Planet of the Apes (1968)

Credit: 20th Century Fox

While growing up, my favorite movies were the Indiana Jones series, Back to the Future, and The Goonies. However this movie impacted me in a different way because I learned about something called "letter box". The Encore channel was going to air a Planet of the Apes movie marathon, with a letter box presentation of the films. I wasn't aware what that meant but the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen made the Planet of the Apes appear to be more than just a movie, it was epic. Now I know that's the way all movies are filmed, but the black bars were added to allow the whole movie to fit within the frame of the television screen.

I have to admit that as I watched the Planet of the Apes and it's sequels during that marathon, I actually liked the original less than those that followed. Approaching it as an adult, I now have a better understanding of the story and the efforts from the actors and the production crew. This could have easily been a silly movie featuring actors in ape suits yet they take their performances seriously. Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall co-star as a chimpanzee couple of scientists, Zira and Cornelius, who have studied mannerisms of the animals they are portraying and used them in their performance to act through the make-up using facial expressions. Charlton Heston gives a helluva performance as the hero ("Taylor") because he also must act using only facial expressions for the middle portion of the movie.

Heston's Taylor is an astronaut who has crash-landed on a strange planet that appears to be just an endless desert. Taylor and his crew finally encounter signs of life, a group of primitive humans, who are then hunted and captured by gorilla soldiers on horseback. I love how this whole sequence is filmed, as you hear a strange noise off in the distance first, then there is gunfire, before the unknown hunters are finally revealed. Heston's character takes a bullet to the throat, leaving him unable to speak, so he initially blends in with the others in captivity because they were never able to speak. The movie builds to the moment when Taylor finally speaks and it threatens the foundation of the ape society.

In addition to great acting, amazing make-up work, and it's script filled with wit as well as social commentary, there is an unseen force in this movie that deserves credit as well. The musical score by Jerry Goldsmith is bordering on frightening at times, yet it's also very minimal, as it ranges from unusual percussion to sounds that mimic animal noises. While the ending of the film is a shocker that has stuck with people decades later, the music is something that left an impression on me as I later noticed that the score from the TV program Lost mimicked the Apes score at times. I also grew up with a fondness for the unusual twists and far-out tales of the Twilight Zone program, so it was a nice surprise to learn that it shares a similarity with Planet of the Apes: Rod Serling. He was the creator of The Twilight Zone, a show that used science fiction to tell stories of social commentary, so it actually shouldn't be a surprise because that's exactly what this Planet of the Apes movie is about.