Of apes and flying monkeys

Charlton Heston drops to the sand and pounds his fists into the surf.

“You maniacs!” his character screams. “You blew it up! Damn you. God damn you all to hell!”

The camera pans to reveal a half-buried Statue of Liberty, proof that Heston’s time on the “Planet of the Apes” has really been spent on his own Earth, ravaged by a nuclear holocaust that left monkeys in charge.

It’s one of the most indelible moments in American cinema, and it turns 50 this year.

In retrospect, Heston’s character is incredibly dense. After all, he and his fellow astronauts crash on a planet with earth-like atmosphere and gravity. They encounter mute humans biologically identical to themselves. The apes in charge speak and write English. Chimpanzee archaeologists find dolls, dentures and medical devices identical to those of Earthlings.

But not until he sees Bartholdi’s creation in the muck, its torch-bearing arm still held high, does he connect all the dots and have a head-slapping, “I shoulda had a V-8” moment.

But all this is Monday-morning quarterbacking several decades after the fact. When I first encountered the movie back in the early ’70s, on TV and not in the theater (I was born the same year the film was originally released), Heston’s belated realization didn’t concern me at all.

Instead, I was captivated by the talking apes, by the idea of a world scarred by some unfathomable disaster, by the mix of science-fiction and prehistoric savagery, and by the satire, even if I didn’t recognize it by name.

It helped that “Planet of the Apes” copied — one might even say “aped” — the structure of another favorite of mine, “The Wizard of Oz.”

Both are based on books that were monkeyed with by Hollywood. Both feature main characters who are transported far from home— Dorothy in her house because of a tornado, and Heston in a spaceship because of a wormhole. Both become strangers in a strange land, yet not so strange that we can’t recognize aspects of our own society. Both play with the idea of dreams — Heston muses that he is in one (maybe explaining why he is so accepting of apes speaking English), while Dorothy literally wakes up from one.

And, of course, both feature simians. The flying monkeys in “Wizard of Oz” have haunted many a childhood, and maybe the images of gorillas on horseback have, too.

Dozens of viewings haven’t cooled my crush on “Planet of the Apes.” If anything, I’m more enamored by its accomplishments.

Everything “Star Wars” did, the Apes franchise did first. Largely desert setting? Check. Nihilistic, cynical character? Check. Incessant merchandising, bottomless sequels, pop-culture cache? Check, check and check.

Additionally, the Apes series gives audiences serious social issues to ponder between our bites of popcorn. On the Deep Focus Film Studies website, writer Bryn V. Young-Roberts notes that the film examines a world where “a white man is now an ethnic minority,” complete with scenes that echo the Civil War, particularly as one of Heston’s fellow astronauts is an African-American male shot dead in a cornfield and Heston himself is blasted with a high-pressure hose, similar to police breaking up civil-rights demonstrations in the same decade the film was released.

On a recent viewing, I was intrigued by the orangutan character Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), the minister of science who also doubles as the simian protector of faith. The two roles are in opposition, a fact that does not bother Zaius much. But his desire to hide the truth, which includes lobotomizing any humans who can talk and suppressing any and all scientific evidence at odds with his religious symbol system, speaks to the dangers of mixing politics and religion and to the wisdom of separating church and state.

That’s heady stuff for a movie where most of the characters emote from behind latex masks and yak hair, but it’s also what allows it to remain socially relevant on its golden anniversary.


Originally published in March 2018.