Le Secret de la planète des singes

"Beneath" is a film that epitomizes the best and worst that a sequel to a masterpiece, as "Planet Of The Apes" was, could be. For me, it is the most watchable of the sequels only because it's the only one that stays in the familiar territory established by the first film. But oh that ending....

I really can not understand why the heck Richard Zanuck allowed Charlton Heston to talk him into going with that downer ending that has already been referred to by others. The only reason why Heston pushed it wasn't because it made for good cinema but because he wanted to singlehandedly see to it that he never have to do another Apes sequel again. It's a pity that Heston never realized that the best sequel story one could have explored was what happened to Taylor and Nova afterwards, and could have made for some equally compelling drama as the first film did. To me, the main appeal of the first film wasn't the Ape society, it was the character of Taylor and his fascinating odyssey from misanthrope to defender of the species, only to see his earlier feelings borne out in the shock ending. The question that should have been addressed next in a sequel was, what would Taylor do now that he realized he was on Earth? What other things were there to discover on the planet? (Heck, you could have easily made a sequel movie without the apes returning, as far as I'm concerned!) Alas, because of the plot device imposed by this film (and Heston's inability to realize what a good thing he might have had going for himself), the rest of the series had to veer off into what was for me, a more uninteresting story line focusing on the Apes and their inevitable rise to power.

Plot holes and depressing ending notwithstanding, "Beneath" is still worth watching to see the traces of what could have been a great film that are there. The mutant storyline and their dwellings underneath the remains of New York still has an irresistible viewing quality to it. I do not recommend watching it in tandem with its magnificent predecessor though, because that's only going to make you more angry about the ending of this film.

Quite a far way off its predecessor, even if 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' is still a good film.

Charlton Heston reportedly wasn't initially interested in returning for a sequel, though, to his credit, did in the end return briefly to tie up his character's loose end - and apparently even gave his fee to charity. That's why we don't see much of him here, which is a shame but given the aforementioned it came out well enough.

James Franciscus takes over from Heston and does a fine job, the latter is definitely the better of the two but Franciscus is passable. Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans and Linda Harrison do return, though the first two basically play second fiddle to others - including newcomer James Gregory's bunch of characters; Gregory is solid, fwiw. As for the film's other parts, make-up etc., it's basically the same as the original. The plot even feels similar for a fair chunk of this production, though it eventually goes its own way.

I'm even more interested to check out the subsequent sequels, given the ending to this 1970 film was apparently intended - by those on the ground, so to speak - to be the final entry; the studio evidently wasn't in agreement.

It took two years for the sequel to Planet Of The Apes to get to the big screen, henceforth 20th Century Fox would space them out about a year at a time. Beneath The Planet Of The Apes seems to have been inspired a lot by Dr. Strangelove played far less tongue in cheek by the cast.

Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison, and Charlton Heston return for this first sequel. And James Franciscus is the only survivor of a rescue ship sent after Heston and his crew. Of course he finds the same simian civilization that Heston found and with the same problems and friends among the apes.

Franciscus goes into the forbidden zone that Heston entered, but now the apes have a military chieftain who wants to enter and conquer the previous forbidden zone. He's played by a thuggish James Gregory.

Maurice Evans is the scientist who has a vested interest in keeping the ape orthodox traditions inviolate. He doesn't want to go into the forbidden zone where Heston and Franciscus have gone, but the force of public opinion is working against him. He tags along with Gregory's military expedition to watch out for their culture.

Of course there are humans there and of a higher order than the simple creatures who were thought to be below the simian on this planet. What happens when they encounter those humans is for you to see the film for.

No doubt the force of public opinion influenced 20th Century Fox to make this sequel. Today's sequels to popular films are the result of certain teaser questions put into the plots of the originals. That was not done back then clearly because of some rather clumsy writing in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes. And certainly the ending here did not anticipate yet another sequel.

Despite that though a lot of good social commentary about the world and America got into this film, maybe even more than in the original Planet Of The Apes. Nobody could mistake the protests of the young chimpanzees to the military expedition for anything else, but criticizing the war in Vietnam and Nixon's incursion into China.

As in the first film my favorite is foxy Maurice Evans, protector of the orthodox ape religion and culture. Fans of the series will be pleased with him and the film.

James Franciscus gets top billing on this sequel, but producer Arthur Jacobs fortunately entrusted this (and the instalment that came after) to the sophisticated imagination of writer Paul Dehn, who nearly twenty years earlier had already shared an Oscar for his previous nuclear nightmare 'Seven Days to Noon'; and also wisely brought in Leonard Rosenman to write the new score.

'All Things Bright and Beautiful' will never be the same again once you've heard it chanted by the telepathic, cave-dwelling, bomb-worshiping mutants ("Glory to the Bomb and the holy fallout") who bear an eerie similarity to the ghouls Charlton Heston soon afterwards had to deal with in 'The Omega Man'.

Direction is by Ted Post, who also a good job on the underrated Harry Callahan dystopia 'Magnum Force'; while Linda Harrison once again resembles Raquel Welch's chic sixties cave girl in 'One Million Years BC'.

This first sequel to the '68 science fiction hit has all the markings of something rushed into production. There was no time to craft a story which explores the truly interesting possibilities of astronaut Taylor's continuing odyssey on a future world turned upside down. The story could have and should have concentrated on the evolving struggle between the ruling class of apes and the backward humans. Instead, the filmmakers created a new threat for this film, a secret society of human mutants living underground. They show up in the 2nd half of this feature and, in prolonged scenes, show off their telepathic powers in torturing the heroes. The heroes, in this case, are another astronaut (Franciscus) who followed Taylor's trajectory to this other planet and Taylor himself (Heston, reprising his role briefly). Wow, what an original concept - another astronaut, who, in an accelerated version of the first film's events, also finds Ape City, encounters two sympathetic chimps, gets captured and escapes. Are we watching some kind of a repeat?

The quick pace of this picture is probably its best aspect; this stresses action. However, the pace is so fast that some crucial points in geography are sacrificed: getting to the Forbidden Zone from Ape City is just a short walk in a tunnel for some, while others have to trudge for days overhead. In a slight nod to the satirical aspects of the original film, we do get to see religion being mocked (the original satirized the social & political anchors of a community). But, it's not a very subtle jab. The mutants profess to be more intelligent than either the heroes or the apes, which they seem to prove with their advanced mind powers, but they spend most of their time worshiping a nuclear bomb, chanting silly songs - they really picked a strange form of idolatry, but maybe they're simply crazed. This movie throws together a lot of science fiction concepts but the resulting brew is rather bland. It's a decent action piece, not much more.

Franciscus shows he is no Heston; he overacts in most of his scenes, as if he had no clue on how to depict a man realizing where he's actually landed, but then again, he wasn't the skipper on this 2nd ship (the lead officer dies soon after they crash-land); we're not watching a leader but a follower try to carry the picture. I was struck by how Heston towered over him in their brutal fight scene. McDowall is also missing; his role of Cornelius is played by actor Watson. Evans & Gregory are pretty good as the ape leaders but whoever stuck them in ape suits for the sauna scene should have thought about it a few more minutes. This movie ends everything on a grotesquely conclusive note, but they managed to find a way to continue the story in "Escape From the Planet of the Apes."