Beneath the Planet of the Apes

• Directed by Ted Post
• May 26, 1970
• Based on characters created by Pierre Boulle

Another astronaut arrives on future Earth in search of Taylor and his fellow travelers.

As is often the case, success leads to sequels. And you really can’t blame studios for doing that as they are businesses and not art houses. Into this comes Beneath the Planet of the Apes which is a direct follow-up to the original film and like the original film has its own messages to it.

This came out in the time of Vietnam and the rising fear of nuclear war. There is certainly an anti-nuclear proliferation and anti-Vietnam message presented here along with themes of limited resources being the reason for war and general bigotry. An ambitious ape general named Ursus (James Gregory) uses his people’s fear to mount an ill-advised military campaign (Vietnam?) into the Forbidden Zone for access to more resources. Pair that with the scenes of protest and the assorted concerns voiced by characters and you certainly have an allegory to the feelings of the era.

There are also themes of the feeling of powerlessness in the face of the government. Zira (Kim Hunter) is the voice of the sensible citizen who sees what is wrong but does not know what to do. Cornelius (here played by David Watson) is more the individual that does not want their relatively comfortably life disturbed after having stuck their neck out previously.

Caught in this is new character Brent (James Franciscus) who wants no part of any of it but is stuck in the middle because all sides are barreling towards a confrontation which none will survive. The more you talk about it the more allegorical this movie gets. It is much more overt in everything it does than Planet of the Apes was but no less substantive.

The underground humans encountered worship a nuclear weapon as a god. There’s talk of weapons as keepers of peace and very harmful tactics used to keep peace as well. Very contradictory language that is used by politicians to this day. Not that there is not contradictory portable language used today.

The intelligent humans view their conflict with the apes as almost a holy war and often use religiously tinged language when talking about it. They worship their single nuclear weapon as the ultimate guarantee of peace as well as something they cannot give up.

I assume that the various factions as we get broader are stand ins for the nations of the Cold War/Vietnam Era, but I am a bit lost on who fits where though that is ultimately unimportant to the messages being delivered.

The film itself has a sense of barreling uncontrolled. Events are quickly spiraling out of hand and the moment for cooler heads to prevail passes quickly. It reaches a point when no matter what neither side can back down. You are pulled into a volatile series of events that move like a train without brakes.

Chuck Heston appears again as Taylor and neatly the bookends the store with James Franciscus doing his best Chuck Heston impersonation. They look and sound so much alike that when the characters finally do meet you have a tough time telling them apart.

One thing that bothered me is in the first one it was clear that the reason they were in the future was that Taylor and pals were in stasis and had traveled a great distance. Here they add in the hint of time travel. More importantly Taylor and his crew were not lost but travelling to a specific destination. They clearly went off course having returned to their starting point. Why send a rescue ship for a distant vessel unless the ship went off course shortly after launch? I am going deep down this rabbit hole. Am I missing something or in an era where rewatching a movie at will was not possible changing plot elements as needed for sequels was done?

I can’t find too much wrong with this movie. There’s substance to the story and it is solidly directed. The special effects used are minimal but hold up very well. It had something to say but Beneath can also be enjoyed as a weird science-fiction adventure. It’s a distinct output of its times which has managed to last beyond that because of substance.

It’s not noticeable on lower definition, but certainly obvious on Blu-rays. Many of the background actors simply wore cheap rubber masks rather than had appliances put on their face. This is a sequel and budgets often get cut a little bit on sequels and that’s what they did here. Rubber masks are much cheaper and more timesaving than applying prosthetics-even the old-school ones used here. It’s a bit of unintended humor that’s only really noticeable courtesy of modern technology.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a fantastic follow-up to the original film. And more importantly, much like the original it has a little something to say and a little substance beneath the surface. If you liked the original, you will certainly love this. Highly recommended.