Behind the Planet of the Apes Page #2

..and HoIIywood Iegend Edward G Robinson|as the orangutan Ieader, Dr Zaius.

Man here is an animal.

Man here was an animal.|He had no civilisation.

He wore no clothes, he thought|no thoughts, he spoke no language.

Just a few feet from this tent,|you found a cemetery.

Built and fiilled by a civilised race.

A race which, according to you, never got|beyond a crawl and a couple of grunts.

You found more than a cemetery, Doctor.|You found a question.

Which came fiirst? The chicken or the egg?|The ape or the man?

Dr Xaius? You'd better take a look at this.

We found it in some kind of artifiicial shaft.

Look cIoseIy and you might|recognise James BroIin...

..pIaying the chimpanzee CorneIius.

What do you think you've found,|Mr Cornelius?

Not found, Doctor. Lost.|And l'm afraid that would be a birthright.

Mama!

Mama!

They had a language.

While we swung from trees,...

..they had a language.

Well, you were right, Mr Thomas.|We have uncovered a question.

Now we must unearth an answer.

lf man had a civilisation here,|what happened to it?

You'd better go and supervise|the preparations for our departure.

(Roddy McDowall)|The makeup was the work of Ben Nye,...

..the head of Fox's makeup department.

AIthough primitive, it did the trick.

It proved that...

..the idea couId work. It wasn't IaughabIe.

(Roddy McDowall) After screening the test,|Zanuck gave Jacobs the green Iight...

..he had Iong been waiting for.

Planet of the Apes wouId, at Iast,|become a reaIity.

Planet of the Apes was scheduIed|to begin fiIming in the spring of 1967,...

..Ieaving the fiImmakers|with onIy seven months to prepare,...

..an uncomfortabIy short time|for such an ambitious production.

AIthough there was stiII some|dissatisfaction with the script,...

..everyone agreed that the biggest chaIIenge|was the ape makeup.

Ben Nye's test had been a good start,...

..but a makeup artist was needed|with experience in prosthetics,...

..Iightweight Iatex appIiances that couId be|mouIded and used for Iong periods of time.

A caII went out, and the man|who answered it was John Chambers.

Chambers was a former WorId War Two|medicaI technician...

..who had begun his career|working in a veterans' hospitaI,...

..designing prosthetic Iimbs and|faciaI restorations for injured soIdiers.

In the earIy 1950s, he moved to CaIifornia,...

..beIieving his unique skiIIs|wouId prove a vaIuabIe asset...

..to the newIy emerging teIevision industry.

His skiII with prosthetics soon put him|at the top of his profession.

Within a decade, he was deveIoping creature|makeups for shows Iike...

..The Munsters, The Outer Limits,...

..and Lost in Space.

He even designed Mr Spock's famous ears|for the Star Trek teIevision series.

Chambers was innovative, cIever and quick.

SkiIIs that wouId be put to the test...

..when he began working on|Planet of the Apes in January 1967.

The task was formidabIe.

Chambers had to design appIiances...

..that couId turn over 200 human beings|into waIking, taIking apes,...

..do it for under $1 miIIion...

..and make it happen|in Iess than four months.

When I saw the test fiIm,|I thought it was very good,...

..for what they had just tried offhand,...

..without any experimenting.

When you do peopIe Iike that,...

..you have to be very carefuI that|you don't make the audience Iaugh at you,...

..but Iaugh aIong with you.

(Roddy McDowall) With Fox's makeup Iab|at his disposaI, Chambers got down to work.

The first order of business|was to soIve the technicaI chaIIenges.

The makeup needed to suggest|reaIistic mouth movements.

The appIiances worked more|with the faciaI muscIes,...

..showing the animation through the...

..actor creating|the over-extensive smiIe or taIk.

(Roddy McDowall) Surrounding himseIf|with taIented artists and newcomers,...

..Chambers worked around the cIock.

And extras were hired just to sit in|for numerous makeup tests.

Arthur Jacobs caIIed me one day and he said|''We're not gettin' anywhere.''

''We gotta get goin'.''|He said ''See if you can heIp those guys.''

I said ''Anybody ever thought of...

..actuaIIy Iooking at an ape?''

He said ''Yeah. If you think you can|get us an ape, we'd Iove to see it.''

So I went back to Arthur|and I said ''They need an ape.''

He said ''Get 'em one.''

The next day I waIk into makeup with|a chimpanzee, and these guys went crazy!

(Roddy McDowall) Next, design choices were|made to differentiate various types of apes.

Chimps, who were sympathetic|to man in the story,...

..were made to Iook|a IittIe more human in appearance.

The goriIIas represented the ape miIitary...

..and were given faces much fiercer|than their reaI-Iife counterparts.

And the aristocratic orang-outangs|were given a more nobIe visage.

What Chambers was creating for|Planet of the Apes was not onIy ingenious,...

..it was breaking new ground.

The actors actuaIIy were abIe to express|emotion through those makeups.

It's kinda tough.|And John Chambers made it work.

WhiIe John Chambers Iaboured|on the makeup design,...

..Arthur Jacobs turned his attention|to the script.

Rod SerIing's screenpIay had remained|faithfuI to the originaI noveI,...

..and depicted|a technoIogicaIIy advanced society.

But the production team began to fear|that the apes were too evoIved.

Futuristic heIicopters and cars|wouId be too expensive to fiIm.

The earIy designs were|very high-tech civiIisation,...

..which meant you had to design aII kinds|of speciaI vehicIes and so on. And buiIdings.

And Frank said|''I don't have enough budget as it is.''

He said ''Why don't we say|it's a very primitive society...

..and they use horse and wagons|and very primitive buiIdings?''

And that's what we did.

(Roddy McDowall) After deciding on a more|rustic and cost-efficient ape society,...

..Jacobs contacted|screenwriter MichaeI WiIson.

WiIson was an Academy Award winner|who had earIier coIIaborated...

..on the screen adaptation of Pierre BouIIe's|The Bridge on the River Kwai.

(Mort Abrahams) Mike WiIson did a rewrite|which was very cIose to being right.

We were aIready deaIing|with a science fiction... centraI idea.

And I had Iearned, because I'd done|a Iot of science fiction things on teIevision,...

..that you cannot present too many...|science fiction ideas,...

..and have them work,|unIess you had characters.

BeIievabIe human...|or characters with human responses.

And we couIdn't contain aII the science|fiction that Pierre had envisioned.

And we had to simpIify it.

(Roddy McDowall) As it took shape,...

..production designer WiIIiam Creber began|designing the more primitive ape society.

I needed to come up with some|ape unearthIy architecture,...

..and so I Iooked at aII the books I couId find|of... you know, to be inspired.

And I found in Turkey there's|a trogIodyte city carved into a mountain.

And I Iiked the shapes and that was|a very strange pIace. And that was it.

It was Iike ''That's what we're gonna do.|I don't know how.''

But we had our meeting with the director|and Arthur and they said ''Yeah!''

Rate this script:2.0 / 1 vote