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Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2015 6:47 pm    Post subject: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) Reply with quote



James Franciscus stars as a crew member of a second space mission sent in search of the one from the first film.

And that, of course, is completely impossible because Heston tells us in his opening soliloquy in Planet of the Apes that his ship had already been in space for centuries before he even goes into suspended animation!

So, why did Earth send a rescue mission to look for astronauts that had barely begun their own years-long journey to a distant planet, traveling at almost light speed while they were in suspended animation?

Since James Franciscus' character actually knows Taylor, they must have been contemporaries on Earth, so Franciscus and company must have left Earth shortly after Heston's mission. Therefore, this could not be a rescue mission.

And if that isn't silly enough, the second spacecraft does exactly the same impossible thing the first one did. It crashes right back on Earth after spending centuries in space. And in the same region on Earth!

Good grief . . .

As for the story itself, it's a mixed bag. Franciscus runs afoul the apes and a group of mutant humans who inhabit an underground complex (with nice matt shots and sets showing the remnants of pre-holocaust buildings partially encased in rock).






The mutants appear normal, but only because they wear rubber masks to cover their hideously deformed faces.





The mutants have developed telepathy, and they plan to use this power in their bid to regain domination of the planet. They also have a left-over atomic superbomb which they threaten to use if the apes don't submit.







Kim Hunter, Linda Harrison, Charlton Heston, and Maurice Evans, repeat their roles from the first film.





Roddy McDowall's voice was used for the character of Cornelius again, but McDowall was busy directing "Devil's Widow", so somebody else wore the makeup. Also starring Victor Buono (as the leader of the mutants), James Gregory (as the guerilla leader), Jeff Corey, Thomas Gomez, and Gregory Sierra.

Evidently the producers wanted to outdo the pessimistic ending of the first film, so this one ends with the Earth being blown up by the crazy mutants. Directed by Ted Post. Fortunately the film was so successful they found a way to continue the story in "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" by sending Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, and Sal Mineo (in his last role) back in time to a near-future Earth.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sun Aug 07, 2022 3:01 pm; edited 9 times in total
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Krel
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 7:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The movie gave an explanation that Taylor's ship went through a space warp, and the rescue ship followed it.

The story was originally suppose to be where James Franciscus lands. Has adventures, finds Taylor and Nova. At the end, they board the rescue rocket, return to the past. Stop the war, and change the future.

Back in the 70s/80s, a magazine had an interview with the Producer on the movie. He said that the movie was suppose to have a much higher budget. But when the studio cut it, he changed the ending to destroy the world. He figured, let them make a sequel from that! They did. Laughing

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, David. Knowing that the flaws in the story were connected to the typical studio interference explains quite a lot.

The "space warp" theory is a good one. It explains how it happened once, and it provides a perfectly logical reason for how it can happen again.

I love the scenario whereby the astronauts team up, head home, and straighten things out the whole mess. Much better than a story about crazy radiation-damaged humans who sing hymns to a nuke.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________

This is a terrific trailer, narrated by Marvin Miller ("Robby"), if I'm not mistaken. It promotes the movie quite well.
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____ Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970 Trailer)


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Boy, what more can I say.....But I loved the way this film fit in with the first to tell a longer story. I took it that the second ship wasn't so much a "rescue" ship, but a companion, back-up mission following behind the first.
I always thought the two films could be seamlessly edited into one huge epic.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 3:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just imagine....

A recut editing of the first two films seamlessly telling this story.
At one time it was common for a magnum opus like this to be a 3 1/2 hour story with an intermission in the middle with a musical interlude. (Probably done so some members of the audience could make a "potty break".)



I've made a DVD copy of the two combined and watch it often. Together they tell a coherent complete story. The films that followed were superfluous and although they could be enjoyed on their own merits, were not needed for the coherency of the first two.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Heston did not want to appear in this sequel, but HE was obligated contractually to do so.

Saw an interview with James Franciscus when he was promoting this movie when it was first released. He mentioned that he found it interesting whenever it was lunch time on the set.

He observed that the actors playing apes all would sit together, chimps would do the same, as would the orangutans.

Always thought that Franciscus would have made a fine captain for the Enterprise had they been unable to get Bill Shatner.
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johnnybear
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 2:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This was the first Apes film I ever saw on a wet and windy afternoon in Skegness in 1970! I loved it but for some reason always thought it was Richard Widmark rather than Charlton Heston! I've always theorized that the reason that both spaceships catapult into the future and back again was due to the destruction of the earth in the future which caused shock waves in time and space and disrupted their planned flight to wherever! In the series they were going to Alpha Centauri, but weren't they always?
JB
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 2:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

johnnybear wrote:
I've always theorized that the reason that both spaceships catapult into the future and back again was due to the destruction of the earth in the future which caused shock waves in time and space and disrupted their planned flight to wherever!0B

Hey now, that is GOOD! I love the idea that the future destruction of the Earth had an effect on the timeline and caused profound changes.

We might even take that interesting idea further and speculate that these ripples traveling back through time in some way and initiated both the downfall of mankind and the rise of the apes!

What a GREAT idea you proposed, JB!
Very Happy
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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johnnybear
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, Bud! Wink
JB
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Maurice
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 12:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Speaking of Victor Buono, turns out he was the uncle of my friend Janet, who does makeup and worked on shows like Grimm.
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Apes above. Mutants below. What's a planet to do? Can it handle all this? Maybe not.

This begins with scenes of the conclusion of Planet of the Apes (1968) and continues directly after these. I've never liked that for some reason; I suppose it has something to do with a lack of creativity — it's such an obvious way to go with a sequel.

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This first sequel to the '68 science fiction hit, though released a full two years later, has all the markings of something rushed into production. There was no time to craft a story which explores the truly interesting possibilities of astronaut Taylor's continuing odyssey on a future world turned upside down.

The story could have and should have concentrated on the evolving struggle between the ruling class of apes and the backward humans. There were several plots proposed in this area, by Rod Serling and even by Pierre Boulle, the original author, who wrote up 'Planet of Men' — this would have reversed the roles of humans and apes by the conclusion. Maybe such a story would have had events occur too quickly, unrealistic even for sci-fi, and maybe TOO satiric.

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Instead, the filmmakers created a new threat for this film, a secret society of human mutants living underground.

They show up in the 2nd half of this feature and, in prolonged scenes, show off their telepathic powers in torturing the heroes. The heroes, in this case, are another astronaut (James Franciscus) who followed Taylor's trajectory to this other planet and Taylor himself (Heston, reprising his role briefly). Wow, what an original concept — another astronaut, who, in an accelerated version of the first film's events, also finds Ape City, encounters two sympathetic chimps, gets captured and escapes.

Are we watching some kind of a repeat? Yes, this is a precursor to all the film sequels of later decades — if this were 1990, it would be called 'Planet of the Apes 2' and would fit right in with all the other sequels, the franchises of today. At least they titled the sequels more creatively back in 1970.



Rather than expanding on the first film's ideas, the filmmakers attempted to impress the audience with some visuals (again, a fault of most big films these days; it IS a visual medium, but one should have a story to complement the visuals).

In this one, most of the visuals involve the post-holocaust ruins of a city (NYC — surprise!), all buried by this point. And, until the overly extended scenes of the mutants practicing their mind tricks, this isn't dull, I will say. The quick pace of this picture is probably its best aspect; this stresses action. However, the pace is so fast in the first half that some crucial points in geography are sacrificed: getting to the Forbidden Zone from Ape City is just a short walk in a tunnel for some, while others have to trudge for days overhead.

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In a slight nod to the satirical aspects of the original film, we do get to see religion being mocked (the original satirized the social & political anchors of a community). But, it's not a very subtle jab.

The mutants profess to be more intelligent than either the heroes or the apes, which they seem to prove with their advanced mind powers, but they spend most of their time worshiping a nuclear bomb, chanting silly songs — they really picked a strange form of idolatry, but maybe they're simply crazed.

This movie throws together a lot of science fiction concepts on a future world gone wild but the resulting brew is rather messy; some of it is depressing, some of it creepy, some of it violent, perhaps even too brutal. It's a decent action piece, not much more.


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_____________ Beneath The Planet Of The Apes


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The main lead, Franciscus, shows he is no Heston; he overacts in most of his scenes, as if he had no clue on how to depict a man realizing where he's actually landed, but then again, he wasn't the skipper on this 2nd ship (the lead officer dies soon after they crash-land); we're not watching a leader but a follower try to carry the picture. Or, maybe I was just spoiled by how Heston dominated the first film. I was struck by how Heston towered over Franciscus in their brutal fight scene.

Roddy McDowall is also missing; his role of Cornelius is played by David Watson. I was never clear if that's really McDowall's voice; McDowall is not credited anywhere for this. Maurice Evans & James Gregory are pretty good as the ape leaders, but whoever stuck them in ape suits for the sauna scene should have thought about it a few more minutes.

BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10

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This movie ends everything on a grotesquely conclusive note, but they managed to find a way to continue the story in Escape From the Planet of the Apes.

In regards to the Doomsday scenario, it's presented a bit oddly; narration begins abruptly as Taylor depresses the fateful doom-trigger and ends just as abruptly. When I first saw this on TV in the seventies, I thought the broadcasting station had cut off footage too soon at the end.

As far as the bomb itself, I no longer believe that it actually 'blew up' the entire planet — that would be quite a bomb. Taylor mentions a 'cobalt casing' I think. I think it's more likely that, yes, the explosion was big, but actual planetary death occurred over a period of weeks or months as radiation spread over everything.

_______ Click Here: Beneath the POTA Program to view the film's original program booklet from 1970.

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Beneath the trivia: Actress Natalie Trundy played one of the human mutants here, in the first of her roles in Apes films. She would return as a human in Escape... and an ape in all the remaining sequels. The faces of the mutants were inspired by a photo in a medical textbook, Gray's Anatomy (hey, isn't there a TV series by that name now?). The other prominent actors playing mutants were Victor Buono, Jeff Corey, Don Pedro Colley (of THX-1138), Gregory Sierra and Paul Richards as the mutant leader.

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The term "Franciscus" had been appropriated by certain fans to describe an inferior actor replacement; as an example: "Roger Moore as James Bond was really a Franciscus." I've never used the term myself and believe it to be overly insulting. The term came up in the film Free Enterprise (1998), but I haven't seen it used much lately. James Franciscus was also cast, reportedly, due to his physical resemblance to Heston, and Franciscus was regarded by some as a smaller version of Heston. I've never seen this resemblance myself, so go figure.




BoG
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johnnybear
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PostPosted: Sat May 04, 2019 8:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have read that both Charlton Heston and James Franciscus were offered the lead roles in the television series too! Heston declined as he didn't want to play the same role over and over but wished the show all the luck in the world! But sadly even that was not enough!
JB
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