Planet of the Apes (1968) on Netflix
G19681h 52mActionAdventureDramaSci-Fi
Astronaut George Taylor crashes on a planet where apes rule and humans are mute primitives. Captured by gorillas, he is held in Ape City, where a chimpanzee scientist comes to his aid.
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Trailer
Plot summary
After a near-light-speed voyage, astronaut George Taylor and his crew crash into a lake on an unknown world, where the ship's chronometer reads the year 3978. A fourth astronaut, Stewart, is found dead in her pod. The survivors cross a desolate wasteland and reach an oasis whose people are mute and wear animal skins. Gorillas with weapons raid the cornfield where those humans gather food; Taylor takes a wound to the throat, Dodge dies, and Landon is seized. In Ape City, the chimpanzees Zira and Galen save Taylor's life, though his injury leaves him temporarily unable to speak. He shares a pen with a captive woman he names Nova and observes a talking ape society of gorilla enforcers, orangutan rulers and chimpanzee scientists. Taylor wants Zira and Cornelius to see that he is no primitive.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Planet of the Apes (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The closing beach scenes, shot on a stretch of California coast between Malibu and Oxnard beneath 130-foot cliffs, were so hard to reach that cast, crew, film equipment and even horses had to be lowered onto the beach by helicopter.
- Previously blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson rewrote Rod Serling's script, and on director Franklin J. Schaffner's suggestion the ape society was made more primitive to cut costs. Serling's twist ending was kept and became one of the most famous movie endings of all time.
SPOILER
The shot of the half-buried Statue of Liberty was made by blending a matte painting with real cliffs, and the shot looking down at Taylor was done from a 70-foot scaffold angled over a half-scale papier-mache model of the statue.- Linda Harrison, then the girlfriend of studio chief Richard D. Zanuck, went on to be cast as Nova after producer Arthur P. Jacobs had first considered Ursula Andress, screen tested Angelique Pettyjohn and even weighed an international talent search for the part.
- To convince Fox the film could be made, the producers shot a test scene from a Rod Serling draft on March 8, 1966, with Charlton Heston as an early Taylor named Thomas, Edward G. Robinson as Zaius, and unknowns James Brolin and Linda Harrison as Cornelius and Zira.
- The actors were so affected by their ape roles and wardrobe that between takes they automatically separated into groups by the species they were playing. Lou Wagner said the makeup was especially heavy around the mouth and made it difficult to drink anything.
- Some scenes, including the judges imitating the "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil" monkeys, were improvised on the set by director Schaffner and kept in the final film because test-screening audiences reacted to them.
