Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Don Taylor

Writers:

Pierre Boulle (characters)
Paul Dehn (written by)

Release Date:

21 May 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Meet baby Milo who has Washington terrified.

Plot:

The world is shocked by the appearance of two talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a U.S. spacecraft. They become the toast of society; but one man believes them to be a threat to the human race.

Plot Keywords:

Ape | Spaceship | Chimpanzee | Planet Of The Apes | Spacecraft

Cast

Roddy McDowall	...	Cornelius
Kim Hunter	...	Zira
Bradford Dillman	...	Dr. Lewis Dixon
Natalie Trundy	...	Dr. Stephanie Branton
Eric Braeden	...	Dr. Otto Hasslein
William Windom	...	The President
Sal Mineo	...	Dr. Milo
Albert Salmi	...	E-1
Jason Evers	...	E-2
John Randolph	...	Chairman
Harry Lauter	...	General Winthrop
M. Emmet Walsh	...	Aide
Roy Glenn	...	Lawyer (as Roy E. Glenn, Sr.)
Peter Forster	...	Cardinal
Norman Burton	...	Army Officer

Also Known As:

Secret of the Planet of the Apes (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:PG (TV rating) | Brazil:Livre | Australia:M | Finland:K-11 (DVD rating) | Finland:K-12 (original rating) | Norway:12 (1972) | Sweden:11 | UK:PG (video rating: 1987) | UK:U (original rating) | USA:G | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Beverly Hills, California, USA

Company:

APJAC Productions

Trivia:

The film's villain, Dr. Hasslein, is briefly mentioned at the beginnings of the two first films.

Goofs:

Plot holes: A major plot point in the first movie of the series was whether or not humans could talk and whether humans were merely savage animals or were actually capable of more. Yet in this movie, during the CIA questioning, Cornelius reveals that he knows the true history of man and ape. It's possible that he gains the knowledge of history at some point after the events of the first movie, but that is not what he tells his questioners.

Quotes:

Chairman of the President's Committee of Inquiry: [testing Lewis's assertion that the apes can speak] What is your name?
Dr. Zira: Zira.
Chairman of the President's Committee of Inquiry: One might as well be talking to a parrot.
Dr. Zira: A parrot?
Chairman of the President's Committee of Inquiry: What did I tell you? Mechanical mimicry. Unique in an ape, vocally, without a doubt, but... does the other one talk?
Cornelius: Only when she lets me.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Troldspejlet: (#22.9)" (1999)

Witty but slow

The third APES movie is better than the second (almost anything would be), but lags behind the first one a great deal, to nobody's surprise. It is witty but painfully slow - the escape of Cornelius and Dr. Zira from the doomed future Earth lands them right smack in the 70's, where they are greeted with surprise and fear. The films borders on ridiculous at some points, but some echoes from the 1980 "Elephant Man" by David Lynch can be detected, suggesting Mr Lynch took a good look at this one before the making of that fantastic movie.

Slowly the film degenerates and just seems to end without any adequate point having been made, and as it gets slower and slower towards the end, it gets hard to understand the need for making it. But the initial surprise and the human reactions are still enjoyable.