I've always had mixed feelings about ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES. As a kid forty-five years ago, I saw all five original films on television and I loved them all. ESCAPE I enjoyed because I had a huge little boy crush on Kim Hunter, and I thought Dr. Zira was so brave, funny, and even sexy. On the other hand, this is the one movie in the series with no battle scenes, no gorillas on horseback, and no epic excitement or adventure. So on that level I'm sorry to say this was my least favorite Apes film . . . Forty five years ago.
So the other day I got all five films on Blu Ray for about 15 dollars. And when I watched ESCAPE as a 55 year old I was very impressed. It's not really a kid's adventure film, or even a science fiction spectacle. This movie is a tragedy, in the most profound sense of the word. In spirit it's much closer to CHINATOWN than the original PLANET OF THE APES.
Everyone remembers Zira and Cornelius as a cute, fun couple. That's how I remembered them too. But when you actually watch the film you see that they are really tragic heroes. When they flee the hospital with their baby there are Biblical overtones. (The President actually compares himself to Herod!) But what's still more disturbing is the way Zira herself owns up to the savage things that went on in her own laboratory in the future world. Her self-knowledge is a grim component of her eventual tragic fate. Her insistence on truth only makes her more admirable after she reveals some truly terrible secrets.
It's a waste of time to point out that Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowell both give career best performances as Zira and Cornelius. But what astonished me after forty-five years was the incredible intensity of Eric Braeden as Dr. Otto Hasslein. (He was just as spectacular as the doomed werewolf in a classic episode of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER.) Dr. Hasslein is clearly meant to remind us of Nazi scientists and doctors who did unspeakable things in World War II. But at the same time he's like the tormented Christian heroes in THE OMEN movies, searching for the Anti Christ before the earth runs out of time. Each chilling thing he does is made more chilling by the fact that he's sincere in trying to stop what he thinks of as real evil. On the other hand, William Windom is surprisingly affable and humane as the President of the United States. STAR TREK fans will remember his epic meltdown in "The Doomsday Machine," but here he plays the voice of reason, a decent man who refuses to become hysterical in the face of mankind's doom.
Superb script, intense, haunting drama, beautiful tragic characters . . . All that's missing is the action, excitement, and gorillas on horseback!
So the other day I got all five films on Blu Ray for about 15 dollars. And when I watched ESCAPE as a 55 year old I was very impressed. It's not really a kid's adventure film, or even a science fiction spectacle. This movie is a tragedy, in the most profound sense of the word. In spirit it's much closer to CHINATOWN than the original PLANET OF THE APES.
Everyone remembers Zira and Cornelius as a cute, fun couple. That's how I remembered them too. But when you actually watch the film you see that they are really tragic heroes. When they flee the hospital with their baby there are Biblical overtones. (The President actually compares himself to Herod!) But what's still more disturbing is the way Zira herself owns up to the savage things that went on in her own laboratory in the future world. Her self-knowledge is a grim component of her eventual tragic fate. Her insistence on truth only makes her more admirable after she reveals some truly terrible secrets.
It's a waste of time to point out that Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowell both give career best performances as Zira and Cornelius. But what astonished me after forty-five years was the incredible intensity of Eric Braeden as Dr. Otto Hasslein. (He was just as spectacular as the doomed werewolf in a classic episode of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER.) Dr. Hasslein is clearly meant to remind us of Nazi scientists and doctors who did unspeakable things in World War II. But at the same time he's like the tormented Christian heroes in THE OMEN movies, searching for the Anti Christ before the earth runs out of time. Each chilling thing he does is made more chilling by the fact that he's sincere in trying to stop what he thinks of as real evil. On the other hand, William Windom is surprisingly affable and humane as the President of the United States. STAR TREK fans will remember his epic meltdown in "The Doomsday Machine," but here he plays the voice of reason, a decent man who refuses to become hysterical in the face of mankind's doom.
Superb script, intense, haunting drama, beautiful tragic characters . . . All that's missing is the action, excitement, and gorillas on horseback!