BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES

James Franciscus

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970). Director: Ted Post. 

An astronaut named Brent (James Franciscus) is sent on a rescue mission to find Taylor (Charlton Heston) from Planet of the Apes, and conveniently pops into Earth's future at just about the point that that film ended. Taylor had gone deeper into the "Forbidden Zone" to find out what else is there, while Nova (Linda Harrison) wanders back to "civilization" and meets up with Brent. The two eventually encounter the friendly chimps Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (David Watson). Maurice Evans is back as the human-hating Dr. Zaius. 

Maurice Evans as Dr. Zaius

However, the main story of the picture has to do with the gorillas, under the orders of General Ursus (a hammy Paul Gregory), deciding to invade the Forbidden Zone and declare war on whatever inhabitants are inside there. These turn out to be disfigured human mutants with telepathic powers who worship an atomic bomb. And things get even sillier after that until a big blow up at the end that should be horrifying but is almost comical.

Brent explores the NYC subway 2000 years later

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is schlock science fiction at its worst, "borrowing" from everything from "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benet to Jungle Jim (with natives worshiping a bomb) to The Time Machine to all those mutant-in-the-future movies of the fifties and sixties such as World Without End (an in-joke, perhaps, has the mutants singing a hymn of that title). Their main HQ is Grand Central Terminal in New York. 

There are some good things in this otherwise tedious and terrible movie. At one point a mutant forces Brent and Taylor to fight to the death in a jail cell and this is a lively, well-choreographed sequence, perhaps the only real moment of excitement in the picture. Although a matte painting of a shattered Manhattan is pretty poor, there are some good underground sets of the subways and sunken buildings. None of this is original, of course. The acting is okay, but the only humanistic touch is when the skipper of Franciscus' spaceship, who dies shortly afterward, thinks about the fact that his wife, children and everyone he knows are long dead; Skipper is very well-played by Tod Andrews. Despite the movie being a stinker, it made enough money (because of the massive popularity of Planet of the Apes) to engender several more sequels. 

Verdict:  Ape crap. *1/2.