Monster Movie of the Week: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Escape from the Planet of the Apes
Directed by Don Taylor
Genre: Sci-Fi

The third film in the Planet of the Apes series, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, is widely considered one of the best of the franchise. It deftly manages to mix science fiction with gentle comedy and social commentary and gets the most out of the sheer likability of its two stars, Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter. Both actors reprise their supporting roles from the classic 1968 movie but are here allowed to carry the entire film without Charlton Heston chewing the scenery.

Escape is actually the movie that is closest in tone to the original Pierre Boule novel on which the first movie was loosely based. The Boule story featured a Twentieth century astronaut who encounters an advanced ape civilization on a distant planet. Its emphasis was less on science fiction and action and more on satire and social commentary. The same is also true of Escape which features the chimps Zira and Cornelius as outsiders stranded in 1970's America who give the audience a satirical point-of-view on contemporary life. Escape takes some of the situations from the original movie and inverts them in a fun and interesting way and serves as a thematic book-end to the original movie.



The movie is a fairly light-hearted romp with dark undertones which come to dominate the last third of the film and lead to one of those violent and shocking endings for which the series is infamous. The ending is rather jarring considering the comedic tone of most of the movie, but it wouldn't be an Apes movie without something big going down at the end. Still, it's not easy watching a pair of characters in which you have become invested get mercilessly gunned down.



Escape from the Planet of the Apes actually begins with a rather neat twist. The opening sequence involves the recovery of a space capsule, much like the one used by Heston's character in the original movie. When the astronauts remove their helmets they are revealed to be the chimps Zira, Cornelius and their companion, Dr. Milo. Although, the premise of these apes fixing and piloting one of the two damaged ships is far-fetched even for a Planet of the Apes movie, it does make for a terrific cold-open and is a pleasant reminder that this is going to be a different Apes movie than the original or its carbon-copy sequel.



After Dr. Milo succumbs to a tragic accident, we follow Zira and Cornelius as they explore Twentieth century Earth and become celebrities. We even learn that Zira is pregnant. However this is a shadow hanging over the good times, as forces in the American government are very curious about the future planet of the apes and they want to know all they can to prevent it from happening. They soon begin to see the two chimpanzees and their offspring as a threat to humanity's future, which leads to a tragic sequence of events during which the two chimps are gunned down but not before hiding their super-smart chimp baby...

THE CREATURES/EFFECTS

Although the rule with the Apes movies was that less and less money was spent on each installment, it actually serves this movie really well as there are only three ape characters which require make up, and they are all sporting the Oscar-winning John Chambers make-up, much as they did in the first movie. You won't find any of the awful crowd scenes from the prior and subsequent movies where extras are forced to don awful rubber ape masks. This movie is all about Zira, Cornelius and (briefly) Milo. Baby Caesar is portrayed by an actual baby chimp.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

I'm a big fan of the great cold open and the title sequence which features another great score by Jerry Goldsmith, although this time with a bit of '70's funk thrown in.



HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Like the rest of the series, Escape has been widely available on its own and in a variety of great collectors sets. Apes fans are in luck that this a 20th Century Fox production, as they have a well-deserved reputation for putting out first-rate Bluray sets and the Blurays even blow the amazing DVD set out of the water with its wealth of special features intuitive navigation system.

SEQUELS

Directly followed by the really interesting Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which was released the following year and told the story of baby Milo's (now Ceasar) ape revolution.

TRAILER





Patrick Garone
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Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl