Link (1986) on Netflix
Jane Chase arrives at Dr. Steven Phillip's house to assist with his research on chimpanzees. An orangutan named Link, dressed as a butler, greets her at the door. Then Phillip disappears.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb5.9/104,475 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes44%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jane Chase, an American zoology student studying in England, is invited to Dr. Steven Phillip's house for the summer as his assistant. Phillip studies the mental capabilities of chimpanzees at his isolated estate. Two chimpanzees live there, Voodoo and her son Imp, along with a forty-five-year-old orangutan named Link, who acts as butler and greets Jane at the door in uniform. Phillip intends to have Link put down. One morning Phillip is gone, and Jane, believing he left for London, chooses to stay with the animals.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Link (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Link was written to be a chimpanzee, and a poster of his old circus days shows him as one, but the role went to Locke, an orangutan whose fur was dyed darker and who wore prosthetic ears to make him resemble a chimpanzee.
- Writer Everett de Roche showed Richard Franklin a National Geographic article by Jane Goodall about violence among chimpanzees; Franklin later said what sparked the idea of the film was Goodall observing "the cannibalizing of young chimpanzees by one particular mad female chimp."
- The role of Dr. Steven Phillip, the anthropologist eventually played by Terence Stamp, was devised for Richard Burton and then offered to Albert Finney, Anthony Perkins, Christopher Plummer and Anthony Hopkins, all of whom turned it down.
- Richard Franklin was asked to use make-up for the apes but chose real apes instead, resisting pressure "even at the last minute, to use men in suits, which I thought would be dishonest"; the film, he said, was no fantasy like Greystoke.
- When the film was released in the US by the Cannon Group, eight minutes were cut despite Richard Franklin's objections, and when EMI was taken over by the Cannon Group, five more minutes were cut out.
