Escape from the Planet of the Apes

I've always had mixed feelings about ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES. As a kid forty-five years ago, I saw all five original films on television and I loved them all. ESCAPE I enjoyed because I had a huge little boy crush on Kim Hunter, and I thought Dr. Zira was so brave, funny, and even sexy. On the other hand, this is the one movie in the series with no battle scenes, no gorillas on horseback, and no epic excitement or adventure. So on that level I'm sorry to say this was my least favorite Apes film . . . Forty five years ago.

So the other day I got all five films on Blu Ray for about 15 dollars. And when I watched ESCAPE as a 55 year old I was very impressed. It's not really a kid's adventure film, or even a science fiction spectacle. This movie is a tragedy, in the most profound sense of the word. In spirit it's much closer to CHINATOWN than the original PLANET OF THE APES.

Everyone remembers Zira and Cornelius as a cute, fun couple. That's how I remembered them too. But when you actually watch the film you see that they are really tragic heroes. When they flee the hospital with their baby there are Biblical overtones. (The President actually compares himself to Herod!) But what's still more disturbing is the way Zira herself owns up to the savage things that went on in her own laboratory in the future world. Her self-knowledge is a grim component of her eventual tragic fate. Her insistence on truth only makes her more admirable after she reveals some truly terrible secrets.

It's a waste of time to point out that Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowell both give career best performances as Zira and Cornelius. But what astonished me after forty-five years was the incredible intensity of Eric Braeden as Dr. Otto Hasslein. (He was just as spectacular as the doomed werewolf in a classic episode of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER.) Dr. Hasslein is clearly meant to remind us of Nazi scientists and doctors who did unspeakable things in World War II. But at the same time he's like the tormented Christian heroes in THE OMEN movies, searching for the Anti Christ before the earth runs out of time. Each chilling thing he does is made more chilling by the fact that he's sincere in trying to stop what he thinks of as real evil. On the other hand, William Windom is surprisingly affable and humane as the President of the United States. STAR TREK fans will remember his epic meltdown in "The Doomsday Machine," but here he plays the voice of reason, a decent man who refuses to become hysterical in the face of mankind's doom.

Superb script, intense, haunting drama, beautiful tragic characters . . . All that's missing is the action, excitement, and gorillas on horseback!

You have Ricardo Montalbon, you have Soap star Eric 'mustache' Breaden, and you have Sal 'Rebel without a Cause' Mineo. How can you go wrong? You have guys in Chimp suits. You have Roddy. You have Kim Hunter from the first flick. It's great.

My chief memory/image of the flick is seeing them, the trio of apes, being given the Star treatment, getting outta a limousine in front of a crowded city street, etc. That is very much a part of the flick. It was made in '71, and yeah it really, really looks it-but ya gotta like it. William Windom as da Prez is pretty cool too, def. a knockoff of hostile Nixon in places I would say.

This sets up the next two fine, though its both better than them and better than #2 in the run also. I think you can do worse than to sit through this.......

**1/2 outta ****

MORD39 RATING: *** out of ****

This third APES film ingeniously manages to keep the franchise alive and produces what is arguably the second best film of the five originals.

After the ultimate ending in BENEATH, who could have believed a new story was possible? Here the tables are turned from the original film with a remarkable twist: now three of our chimpanzee characters take off in Charlton Heston's spaceship and wind up going BACK in time, to "present Day" Earth (1973 A.D.) Once it is learned that Zira (Kim Hunter in her best performance in the series) is pregnant with the child that could possibly turn our future into the PLANET OF THE APES, she and her husband Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) go from becoming honored celebrities to dangerous threats to humanity!

It's a brilliant idea, and now it is possible to start the series anew (chronologically, this movie comes first) and see whether or not Taylor's nightmare from the first film can be prevented or will rear its ugly head for mankind.

A little defending is in order here. Many people get hung up on the story's notion that the chimpanzees can actually manage to fix Taylor's ship from the first film and actually launch it. Well, I say that if you can suspend disbelief long enough to accept the idea of a society of talking apes, why can't you accept that one of them (Dr. Milo) is a super-intelligent ape, sort of the "Albert Einstein" or "Thomas Edison" of his time? Besides, when folks get stuck on a point like that it becomes impossible for them to have a good time with a film. As Cornelius said in the movie: "Dr. Milo was a genius well in advance of his time." He was able to fly the ship. Case Closed.

Next case: the "TV Movie" look of the film. SO WHAT? People have become so accustomed to garbage like 1999's THE MUMMY that unless all films are over-swamped with spectacular sets and numbing effects, they can't enjoy them. Well, ESCAPE needs none of these to tell its simple story. It's got something that sci-fi stories today have lost..."heart".

No, this film is not as awe-inspiring as the original but it still maintains the viewer's interest despite the scaled down approach which was due to budget constraints. For much of the film the there is a humorous tone. Good performances were turned in by familiar faces (Braeden, Montalban, Mineo). The story, despite some holes, was quite riveting. I'm looking forward to the fourth installment. The sense of adventure and exploration (this time by the apes) and the continued presentation of parallels between this fictional world and our world still make for worthwhile viewing. 7/10.

ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES is a tale set in the madness of a paranoid 1970's in which zira and cornelius must fight for their lives and the life of their unborn baby. Using taylors ship zira and cornelius time warp to 1970's earth and are embraced by mankind. They soon become the target of a government think tank who fears their unborn child. In a era that listened to HAL LINDSEY scream the anti christ is coming this film taps into that paranoid vein with the "john birchish" character of Hessline who fears ziras baby. The film deals with the two apes dealing with 20th century earth and attempting to survive the scrutiny of the government. One of the best and most original films in the series the story told in this film makes it stand out. A fine film.