What, I ask, does one do when home for a few days with "the sickness"?

Huddle sobbing in the corner munching packets of paracetamol? Maybe. Offer up one's soul to the dark lords for a magical cure? Perhaps. Watch all 5 Planet of the Apes movies back to back?¹ Undoubtedly!

Though the 1968 original remains one of my favourite "genre" films,² I hadn't watched any of the four sequels since I was a (fairly easy to please) schoolboy. The following posts (yes, there'll be more than one) are merely the results of some hastily scribbled and fevered observations made, while propped up on the couch, as the DVDs spun.

1) Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Though Leonard Rosenman's delicious soundtrack is a definite highlight (almost the equal of Jerry Goldsmith's classic score for the original PotA), this remains a thoroughly daft and demented slice of late 60s/early 70s Sci-Fi hokum.³

Square-jawed, oiled-up astrohunk Brent (James Fransiscus) not only follows Chuck Heston (R.I.P.) through time and space to Ape City, but does as shameless a Chuck impression as has ever been put on screen. You keep expecting him, in moments of heightened stress and physical torment, to yell out "It's a Madhouse!!". This doppelgänger-ness is even slyly (or perhaps accidentally) acknowledged by Zira's confused exclamation of "Taylor?" when she first sees our beardy hero.⁴

Though the opening, above-ground, sequences are merely fairly dull retreads of scenes from film one, the bonkers-o-meter really swings into overdrive once Brent and Nova go beneath - down into the remains of a shattered New York. There they find (and are captured by) a gang of human survivors ("Eloi" to the Apes' "Morlocks")⁵ who not only retain the power of speech, but have also developed the natty ability to communicate, create illusions, and inflict harm telepathically.⁶

"Fair play to them", you may be thinking, "I hope they righteously kick some monkey arse". A note of caution, however, should now be sounded. They may amount to all that's left of human civilization (in the year 3978) but they're also unhinged religious zealots…

…and (beneath their fleshy masks) - hideous radioactive mutants.

Like many religious communities, "worship through song" is an important element in their ceremonies. Unlike many religious communities, the object of this worship is a big, shiny (and phallic) "doomsday" bomb. It's a madhouse!!

In one of Beneath's most unforgettable sequences,⁷ humourless cult leader Mendez (Paul Richards) leads us in the the kind of prayer that would have had me desperately trying to stifle (wicked) laughter in my mass-going days.

"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".

And so on…

The "mutant choir" then decide to inject a bit of oomph into proceedings (and kick it post-apocalyptic) with a blast of that olde-timey favourite, "Almighty bomb!":

Almighty bomb!
Who destroyed all devils!
And created angels!
Behold his glory!⁸

Have a listen -

At this point Brent was, no doubt, grinding his Heston-esque jaw & gazing anxiously about for the nearest exit - but wait - there's more techno-mystic lunacy to come. As distressing as it may be, the only contemporary tune that seems to have survived the apocalypse (and made it as far as the 40th century) is "All Things Bright and Beautiful" - albeit in a mangled, mutant version:

Aside from these musical excesses (and I should point out that the versions here are remixes) the soundtrack is, as previously suggested, terrific. The same, however, cannot really be said for the film as a whole - which is, on one level, probably the weakest of the four sequels. I say "on one level" because though it's "not good" in any conventional sense, its not-good-ness is never anything less than bizarre and interesting.⁹ In that it has the edge over most of the (many) "not good" films being made in the 21st century - which are invariably "not good" in wholly tedious and formulaic ways.

Anyway, any film that ends (as this one does) with a dying Chuck Heston spitting out the words "You bloody bastard!" (to Dr. Zaius) as his hand falls on the switch that activates the bomb and, thus, destroys the Planet of the Apes (a.k.a. Earth), is one well worth watching.

Kaboom!

[The "Ape Chronicles" continues shortly…]

1. I'm excluding Tim Burton's execrable remake. [back]
2. I've probably seen it about 30 times. [back]
3. Though, as we shall see, there's much that can be said in "hokum's" favour. [back]
4. I can barely tell 'em apart, so you can't blame a chimp for being a bit bewildered. [back]
5. But with a reverse. The apes dwell above; they live below. [back]
6. With an amusing (synth-noise-accompanied) nod of the head. [back]
7. Interpret "unforgettable" whatever way you want. [back]
8. Or possibly, "Behold this moment!", or even "Behold his coming!". [back]
9. The same can be said for all the PotA sequels - to a lesser or greater degree. [back]