The reverse of the first film
After Taylor’s space vessel lands in the waters near the coast of SoCal, military officials are astonished to find it occupied by three apes in spacesuits (including Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter). While there are those who embrace the talking chimpanzees (Bradford Dillman, Natalie Trundy and Ricardo Montalban), there are also those who view them as a threat to humankind (Eric Braeden).
“Escape from the Planet of the Apes” (1971) keeps things interesting by switching the situation of the first two films in this original series. Although this takes away from the inherent mysteriousness of those previous flicks, it is entertaining to view the modern world through the eyes of Vira and Cornelius, not to mention be concerned about their persecution.
Some people overstate the comedic content, which mainly revolves around Vira, yet she has the same witty personality with a sense of humor of the prior flicks. In other words, it wasn’t overdone and was congruent to the series. The only difference is that, now, she’s the focus of the story, along with Cornelius.
Natalie Trundy was 30 during shooting and lovely. She appeared in all four sequels, albeit as three different characters. This can be attributed to her marriage to producer Arthur P. Jacobs, the person behind bringing the five “Apes” films to the public, including buying the rights to Pierre Boulle's novel Monkey Planet in 1963. Their marriage lasted through the entire run of the five movies, 1968-1973, and only ended because Arthur was “a heart attack waiting to happen” via his drinking, smoking and long hours. He died prematurely at the age of 51.
There are some boring parts, but it effectively continues the story. Each of the four sequels had a significantly lower budget than the previous film due to the struggles of 20th Century Fox at the time. The last one, “Battle for the Planet of the Apes,” had the least budget and therefore is the least impressive on a technical level, but I found the story and characters more interesting than this one despite the comic booky vibe. I rank the films as follows: “Planet,” “Beneath,” “Battle,” “Escape” and “Conquest.”
It runs 1 hours, 38 minutes, and was shot in Los Angeles & points nearby.
GRADE: B/B-
