“Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” – Astronaut George Taylor (played by Charlton Heston), to his ape captor, in Planet of the Apes (1968), screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, based on the novel by Pierre Boulle
(If I had just seen the line on the printed page, I might have thought it was the cry of thousands of females in the corporate and political jungle, fending off unwanted male advances. But no—it’s the first line in the sci-fi satire spoken by a human being to the apes. That line was voted the #66 movie quote of all time by the American Film Institute.
Believe it or not, except for one or two scenes caught on the fly on TV here or there, I had not seen this film until this week. It’s hard to believe it premiered 40 years ago this past spring. Amazingly—especially in its pitiless depiction of mankind’s self-destructive streak that threatens to reverse the evolutionary cycle—the film has not dated at all. And, if you’re like me, you had lots of fun trying to match the various actors’ voices with their ape faces. (The ape masks helped win the film an honorary Oscar for makeup achievement.) I might add that Heston’s silent scenes, when he tries unsuccessfully to communicate with his captors, made me appreciate more just how good he could be when given a real acting challenge. Why, oh why, did Tim Burton feel compelled to remake this classic?)
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