	....	stunts (uncredited)
Bill M. Ryusaki	....	stunts (uncredited)
Alex Sharp	....	stunts (uncredited)
Jim Sheppard	....	stunts (uncredited)
Roy N. Sickner	....	stunts (uncredited)
Ted White	....	stunts (uncredited)
George P. Wilbur	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Lee Crawford	....	assistant camera (uncredited)
Thomas Del Ruth	....	assistant camera (uncredited)
Fred Hall	....	gaffer (uncredited)
Ronald B. MacKenzie	....	electrician (uncredited)
Leo McCreary	....	key grip (uncredited)
Bob Neilsen	....	best boy (uncredited)
Larry Prather	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Irving Rosenberg	....	camera operator (uncredited)

Casting Department
Carl Joy	....	atmosphere casting (uncredited)
Joe Scully	....	unit casting (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Truman Eli	....	wardrobe (uncredited)
Robert Fuca	....	assistant set costumer (uncredited)
Barbara Haroutunian	....	wardrobe (uncredited)
John Intlekofer	....	costumer (uncredited)

Music Department
Arthur Morton	....	orchestrator

Transportation Department
Steve Bonner	....	driver (uncredited)
Chris Haynes	....	driver (uncredited)

Other crew
Glen Harmon Jr.	....	landscaper (uncredited)
'Chema' Hernandez	....	head wrangler (uncredited)
Jack Hirshberg	....	unit publicist (uncredited)
Robert Lombardi	....	landscaper (uncredited)
Tom Pryor	....	auditor (uncredited)
Don Record	....	title designer (uncredited)
Dominic Santarone	....	caterer (uncredited)
Ruth Santarone	....	caterer (uncredited)
Rose Steinberg	....	script supervisor (uncredited)

Production Companies

• APJAC Productions (produced by) (as APJAC PRODUCTIONS, INC.)
• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (uncredited)

Distributors

• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1968) (USA) (theatrical) (released by) (as Twentieth Century - Fox Film Corporation)
• 20th Century Fox (1968) (France) (theatrical)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1973) (USA) (TV) (pan/scan)
• Magnetic Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• CBS/Fox (1985) (USA) (VHS)
• Playhouse Home Video (1985) (USA) (VHS)
• Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (19??) (Netherlands) (VHS)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (????) (Brazil) (VHS)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• CBS/Fox (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (????) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (2005) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Centfox (1968) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Fox Films (1968) (Argentina) (theatrical)
• Fox Films (1968) (Finland) (theatrical)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2008) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-Ray Disc) (40th Anniversary Edition)
• CBS / Fox Video (1989) (Greece) (VHS)
• CBS/Fox (1988) (Argentina) (VHS)
• FS Film Oy (2001) (2007) (Finland) (DVD) (6-disc edition)
• FS Film Oy (2001) (Finland) (DVD) (1-disc edition)
• Mainostelevisio (MTV3) (1985) (Finland) (TV)
• Nelonen (1997) (1999) (Finland) (TV)
• Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Yleisradio (YLE) (1991) (Finland) (TV)

Other Companies

• Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment  camera cranes (uncredited)
• Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment  camera dollies (uncredited)
• IVC  post-production facilities (digital intermediate) (uncredited)
• National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior  the producers express their appreciation to for its cooperation in the production of this motion picture (as the National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

112 min | Argentina:115 min | Spain:107 min (DVD edition)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

UK:PG (video rating) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1968) | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | USA:G (Approved No. 21096) | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG | Portugal:M/12 | Iceland:L | Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Manitoba/Quebec) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Canada:PG (video rating) | Brazil:12 | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:PG | Netherlands:14 (orginal rating) | Peru:PT

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Ranch, Malibu Creek State Park - 1925 Las Virgenes Road, Calabasas, California, USA

Company:

APJAC Productions

Trivia:

John Chambers' outstanding makeup technique pioneered in the film was based upon one technique he had used during World War II to give disfigured veterans a normal appearance. Chambers spent many hours watching the apes at Los Angeles Zoo, studying their facial expressions. Several other productions were delayed due to the fact that many of Hollywood's top make up artists were working on this film. Leftover makeup supplies were later used on actor Michael Conrad, playing an ape-like alien in "Lost in Space: Fugitives in Space (#3.20)" (1968). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Chambers a special award for makeup (which was not an Oscar category until 1981) for this achievement, in the second time that a make-up artist received an Academy Award. [William Tuttle was the first, with 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)]. Chambers' award was presented by Walter Matthau and a chimpanzee in a tuxedo.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Charlton Heston is stripped in the "hearing" scene, it is supposedly because his clothing stinks, in long shot he is left holding the stinking clothing up to his chest (covering his cock and balls-after all this is a Movie Star) which doesn't make sense as the clothing would still stink, but in close shots he is not holding his clothing to his chest, implying that he is nude, and then when he freaks out and they hold him down he is clad in his original outfit again as if he had never been stripped.

Quotes:

[first lines]
George Taylor:And that completes my final report until we reach touchdown. We're now on full automatic, in the hands of the computers. I have tucked my crew in for the long sleep and I'll be joining them soon. In less than an hour, we'll finish our sixth month out of Cape Kennedy...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Just Shoot Me!: Evaluate This! (#7.23)" (2003)

A Landmark SF film

1968s PLANET OF THE APES has been my favorite film since I first saw it in April of that year when I was eight years old. The movie had a huge impact back then and I cannot emphasize more the power to grip the imagination it had -- and has -- and the shock the final image of the movie was back then. I literally left the theatre stunned and speechless. No other movie of my youth had such impact, or created such suspension of disbelief. Over the past thirty-four years PLANET OF THE APES has attained classic status and it's a tribute to the film's excellence that there are so many comments left here on the Internet Movie Database that this film is better than the viewer thought it would be, or that it wasn't campy or cheesy as they'd always thought, or that it was more intelligent and thought-provoking than most films they've ever seen, and that despite the studio stupidly putting the final shot -- one of the most famous last shots in the history of American cinema -- on the cover of the video, they were still stunned and haunted by it.

PLANET OF THE APES is based on a 1963 French novel, "La planete des singes," by Pierre Boulle, most famous as the author of "La pont de la riviere Kwai" (1952), which became the 1957 film THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. The story tells of a French journalist, Ulysse Merou, who, in the year 2500 travels with two companions in a near-light speed spacecraft to the red-giant star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion. There they find a sister planet to earth, Soror, and after landing on a remote plateau discover a race of human beings that are no more than animals, naked and unable to speak. The three earthmen are stripped of there clothes by the humans, who hate anything that isn't natural. Their spacecraft is destroyed by the savage people and they are run off into the jungle. The next morning the tribe of wild humans are attacked by hunters, who are gorillas dressed like men, hunting like men, and acting and speaking like men. One of the earthmen is killed, another disappears, and Merou is captured, taken to a research lab, and subjected to scientific experiments.

A sympathetic female animal psychologist, Dr. Zira, a chimpanzee, is intrigued by Merou keenness and soon learns that this man is highly intelligent and able to learn speech. With her help Merou learns all about the simian civilization on Soror, in which the apes live in modern cities, drive cars, fly planes, and watch TV, and where conservative orangutans, especially one named Zaius, so fear this intelligent human being that they seek to have him destroyed. With the help of Zira's fiance, an archeologist named Cornelius, Merou unwittingly discovers a secret about the origins of intelligent life on Soror that's so dangerous he's forced to flee the planet of the apes and return to earth.

Boulle's novel is a satire in the tradition of Voltaire that mocks humankind's anthropocentric theory of the universe from which human beings derive their sense of importance, and is laced with the kind of harrowing ironies that Boulle was famous for.

The movie based on this book is an 'Americanized' adaptation of it. Rod Serling did the first drafts of the screenplay, simplifying the plot by fitting it into the mold of his "Twilight Zone" TV series and introducing an anti-nuclear war theme not present in the Boulle novel. Because of budget constraints the modern ape civilization had to be reduced to a less technological one, something more reminiscent of ancient Greece. In fact, after Michael Wilson, who had also adapted Boulle's "Bridge Over the River Kwai" to the screen, was brought in to do the final script drafts what emerged was a political allegory more akin to an Aesop fable than a Voltairian satire.

An improvement on the book was to turn the Merou character, now named Taylor, into a misanthrope and to reduce the scope of the story into a kind of 'misanthrope's comeuppance.' Charlton Heston was a perfect choice to play the unlikable American astronaut, having essayed such similar 'bastard' roles in 1954s THE NAKED JUNGLE, 1963s DIAMOND HEAD and 1963s 55 DAYS AT PEKING, and the movie would be a lot less funny and pointed without him.

Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter, as Cornelius and Zira, and Maurice Evans, as Dr. Zaius, enjoy some of the best performances on the screen, bringing the then-innovative makeup design of John Chambers to life under the intelligent and stylish direction of Franklin J. Schaffner. Also excellent in this Arthur P. Jacobs production for 20th Century-Fox is the veteran cinematographer Leon Shamroy's Panavision lensing, which makes great use of remote areas of southern Utah around Lake Powell to suggest an alien world, and Jerry Goldsmith's avant-garde musical score, which has become a landmark, cannot be emphasized more for contributing to the weird atmosphere and eerie mood of the movie. Rarely has a movie score so fit like hand-in-glove than this one.

PLANET OF THE APES was a box office smash in 1968, but if ever there was a movie that was more a victim of its own success it's this one. Four sequels, two TV series, numerous novelizations and comic book adventures, and a lamentable remake in 2001 have been spawned by its popularity, most of which has been so inferior in quality to have tarnished the reputation of this classy and intelligent SF film landmark. Luckily the qualities of the film remind viewers again and again of what noted New Yorker movie critic Pauline Kael titled her review of this movie, "Apes must be remembered, Charlie!"