Tag Archives: Linda Harrison

1970, ⓏⒺⓇⓄ, Sci-Fi

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970, Ted Post)

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On rare occasion, I watch (and on even rarer occasion, finish watching) an utter dreg of a film. A film so bad I misuse the word dregs, which apparently–since it refers to a liquid form–must be used as a plural. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is just such a film. Immediately, with its use of footage from the first film’s conclusion (with a few added shots and different dialogue and music) and terrible opening credits, I knew Beneath was going to be bad. When “star” James Franciscus (it’s his real name too) shows up, I noticed he was better than Heston. Even though I just watched the first film, there was that lovely reminder of Heston’s craft tacked on to the beginning on this film. Since he has a lot of the same dialogue as Heston does in that film, one gets to see how nice a measured performance can be. Still, I put star in quotation marks because he’s not really the star of the film. In fact, the film’s such a failure of a narrative, such a waste of celluloid, I could put that last ‘film’ in quotation marks too.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes loses any hint of competence, adequacy, concern, once Linda Harrison shows up. Linda Harrison doesn’t talk. But she does flashback and we get to see her flashbacks, which are filled with Heston acting and bad special effects and stupid ideas. While Planet of the Apes was dumb, the filmmakers there at least were bipedal. Whoever concocted the story to this film must have had trouble chewing gum. So, once the Harrison shows up, the viewer is left with little to do but marvel at the film. I couldn’t believe audiences back in 1970 actually went to go see this film and go they did… the film made enough money warrant a sequel, which is funny, considering how it ends. And a viewer has to finish watching this film, I’m very adamant on that point. Its ending is so unbelievable, it has to be seen. I couldn’t believe it.

As far as the technical side of things, there are some great matte paintings. I’ve seen a documentary on the Planet of the Apes franchise and remembered the discussion of the paintings and when their scenes showed up, I hoped it’d go on for a while. Instead, the film pushed on through them and got to the dumbest religious cult in the history of cinema. Beneath tries to be a metaphor (which Planet of the Apes did not), featuring anti-Vietnam protesters–rather amusing since the apes aren’t really at war–and comparisons of the war-hungry gorilla (a new invention in this film, which has no reasonable continuity to the first) to American soldiers. I’m not sure if the cult is supposed to be the Russians. Probably (it doesn’t work though).

But still, one has to see it for that ending. Oh, and James Gregory is quite good.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Ted Post; screenplay by Paul Dehn, from a story by Dehn and Mort Abrahams; director of photography, Milton R. Krasner; edited by Marion Rothman; music by Leonard Rosenman; produced by Arthur P. Jacobs; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring James Franciscus (Brent), Kim Hunter (Zira), Maurice Evans (Dr. Zaius), Linda Harrison (Nova), Paul E. Richards (Mendez), Victor Buono (Fat Man), James Gregory (Ursus), Jeff Corey (Caspay), Natalie Trundy (Albina), Thomas Gomez (Minister), David Watson (Cornelius), Charlton Heston (Taylor), Don Pedro Colley (Negro), Tod Andrews (Skipper), Gregory Sierra (Verger) and Lou Wagner (Lucius).

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1968, ⓏⒺⓇⓄ, Sci-Fi

Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)

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Planet of the Apes is, I’m fairly sure, the first film I’ve ever watched and known the director started in television. Franklin J. Schaffner has a lot of dynamic shots–helicopter shots, three dimensional motion and camera movement (which is rarer than one would think)–but none of them go together. It’s like watching a different movie every cut. There are also definite commercial breaks in the film and the first hour, until Charlton Heston speaks to the apes, is really a fifteen minute teaser drawn out with a lot of monologues, walking, and chase scenes.

When I started watching the film, I marveled at how bad Charlton Heston’s performance is. He actually gets better, but it’s one of those cases of not knowing if he actually gets better or if the viewer has just been conditioned to his performance. It’s kind of funny, though, to see über-Conservative Heston in a role basically advocating (small c) communism. That correlation is about the only one I could pull out of Planet of the Apes and I had to use a big pair of pliers. We’ve gotten used to seeing science fiction as metaphor and there’s none of it in Apes. It’s an incredibly straightforward approach, which could work well in the film’s favor, if it wasn’t so inconsistent with its characters and generally dumb.

The problem with the film–its stupidity–is in the package. The film asks the viewer to accept this ape civilization–a planet–which doesn’t seem to be larger than a city, doesn’t know anything about science except has verbose scientific terminology (how did they learn them?) and has working firearms–lots of them–but supposedly is opposed to killing. The characters, with the exception of Heston and the two good apes, flip back and forth, the worst being Maurice Evans’s. He goes from being the big bad guy, to just a guy, to sort of a good guy, to a bad guy, to just a guy. Or ape. Whatever. I think he’s supposed to be an orangutan, actually. He generally changes character between commercial breaks (oh, and Schaffner doesn’t know how to do establishing shots). The film’s about ideas (and running) and getting them presented is the only important thing.

Once the movie gets to the end and Heston’s wailing in the surf, I realized it actually could have worked. There was a big thing–during the opening, the twenty minute walk–about Heston wanting to get off the planet Earth because he hated the way things were going (war–yes, this film does actually star Charlton Heston and it has a big anti-war message, one about 150 feet tall). Anyway, there’s a metaphor there, about Heston returning to the Earth he dreaded, where everything he feared had come to pass, and so on and so on. I wouldn’t want to write it, but I would have wanted to see it. Or, at least, I know it’d have been better than what they did.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner; screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, based on the novel by Pierre Boulle; director of photography, Leon Shamroy; edited by Hugh S. Fowler; music by Jerry Goldsmith; produced by Arthur P. Jacobs; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Charlton Heston (George Taylor), Roddy McDowall (Cornelius), Kim Hunter (Zira), Maurice Evans (Dr. Zaius), James Whitmore (President of the Assembly), James Daly (Honorious), Linda Harrison (Nova), Robert Gunner (Landon), Lou Wagner (Lucius), Woodrow Parfrey (Maximus), Jeff Burton (Dodge), Buck Kartalian (Julius), Norman Burton (Hunt Leader), Wright King (Dr. Galen) and Paul Lambert (Minister).

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