Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Director:

Don Taylor

Writers:

Paul Dehn (written by)
Pierre Boulle (characters creator)

Release Date:

21 May 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Meet baby Milo who has Washington terrified.

Plot:

The world is shocked by the appearance of two talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a U.S. spacecraft. They become the toast of society; but one man believes them to be a threat to the human race.

Plot Keywords:

Ape | Future | Spacecraft | Chimpanzee | Planet Of The Apes

Cast

Roddy McDowall	...	Cornelius
Kim Hunter	...	Zira
Bradford Dillman	...	Dr. Lewis Dixon
Natalie Trundy	...	Dr. Stephanie Branton
Eric Braeden	...	Dr. Otto Hasslein
William Windom	...	The President
Sal Mineo	...	Milo
Albert Salmi	...	E-1
Jason Evers	...	E-2
John Randolph	...	Chairman
Harry Lauter	...	General Winthrop
M. Emmet Walsh	...	Aide
Roy Glenn	...	Lawyer (as Roy E. Glenn, Sr.)
Peter Forster	...	Cardinal
Norman Burton	...	Army Officer

Also Known As:

Secret of the Planet of the Apes (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:PG (TV rating) | Brazil:Livre | Australia:M | Finland:K-11 (DVD rating) | Finland:K-12 (original rating) | Norway:12 (1972) | Sweden:11 | UK:PG (video rating: 1987) | UK:U (original rating) | USA:G | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Beverly Hills, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The film's villain, Dr. Hasslein, had been briefly mentioned at the beginnings of Planet of the Apes (1968) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970).

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In a close-up during the interrogation scene, Kim Hunter's own mouth and teeth are visible beneath the make-up of Zira's face.

Quotes:

Dr. Otto Hasslein: Negative, negative, negative!
E-1: Don't worry. We'll catch them, sooner or later.
Dr. Otto Hasslein: That's what I'm worried about. Later. Later we'll do something about pollution. Later we'll do something about the population explosion. Later we'll do something about the nuclear war. We think we've got all the time in the world, but how much time has the world got? Somebody has to begin to care.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Big Bang Theory: The Pancake Batter Anomaly (#1.11)" (2008)

Good sequel with a heart (yet people still don't get it)

MORD39 RATING: *** out of ****

This third APES film ingeniously manages to keep the franchise alive and produces what is arguably the second best film of the five originals.

After the ultimate ending in BENEATH, who could have believed a new story was possible? Here the tables are turned from the original film with a remarkable twist: now three of our chimpanzee characters take off in Charlton Heston's spaceship and wind up going BACK in time, to "present Day" Earth (1973 A.D.) Once it is learned that Zira (Kim Hunter in her best performance in the series) is pregnant with the child that could possibly turn our future into the PLANET OF THE APES, she and her husband Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) go from becoming honored celebrities to dangerous threats to humanity!

It's a brilliant idea, and now it is possible to start the series anew (chronologically, this movie comes first) and see whether or not Taylor's nightmare from the first film can be prevented or will rear its ugly head for mankind.

A little defending is in order here. Many people get hung up on the story's notion that the chimpanzees can actually manage to fix Taylor's ship from the first film and actually launch it. Well, I say that if you can suspend disbelief long enough to accept the idea of a society of talking apes, why can't you accept that one of them (Dr. Milo) is a super-intelligent ape, sort of the "Albert Einstein" or "Thomas Edison" of his time? Besides, when folks get stuck on a point like that it becomes impossible for them to have a good time with a film. As Cornelius said in the movie: "Dr. Milo was a genius well in advance of his time." He was able to fly the ship. Case Closed.

Next case: the "TV Movie" look of the film. SO WHAT? People have become so accustomed to garbage like 1999's THE MUMMY that unless all films are over-swamped with spectacular sets and numbing effects, they can't enjoy them. Well, ESCAPE needs none of these to tell its simple story. It's got something that sci-fi stories today have lost..."heart".