Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) - film review

In the early 1970s, a spaceship lands off the coast of California.  As a party of US marines watch in anticipation, three astronauts emerge.  They remove their helmets to reveal that they are not humans, but apes, humanoid chimpanzees to be precise.  These are Cornelius, Zira and Dr Milo, who managed to escape from their world, two thousand years in the future, in the very same spaceship that a human astronaut named Taylor had arrived in.  The three apes are taken to Los Angeles Zoo, to be examined by a team of scientists.  Here, Dr Milo is attacked and killed by a gorilla.  Animal psychiatrist Dr Lewis Dixon is surprised by the apes’ obvious intelligence and is even more astonished when they speak to him in his own language.  Summoned before a Presidential Commission, Zira and Cornelius create a good impression and are soon feted as celebrities.  However, another scientist, Dr Otto Hasslein, is suspicious about the apes, particularly when he learns through Zira that the apes are destined to take over from mankind as the dominant species and then ultimately destroy the world.  When Hasslein discovers that Zira is pregnant, his concerns turn to paranoia.  Unless the unborn ape is destroyed, it could bring about the extinction of mankind.  Dr Hasslein will not allow that to happen...

When Charles Heston carelessly blew up the world in the gripping climax to Beneath the Planet of the Apes, audiences would have had good reason for supposing that that was the end of the apes saga.  But no, by the miracles of modern science (and a helpful time warp), our favourite chimps, Cornelius and Zira, pull of the old Life on Mars stunt and somehow find their way back to 1973.  And a good thing to, because this is so evidently the best of the sequels to the film that started it all off, Planet of the Apes (1968).

Many of the racial and political themes that were explored in the first Apes film resurface in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, although here the situation is cleverly reversed, since it is now man who is the aggressor, and the apes the victims.  The film also picks up a theme  promulgated by the Millennium doom merchants, who believed that the early 1970s would be when either Christ or the Anti-Christ would be born, ready to bring about the end of the world in the Year 2000.  Similarities between this film and The Omen (1976) are apparent, if you care to look for them.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is definitely a film of two halves.  It begins in a light-hearted, almost parodic vein, with much fun being derived from the clash of cultures that ensues as the apes enjoy their newfound celebrity status.  (If the film had been made today, we would doubtless have had Cornelius livening things up in the Big Brother house whilst Zira, the Princess Di of the chimp world, does the chat show circuit.)  The second half is much darker in tone and reflects the racial paranoia (as was freely exhibited by the white supremacists) at the time when the film was made. It is no accident that the villain of the piece, a man obsessed with racial purity, has a German name (but, mercifully, not a matching accent).  Anyone who is not moved to tears by the fate of Cornelius and Zira is a heartless fiend who deserves all he gets when the apes take over.

With an intelligent, meticulously plotted screenplay from Paul Dehn, Escape from the Planet of the Apes is both entertaining and thought-provoking.  (Several theses have doubtless been written on the inconsistencies between this and the previous two films, but we’ll gloss over that.)   Don Taylor’s effective direction achieves a successful balance of comedy, drama and adventure and the performances are amongst the best the Apes series has to offer.   Hoping to make a career comeback, Sal Mineo agreed to appear as the third ape in the film, Dr Milo, but is not on screen long enough to have much of an impact. 

The film rightly belongs to Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter, who not only succeed in making their ape characters human (in the nicest possible sense of the word), but also give us one of the most believable and poignant screen romances of all time.  This film has the emotional power of Bambi and Brief Encounter combined, and is a lot funnier.  Sadly, this would be Kim Hunter’s last appearance in the Apes films.  Roddy McDowall would of course return to delight audiences in the following two sequels and the popular TV series.  You just can’t keep a good chimp down.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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