Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

"The only thing that counts in the end is power! Naked merciless force!"

--General Ursus

Primary Cast:

• James Franciscus as John Brent
• Linda Harrison as Nova
• Maurice Evans as Dr. Zaius
• James Gregory as Gen. Ursus
• Charlton Heston as Col. George Taylor
• Kim Hunter as Dr. Zira
• David Watson as Dr. Cornelius
• Tod Andrews as Col. Donovan 'Skipper' Maddox
• Paul Richards as Mendez XXVI
• Victor Buono as Adiposo the Fat Man
• Don Pedro Colley as Ongaro the Negro
• Jeff Corey as Caspay
• Natalie Trundy as Albina
• Gregory Sierra as Verger
• Thomas Gomez as Minister
• Eldon Burke as Gorilla Sergeant, Soldier #2
• Paul Frees ... Narrator
• Roddy McDowall ... Dr. Cornelius (archival footage)
• Lou Wagner ... Lucius (archival footage)

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Cast And Crew 3 Notes 4 Inconsistencies 5 Behind the Scenes 5.1 Rod Serling Treatments 5.2 Planet of the Men 5.3 The Dark Side of the Earth 5.4 Planet of the Apes Revisited 5.5 Beneath the Planet of the Apes 6 Trivia 7 Quotes 8 Reaction 9 Related Articles 10 External Links 11 References

[edit] Synopsis

An astronaut, named Brent, is sent on a mission from Earth to find the missing astronaut crew from the first film, and as his bad luck would have it he crashes on the planet of the apes, Earth, where he stumbles upon an underground city where the last humans have hold up in hiding from the dreaded ape army now out to exterminate mankind as man is not so kind to monkeys. He finds Nova and predictably gets caught by the apes. He finds Taylor and they get caught up in the battle between the humans and the apes. The movie kills off every major character along the way, and allows Taylor in his dying act set off the atomic bomb ending the war between the animals and in doing so destroys all life on planet Earth.

[edit] Cast And Crew

Supporting Cast (uncredited):

• James Bacon ... Gorilla (Ape holding the horn?)
• Bruce Fleischer ... Gorilla
• Army Archerd ... Gorilla
• Edward J. Aubry ... Chimp Protestor
• Angelina Bauer ... Chimp Protestor
• Maxine Botelho ... Chimp Protestor
• Frisco Estes ... Chimp Protestor
• Paul A. Fabian ... Chimp Protestor
• Lenmana Guerin ... Chimp Protestor
• Stanton (Stan) Barrett ... Stunt Gorilla
• Dick Bullock ... Stunt Gorilla
• Mickey Gilbert ... Stunt Gorilla
• Eddie Hice ... Stunt Gorilla
• Clyde (Ace) Hudkins ... Stunt Gorilla
• Dick Hudkins ... Stunt Ape
• Alan Gibbs ... Stunt Ape
• Kent Hayes ... Stunt Ape
• Gary McLarty ... Stunt Ape
• Bill Burton ... Stunt Masked Gorilla
• Gary Epper ... Stunt Masked Gorilla
• Orwin Harvey ... Stunt Masked Gorilla
• Whitey Hughes ... Stunt Masked Gorilla
• George Sawaya ... Stunt Masked Gorilla
• Walter Scott ... Stunt Masked Gorilla
• Hank Calia ... Stunt Wagon Driver

• Tap Canutt ... Stunt Double
• Tony Epper ... Stunt Double
• Terry Leonard ... Stunt Double
• Pat Thompson ... Stunt Double
• Eddy Donno ... Stunts
• Loren Janes ... Stunts
• Carl Rizzo ... Stunts
• Chuck Roberson ... Stunts
• Jack Williams ... Stunts
• Calvert Botelho ... Stock Ape
• Phillip Wilson ... Stock Ape
• William Graeff, Jr. ... Stock Ape Ad Lib
• George R. Miller ... Stock Ape Ad-Lib
• Mel Pittenger ... Stock Ape Ad-Lib
• Dave Rogers ... Stock Ape Ad-Lib
• Erlynn Botelho ... Ad Lib
• Eddie Smith ... Ad Lib
• Edward Bach ... Picket (voice dubbing)
• Tim Burns ... Picket (voice dubbing)
• Judd Laurance ... Picket (voice dubbing)
• Michael Sterling ... Picket (voice dubbing)
• Wayne Storm ... Picket (voice dubbing)
• David Westberg ... Picket (voice dubbing)
• Richard Carlyle ... Soldier (voice dubbing)
• Tom Hatten ... Soldier (voice dubbing)
• John Logan ... Soldier (voice dubbing)
• Richard Wilson ... Soldier (voice dubbing)

Locations:

• Ape City

Production Crew

• Producer ... Arthur P. Jacobs
• Associate Producer ... Mort Abrahams
• Unit Production Manager ... Joseph C. Behm
• Script ... Paul Dehn, Mort Abrahams
• Director ... Ted Post
• Assistant Director ... Fred R. Simpson
• Second Unit Director ... Chuck Roberson
• Director of Photography ... Milton Krasner
• Editor ... Marion Rothman
• Music ... Leonard Rosenman
• Orchestrations ... Ralph Ferraro
• Sound ... Stephen Bass, David Dockendorf
• Make Up ... Dan Striepeke, Norman Pringle, Jack Barron
• Hair ... Edith Lindon, Madine Reed, Shaleen Walsh
• Costume Designer ... Morton Haack
• Costumes ... Wally Harton, Norman Salling, Phyllis Garr, Adele Balkan
• Creative Makeup Design ... John Chambers, Tom Burman (assistant, uncredited), Leo Lotito Jr. (assistant, uncredited)^[1], Verne Langdon (special makeup effects, uncredited)
• Special Photographic Effects ... L.B. Abbott, Art Cruickshank
• Art Directors ... Jack Martin Smith, William Creber
• Set Decorators ... Walter M. Scott, Sven Wickman
• Art Illustrator ... Fred Harpman

[edit] Notes

.

• The movie was adapted into a stand-alone comic by Gold Key Comics, the first comic book adaptation of any of the POTA movies, in December 1970.

• This movie was later adapted into a novelization by writer Michael Avallone.

• In 1974, Power Records released a read-along book and record collection which adapted this film.

• Actor Don Pedro Colley is credited only as "Negro", and Victor Buono as "Fat Man", in the closing credits of the film. The names 'Ongaro' and 'Adiposo' were invented by The Mutant News fake newspaper issued at the time of the movie's release.^[2] Colley's official web-site lists his character's name as Ongaro.^[3] ('Negro' is a term used repeatedly by screenwriter Paul Dehn. The term had almost passed out of acceptable usage, but was not intended offensively, as it was used to specify succesful or sympathetic characters: the 'Negro Lawyer', a member of the Presidential Commission in Escape; the 'Negro Tycoons' in Conquest; and both MacDonalds were requested to be 'negro' for the purposes of the plot. Dehn also said "It's a very curious thing that the 'Apes' series has always been tremendously popular with Negroes who identify themselves with the apes. They are Black Power just as the apes are Ape Power and they enjoy it greatly."^[4])

[edit] Inconsistencies

The first movie, Planet of the Apes establishes that Taylor and his crew crash-land back on Earth in the year 3978. This is shown on the Icarus' date-meter as well as the main menu screen on the Planet of the Apes: The Evolution DVD collection. In Beneath the Planet of the Apes however, Brent's ship lands on Earth after the events in the first movie, but indicates that the year is 3955. This date is referenced again in Escape from the Planet of the Apes when Zira reveals some critical information while under the influence of alcohol. This continuity gaff may be reconciled if the gauges on Brent’s ship malfunctioned prior to landing, stopping the time-meter clock at the year 3955. This however does not reconcile Zira's confirmation of the year 3955 in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, as her only knowledge of the Greco-Roman calendar would have come from the Icarus.

[edit] Behind the Scenes

(See also: Beneath the Planet of the Apes Concept Art & Costume Tests)

With Planet of the Apes breaking box-office records across the country, producers Richard D. Zanuck, Mort Abrahams and Arthur P. Jacobs met in Zanuck's office. Abrahams recalls: "'Planet' had been doing extremely well and we were talking, patting ourselves on the back, and giving Dick credit for putting his neck on the line and so forth. Arthur, Stan Hough [an executive production manager at Fox, later producer on the 'Apes TV series] and I left Dick's office and walked downstairs. As we were walking across the lot, Stan said, 'Why don't you do a sequel?' And I said, 'You've got to be kidding-how?' He said, 'You think about it.' Later, I got a flash of an idea and went into Arthur's office and said, 'Listen, I got this crazy idea about how to do a sequel...'" Hough's suggestion unleashed a flood of possible follow-ups, notably from Rod Serling and Pierre Boulle, yet coming up with a viable script for the sequel as shocking as that of the first movie proved extremely difficult.^[5]

[edit] Rod Serling Treatments

Rod Serling, original screen writer on the first movie, devised the first idea for a sequel. Taylor and Nova take off to the dark, unexplored part of the planet. Eventually, they would discover the remnants of human city, some weapons, and an old airplane which he uses to fight off the apes - half the film would concern Taylor's battle with the apes who follow him. When the apes have him cornered, all hope looks lost, but a second spacecraft containing (human) astronauts from the past arrives and stops them. Taylor has the opportunity to return to his own time, but chooses a woman astronaut from the ship’s crew as his mate and decides to stay to stay behind in order to rebuild humanity on the planet of the apes.^[5][6]

In April 1968 Abrahams wrote to Serling saying that he thought the treatment was missing the original's visual shock, as well as a shocking climax like the first film. He felt that the sequel should begin with an equivalent of the Statue of Liberty scene and build the story around it. Serling supplied two alternative concepts over the next month. In the first concept, Taylor and Nova discover another spaceship intact and travel either forward or backwards in time to a new, bizarre but unrelated adventure, which would open up "a whole raft of possibilities". The second concept also had Taylor finding a spacecraft, eluding the apes for most of the film and taking off with a handful of intelligent humans. Together, they discover another civilized planet and land, unaware that it is also populated by apes (an idea drawn from Boulle's original novel). Both of Serling's scenarios were rejected.^[6]

Interviewed by Marvel Comics in 1974, Serling described a simpler sequence of events concerning his suggestions for the movie: "Arthur offered it to me from London and I remember spending $200 on a phone conversation about what we'd do with it. We literally got into the hydrogen bomb and the resurgence of civilization over the apes and we very much plugged the concept of the ape's desperate fear of the humans. Because the humans repeated what they'd done before which, essentially, was to wreck the earth. As it turned out, I couldn't do the script when Arthur wanted it done. I was on another assignment. So I didn't have the remotest connection with the approach Jacobs eventually went with." ^[7]

[edit] Planet of the Men

Next, Pierre Boulle was asked for a treatment and script. The result was Planet of the Men (English-language copy dated 22 July 1968). It picks up immediately where the original left off and follows Taylor and Nova (and their son, Sirius) as they encounter the primitive humans beyond the Forbidden Zone and re-educate them over the course of many years. In the Ape City, chimp protestors eventually force Zaius to free Zira and Cornelius, but the more aggressive elements of ape society, led by Zaius and the gorilla Field Marshall Urus, eventually gain the upper hand and prosecute a war against the resurgent humans. Led by Taylor and Sirius, the humans utterly defeat the apes in the war, and Sirius leads the more impetuous younger humans against the ape city, eventually killing most and reducing the rest to their primitive states. Taylor is killed by a young human while trying to help Zira. The script ends in a circus where the nearly inarticulate Dr. Zaius is nothing more than a trained ape.

Boulle later reflected on his only experience of writing specifically for the screen: "After the success of the original film, Arthur Jacobs requested that I do a sequel for him. They accepted the treatment that I worked on, but they made so many changes that very few of my ideas were left. It was completely different from what they finally used on the screen. I used the end of the first film as my starting point. Taylor realized that man still existed but had regressed to a primitive and savage existence. He decides to attempt to retrain and educate them to bring them back to a normal life. He teaches them the use of language. The apes consider this a great danger and a terrible war begins. Many of the subhumans contest Taylor's leadership because he wants to make peace, and in the end they win out and destroy all of the apes whom they greatly outnumber. I relate this very badly because I have forgotten it." Boulle found the experience much less enjoyable than writing a novel, saying: "It was an interesting and amusing experience for me, nothing more. It's not the same. When I was writing I was thinking in visual terms, picturing the actors, Charlton Heston, and the others. I played the game, but my film was never made, and I don't even want to publish it, and it never will be."^[8] In fact, at least one crucial element from 'Planet of the Men' found its way into Beneath - General Ursus (presumably based on Field Marshall Urus) does lead a war of extermination against the humans, a war with disastrous results.^[6]

As Jacobs later recalled: "We didn't plan any sequel in the first one, but it became so successful that Fox said you must do a sequel, if you can come up with one. First I went to Pierre Boulle to write the screenplay. He said he didn‘t know how one makes one, then when I showed him a print of the first one, he was just absolutely ecstatic. He DID write a treatment for a sequel, titled 'Planet of Men', but it wasn't cinematic. Then, I went to Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams in London, and spent about two weeks, walking and walking, trying to figure out where to go from the Statue of Liberty."^[8]

[edit] The Dark Side of the Earth

Another sequel proposal was entitled The Dark Side of the Earth. The author and date is unknown, but the same title was used by Rod Serling for a television play about the 1956 anti-communist revolt in Hungary, and the similarities to Serling's earlier Apes sequel outline (which also used the phrase 'dark side of the earth', though not as the title), suggest that the proposal could have been written by someone familiar with Serling’s earlier work, or by Serling himself. One of Abraham's objections to Serling's original story was that it lacked a shock ending, and The Dark Side of the Earth provides a shock ending to a story similar to Serling’s, so it could be his attempt to modify it to Abrahams' liking. However, the proposal does not appear to have been written on Serling's typewriter, and it shares elements of both Serling’s and Boulle’s concepts.^[6]

In the story outline, Taylor and Nova find the remains of a twentieth century town inhabited by thinking, talking humans. They join the humans and enjoy their pastoral, carefree lifestyle until another U.S. spaceship crashes, with one astronaut surviving. In time, the second astronaut, like Sirius in Planet of the Men, leads the humans on an attack against the apes just as the hawkish apes led by Zaius plan to exterminate the humans. As in Boulle’s screenplay, the humans take over and the apes revert to a primitive pre-articulate state. But Taylor is not killed in this story. Rather, remembering a bomb he found in the humans’ arsenal and disgusted by the carnage, prejudice, and hatred he has witnessed, Taylor decides to destroy everything so that God can try it all over again. He crashes the ship into the city, igniting a nuclear holocaust which leaves nothing except the reproductive imagery of a flower and a bee.^[6]

[edit] Planet of the Apes Revisited

Following the rejection of these proposals, Mort Abrahams reconsidered his preconditions for the sequel: "Finally, having thought about it for several weeks, I abandoned the idea of trying to top the Statue of Liberty shot. I told Arthur, 'Look, let's not do a film for the final shot, which we're trying to do in topping the first picture's fantastic experience. Let's just do a picture, but we have to make it visually more exciting by involving ourselves with either mechanical or film effects.' So, we started with that premise. Then, I got the idea of going beyond apes to a race of mutant humans who could create reality out of their own mental images - earthquakes, rock falls and all that sort of thing - which gave us the opportunity for visual effects on the screen. We worked backwards, building the story around the visual gimmicks." In the fall of 1968, while working in England producing The Chairman, Abrahams met with poet-turned-screenwriter Paul Dehn, who had co-written Goldfinger, one of the most popular James Bond films. After some discussion, Dehn agreed to write a treatment. "Having read his poetry," Abrahams said, "I wondered if he would be interested. His imagery indicated such a fertile imagination that I thought his would not be the standard screenwriter's approach."^[5]

Dehn submitted his story treatment, which was developed with Abrahams, on 13 September 1968. Planet of the Apes Revisited, again, began with the final moments of the first film. This time, Taylor and Nova ride into the Forbidden Zone, where they encounter a race of mutated humans who, having survived the nuclear war, migrated underground and metamorphosized into telepathic beings who worship the atomic bomb as a god. Meanwhile, the gorilla army from Ape City marches into the Forbidden Zone with the sole intent of exterminating all humans and claiming the land as their own. Dehn's treatment climaxes with both the ape army and the mutants perishing in an underground nuclear explosion, while Taylor and Nova escape. They meet with their two chimpanzee allies, Cornelius and Zira, and return to Ape City where all captive humans are freed, with a new era dawning between man and ape. There is an optimistic ending set in the far future, where a group of children are being tought about that final war, how the armies were all killed and how Taylor brought peace and harmony to all the survivors in the 47 years before his death. The teacher is a chimpanzee and the children are human. The presence of a half-human, half-ape child is the final evidence of the harmony that has been established. The script goes on to cut to the Forbidden Zone where a group of horribly mutated apes emerge from a tunnel and, symbolically, shoot a dove - an ominous ending after all! Paul Dehn explained: "...exciting ideas did come out of the second one as a result of the Statue of Liberty, which instantly suggested that New York was underground and that there could be relics of human civilization down there, and that gave me the idea for the mutants, people who had become radiated."^[8] "We were looking for a setting that would be at once recognizable to the audience and yet take on a different form," added Abrahams. "Now, we had already destroyed New York in the first one, so we had to decide if we wanted to do shots of New York with buildings on their sides. We decided to go underground instead, and keep the whole atmosphere underground in contrast to the first picture which was all above ground. I don't know where the specific idea of the subway came in, but it all came about due to our desire to create a very visual picture. The first film depended upon the unusual story and the unusual characters. Presumably, most of the audience for the second picture would have seen the first, therefore you couldn't do scenes like the sudden disclosure of apes on horseback and expect the same reaction. We were looking for unusual visuals, not the repetition of anything in picture one."^[5]

Don Medford (The Twilight Zone, The FBI, and many other TV series) was chosen as director, but the project immediately hit a major problem when Charlton Heston flatly refused to appear in the sequel. Heston was uncomfortable making a movie sequel, but he also didn't like Dehn's story treatment at all: "They spoke to me, as soon as the overwhelming success of the film became evident, about a sequel, and I said, 'You know, there is no sequel. There's only the one story. You can have another picture about further adventures among the monkeys, and it can be an exciting film, but creatively there is no film'."^[8] To make matters worse, Medford soon left the project due to "creative differences" (possibly because the budget was halved^[9]), and his replacement as director, Ted Post (Hang 'em High), was ready to resign as well if Heston wouldn't feature in the film: "Heston didn't like the story and I agreed with him and I didn't want to do the picture without him because I didn't want the audience to think we would be giving them less. I wanted to have him there because it would legitimize the sequel." Dick Zanuck summoned Heston to his office and reminded the actor that he (Zanuck) was the one who had sanctioned Planet of the Apes in the first place. "I recognized that," said Heston, "and I said, 'Look, I'm very grateful to you because you were the only studio head who recognized what the piece could be. I understand you owe your stockholders something. I'll tell you what. What if I'm in it and you kill me in the first scene?' And he said,' That's OK. We can work out some kind of plot, but you gotta be in it or we can't get started.'" This compromise was agreeable to all.^[5] Heston wrote on 30 September: "Fox is now willing to accept my proposal to do a brief transition bit for them in their new version of 'Apes'. I don't think it's a good idea, but of course I'll carry out my promise to them."^[10] Dehn had to rethink his story to accommodate the new situation. In his first draft screenplay for Revisited (dated 20 December 1968), the original storyline for Taylor was adapted for a second astronaut character, John Brent, who lands on the planet after following Taylor's trajectory. Once Taylor falls into a trap in the Forbidden Zone, it's Brent who encounters Nova and the mutant humans, though things were soon amended again so that Taylor's character would appear briefly at the beginning of the movie, then he would vanish, and show up again at the end of the film for the movie's climax (where Taylor, Nova and Brent debate whether they should try to return to their own time in Brent's spacecraft, before opting for Dehn's ending outlined above).

Jacobs and Abrahams began casting for the movie; Heston, now reappearing as Taylor, was joined by the returning Linda Harrison (Nova), Kim Hunter (Zira) and Maurice Evans (Zaius). Unfortunately, Roddy McDowall was making his directorial debut in London and was replaced as Cornelius by English actor David Watson. Others cast included character actor James Gregory as General Ursus, (a role which Orson Welles had turned down), and James Franciscus as Brent (which Burt Reynolds had rejected). In addition, cast as the mutants were Natalie Trundy (Arthur Jacobs' wife), Victor Buono and Gregory Sierra, and Thomas Gomez as an ape (his final film appearance^[9]). James Franciscus shared Heston's reservations about the script: "When I read the script, I thought that the story was fine, but the character really wasn't much of a man - in essence, he was led around by the nose saying, 'yes' and 'no.' So, I told my agent, Dick Clayton, 'I can see why Burt turned this down. The character, the way it's drawn, is no man.' I met with Mort and Arthur Jacobs and told them - based on the fact that they do some work here and there - yeah, I would be interested. So, the deal was set, though I wasn't locked in yet. Over the weekend, I did something outrageous, which I knew it was, but I wasn't going to let the script changes be muddled around: a line here, a line there. It needed a whole new reworking." Franciscus and a writer friend named John Ryan, assisted by Ted Post, spent a weekend restructuring the Brent character, rewriting about 60 pages. Post corroborates this story, "What we did was to make suggestions or do things that would make it legitimate. I know one thing, much of it ended up on the screen. This was before shooting began, and Mort got angry with the changes and angry with me. Finally, I said, 'Listen, Mort, actors have to perform this script and sitting where you are, you don't know whether a scene will work." Abrahams was fairly irritated, but he admitted that there were some good ideas and, Franciscus recalls, "two days later, a revised script came in and, by heavens, there were about 54 of my 60 pages in it. In my rewrite, I turned the character from a man being chased, to a man in jeopardy - and confused, but still a man."^[5] A version of the first draft screenplay with revisions was issued 3 February 1969. On 13 February, Heston wrote in his diary about his continuing problems with the Apes sequel: "The part's longer than I wanted to do and the latest script's not good, but Fox insists I have to be in the film or they can't make it" ...and on 25 and 26 March: "Jim Franciscus called, frothing at what he feels are the inadequacies of the 'Apes 2' script. I'm inclined to agree, but I don't know how much can be improved." "I ...put the fear of God into the studio re the 'Apes 2' script.^[10]

[edit] Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Production began in February 1969, at which point Dick Zanuck announced that the newly-renamed Beneath the Planet of the Apes would be the last Apes movie. The budget was approximately $3 million, much less than the $5.8 million allotted to the original. "It was a little unfair," explained Abrahams, "but the theory was 'yes, we would like to do a sequel. The first one was very successful, but we cannot anticipate that the second will gross as much because, traditionally, sequels go down.' That was before the later James Bond films and Superman. Historically though, that was true, and the budget was cut." Post elaborates: "We had some wonderful underwater scenes which had to be cut because they were too expensive for the modified budget. We couldn't shoot any excessive material, because the need to be within budget was extremely important. Beneath made money, though, much to the surprise of many people who don't believe in sequels." Despite the budgetary problems, Post notes that one of his biggest concerns throughout the production was the screenplay, which, changes aside, he found "horribly cliched... The script just had so much action initially that you couldn't relate to the principals. Action doesn't mean anything if you don't care about the characters. I spoke to ['Planet of the Apes' director] Frank Schaffner, and he told me that Michael Wilson rewrote Rod Serling's original 'Planet' script and that he was someone worth going after. I contacted him, he was interested and we were all set. Then, we got word that he would cost too much money, so we went back to the original writer, Paul Dehn."^[5] Wilson confirmed he had been approached, saying "[the sequels] were offered to me but I was always busy on something else. I also felt I had done my duty to the apes. I felt that that was enough."^[11] Arch Oboler is said to have contributed an uncredited revision to the screenplay also.^[9] Post continued: "What I tried to do was to make what was given to me work. I had to apply all the techniques and principles I had ever used as a director to make this picture work. I tried to tone the film with the spirit of what it was they were attempting to do; the horror of the change that occurred in having apes control the world."^[5]

Another area which was troubling Post was the makeup. Twenty-six practitioners of the art of make-up were working in the film, and that was eight weeks before shooting even started. They were employed in the laboratories at 20th Century Fox under the direction of Dan Striepeke, the departmental chief, and John Chambers, the chief make-up designer. They were designing and manufacturing the facial appliances which turned the actors into apes and mutated humans. When filming began the staff increased to between 85 and 90 working on high pressure days. Depending on the number of extras involved, the number of make-up men increased as high as 100. In order to fill this need, Chambers and Striepeke instituted a series of classes for make-up apprentices at the studio.^[12] Post met with Chambers and Striepeke and studied the mutant concepts they had created after six months of experimentation. "Originally, they were using horrible makeup, and I told them, 'I don't like these horror things you're making. A bomb of that force and impact would skin you alive. You could end up with no epidermis at all, which means you would see muscles, cells, and the nerve and blood vessels. That's in the dermis.' I remembered seeing a picture of that in 'Gray's Anatomy' when I was a kid studying biology. In that book, they peeled back the epidermis and showed us what the dermis looked like. I told them I wanted that look, and they got very excited. They executed the final look of the makeup brilliantly, but the concept was mine." Early in pre-production, it was decided that due to the large number of apes shown on screen, pullover masks would be used for all but the main ape characters and those in close-up.^[5] The plot device of the half-human, half-ape child appearing in the final scene was given serious consideration; costume tests were undertaken in late 1968, and further make-up tests in early 1969, but the idea was eventually excised from the final product, apparently because of problems with how it should look. It has also been pointed out that the implied inter-species breeding would cause problems with the film's MPAA rating - as Paul Dehn himself pointed out: "I wanted a more optimistic end to 'Apes 2' than the destruction of Earth by the Doomsday Bomb, but my own end, the birth of a child half-human and half-monkey, proved intractable in terms of make-up, and anyway it was thought that Man-Ape miscegenation might lose us our G certificate!"^[8] A rare screen test of the human-ape hybrid can be found on the 1998 documentary Behind the Planet of the Apes. ^[13]

Before Charlton Heston began filming his few scenes in April, the decision that this was to be the last Apes movie - together with the enormous bomb that ultimately kills the mutants and gorillas in the film's climax - gave him an idea: his character should be killed off at the film's conclusion, and he should take the entire planet with him by activating a 'doomsday' nuclear weapon. He convinced Zanuck, who was by then in the process of being fired by Fox and didn't see any future for the franchise. Heston wrote: "They asked me to simply disappear in the opening sequence. I agreed, if they'd then kill me off in the end, thinking I could end the whole thing with a death that included the end of the world. I sold them on this."^[10] "I thought my main contribution was persuading them that the best thing for me to do would be to blow up the world. I thought, 'OK, that's going to be the end of those sequels.'" "I sold the director and producer on the idea."^[5] This meant that the planned ending of the film had to be drastically changed; the original framing scenes of the ape teacher with human children could not now happen (but the idea was to be recycled for the opening and closing scenes of Battle for the Planet of the Apes), and Beneath climaxed with the destruction of everything, signifying the end of this bizarre planet of apes. "I didn't want that ending," declared Post. "I thought it was a very negative, pessimistic ending; very unhopeful. We did have other endings, but the order came down from Dick. ..that was the picture I was involved with that found Dick Zanuck not in a very happy state of mind. His conclusion about the picture was a reflection either consciously or unconsciously of what he felt. The meaning of it was not too profound and, if anything, it lacked meaning. It lacked human significance. It didn't have a theme or a premise worth anything. If anything, it was cynical and pessimistic because of the finish of it. I don't believe in dampening the human spirit like that. I don't care how realistic you want to be - I'm an optimist, basically". James Franciscus was also unhappy with the revised conclusion: "I thought the ending was awful. A picture without hope...I think Ted and I PLEADED for someone to survive this mess, be it Chuck's character or the girl or Brent's character - SOMEBODY far enough away from the explosion for whatever reason so that mankind is still left".^[5]

The final screenplay, with it's new apocalyptic ending, was completed 10 April 1969. Days later, on 14 April, Heston was still dissatisfied with the project, writing: "After the mix up yesterday, when I made my position clear on kiting off to the desert to spend three days there on these scenes, they flew me up on the crew's charter this morning and choppered me back home to the Mulholland fire station when I'd finished for the day. The script is still nothing much, the direction (by Ted Post of the old New York days) very brisk and permissive. This was all complicated by a terrible, tearing wind all day, plus the fact that the fall they made to match my long hair from the original 'Apes' is not good. I'm not hopeful of the result... but then, I won't be long in it." Two weeks later, he was "..still slaving away on my promised chore in the 'Apes' sequel. I'm beginning to regret it, for more than obvious reasons. This is the first film... first acting... I've ever done in my life for which I have no enthusiasm, which is a vital loss. To choose always the most expedient solution to a scene, to work without watching dailies... I can't adjust to this image of myself. ..I thought there'd be nothing for me but a few simple physical scenes; instead I find myself tangled in creative discussions in aid of a project in whose creative validity I have no confidence." He finished filming his parts on 2 May: "At least I've done what I told Dick Zanuck I would do."^[10] Linda Harrison, meanwhile, was tired of playing Nova and looking forward to filming TV series Bracken's World (broadcast from September 1969) the day after filming on Beneath ended, and also to starting a family with husband Zanuck, whom she married in October of the same year.

Like its predecessor, Beneath was filmed mainly at the Fox studio itself, and on location at the Fox movie ranch in Malibu, and at desert spots in Utah and Arizona. Art director William Creber explained how New York was recreated as the mutant city: "For the New York ruins in 'Beneath', we used actual photographs of the places, cut them with razor blades, and the special effects department matted them in. The church in 'Beneath' was purposely asymmetrical and off balance. That was a tough set, and I had a lot of help from many people on it. We used a standing set, the 'Harmonia Gardens' from 'Hello, Dolly!', and revamped it, spraying all over it with foam. The 'Grand Central Station' set from 'Dolly' was used too, for the tribunal scene."^[8] Barbra Streisand can be seen walking through the 'Grand Central Station' set at the beginning of Hello, Dolly!, while the 'St. Patrick's Cathedral' set was a restaurant shown later in the film. Producer Irwin Allen had already re-used the tiled tubular set of subterranean New York (painted blue and shot from behind) for a 1968 episode of Land of the Giants, and as an electrical power-duct in his 1969 TV-movie City Beneath the Sea, before Beneath went into production. The same set would be used in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes as corridors between sections of the Ape Management complex.^[9] While it received mixed critical notices, Beneath the Planet of the Apes grossed nearly as much as Planet of the Apes and delighted audiences worldwide. Shortly thereafter, in England, writer Paul Dehn received a simple telegram: "APES LIVE! SEQUEL REQUIRED!" It was only a short period of time before preliminary discussions began on episode three, Secret of the Planet of the Apes (eventually renamed Escape from the Planet of the Apes).

[edit] Trivia

• This film is the POTA debut of actress Natalie Trundy. Playing the role of the mutant, Albina, Natalie would be the only female to appear in 4 of the 5 POTA films, as Dr. Stephanie Branton, and Ceasar's wife Lisa. Natalie was also the wife of the late film producer Arthur P. Jacobs.

• The final scene where Taylor hangs onto the detonator by his fingers is an elaborate reference to a scene from Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), where a worker collapses in the factory in a similar fashion.^[9]

[edit] Quotes

Ursus: "I'll tell you one thing that every good soldier knows! The only thing that counts in the end is power! Naked merciless force!"

Cornelius: "But you don't understand. Only apes can speak. Not her, and not you. If they catch you speaking, they will dissect you! And they will kill you! In that order!"

Ursus: "Brutal butchery! I swear those responsible shall pay with torture and with death!"
Dr. Zaius: "If you have any pity, bid your soldiers to shoot our poor people."
Ursus: "I can't order them to do what the Lawgiver has forbidden! Ape shall not kill ape."

Ursus: "He bleeds! The Lawgiver bleeds!"

Mendez: "Glory be to the Bomb, and to the Holy Fallout. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen." "May the Blessings of the Bomb Almighty, and the Fellowship of the Holy Fallout, descend upon us all. This day and forever more."

Ongaro, the Negro: "Mr. Taylor, Mr. Brent, we are a peaceful people. We don't kill our enemies. We get our enemies to kill each other."

Taylor: "The doomsday bomb. Another lovely souvenir from the 20th century. They weren't satisfied with a bomb that could knock out a city. They finally built one with a cobalt casing, all in the sweet name of peace."
Brent: "Those bloody fools! They don't know what they've got. They pray to the damn thing. If they shoot it off at some of those apes, it could set off a chain reaction in the whole atmosphere."
Taylor: "Burn the planet to a cinder. How's that for your ultimate weapon?"

Dr. Zaius: "You ask me to help you? Man is evil! Capable of nothing but destruction!"

Narrator: "In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star. And one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead."

[edit] Reaction

Cast And Crew

Beneath the Planet of the Apes proved to be surprisingly poorly-recieved by most of the people who worked on it. While it garnered more modest returns than it's predecessor, this was to be expected with sequels; in fact it performed quite respectably, enough to justify a further sequel. The bad experiences on set and behind the scenes may go some way in explaining it's unpopularity among it's creators.

• "We had other endings, but the order came down from Dick...that was the picture I was involved with that found Dick Zanuck not in a very happy state of mind. His conclusion about the picture was a reflection either consciously or unconsciously of what he felt. The meaning of it was not too profound and, if anything, it lacked meaning. It lacked human significance. It didn't have a theme or a premise worth anything. If anything, it was cynical and pessimistic because of the finish of it. I don't believe in dampening the human spirit like that. I don't care how realistic you want to be - I'm an optimist, basically." - Director Ted Post^[14]

• Director Ted Post said he found it "a very challenging experience" working with the fllm's "hodgepodge script," and trying to give it "a concept, a point-of-view, a unifying force." He felt the film had "a shape, a character that gave it a visual and visceral thrust," but also that "the story was unclear and didn't measure up."^[15]

• 'Which of the films do you like the least?' "The second one". - Producer Arthur P. Jacobs^[16]

• "I wanted a more optimistic end to 'Apes 2' than the destruction of Earth by the Doomsday Bomb. - Screenwriter Paul Dehn^[17]

• "I thought the ending was awful. A picture without hope...I think Ted (Post, director) and I PLEADED for someone to survive this mess, be it Chuck (Heston)'s character or the girl or Brent's character - SOMEBODY far enough away from the explosion for whatever reason so that mankind is still left". - 'Brent' actor James Franciscus^[18]

• "Jim Franciscus called, frothing at what he feels are the inadequacies of the APES 2 script. I'm inclined to agree, but I don't know how much can be improved." - 'Taylor' actor Charlton Heston^[19]

• "I ran APES II tonight, with many misgivings. It was a little better, actually, than I'd thought it could be. Aside from many careless errors in structure and detail, the main problem is that the leading character [Jimmy Franciscus... a good actor] really has nothing to play, as I predicted would be the case when I refused the role. I'm barely acceptable in a cameo reprise of the Taylor role from the first film." - Charlton Heston^[20]

• 'Zira' actor Kim Hunter found this movie more difficult to work on than the first one, which had a "special, experimental nature that was exciting." The second one, she said, was "pure melodrama," and that "whatever is said was lost."^[21]

• "[Beneath] wasn't as good as the first, 'cause of course we had Franklin J. Schaffner on that one and he was one of the top, top directors." - 'Nova' actor Linda Harrison^[22]

• "As much as I enjoyed the first film, my favorite project was the third one, and I think it was by far a better picture than the second one. What the second one lacked was the real relationship between the apes and the humans, and this is what 'Escape' had." - Art director William Creber^[23]

• Mort Abrahams co-wrote and co-produced Beneath the Planet of the Apes; although it was "essentially my idea", Abrahams was dissatisfied with the result.

• "As in most sequels, there was a deterioration of quality - in this instance to the level of comic-strip science fiction. But I had nothing to do with the sequels, and my reaction may therefore be subjective." - Planet of the Apes screenwriter Michael Wilson^[24]

Only 'Zaius' actor Maurice Evans seemed to have anything positive to say about the movie:

• "There is every reason why a story should be expanded if the author has really got anything to say. And I think in the case of the sequel to Planet of the Apes, the public will find that the author has a great deal more to say than he had in the first one. In fact, the sequel to my way of thinking, is infinitely more profound from a philosophical standpoint. In many ways more frightening."^[25]

[edit] Related Articles

• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Novelization)
• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Comic Book)
• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Power Records)
• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Marvel Comic Book)
• Fellowship of the Holy Fallout

[edit] External Links

• Beneath the Planet of the Apes at Wikipedia
• Beneath the Planet of the Apes at IMDB
• Beneath the Planet of Apes review
• Hunter's Planet of the Apes Scripts Archive (featuring alternative script versions)

[edit] References

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Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes	Beneath the Planet of the Apes	Escape from the Planet of the Apes	Conquest of the Planet of the Apes	Battle for the Planet of the Apes

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