Go Ape: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: Director’s Cut

As an addendum to my heavily-hit post on CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT, here’s a section from my analysis:

This is my favorite film in the series, with a sleek unique 70’s sci-fi atmosphere and a stalwart cast. Along with Ricardo Montalban as the sympathetic human protecting the only talking ape, Roddy McDowall gets the chance to shine as we see him go from docile ape to raging guerilla. It’s a cool, subtle, pantomimic performance and his transformation from Cornelius into Caesar by the film’s violent climax is wholly realized. His fiery speech to the mobilized primate army is a career high point for McDowall. That and the verbal duet between him and an empathetic government aide (well played by Hari Rhodes) are also delicious. No surprise since the script was penned by Paul Dehn, who contributed much of the wit to the Bond series. The awesome Severn Darden is a cruel joy as the chief bureaucratic torturer, although the scenes of him shocking the monkeys are still disturbing.

In fact, the original cut of the film was far too bloody and frightening for preview audiences and the rating board, so nine minutes were removed and the dark ending altered to make it appear Ceasar spares the life of the film’s villain, Governor Breck (Don Murray in a juicy performance and a great turtleneck).

After finally seeing all that excised, altered footage on Blu-ray, I’m even more impressed with the film and still consider it my favorite. Director J. Lee Thompson does an excellent job balancing the scale and tension of the primate takeover, using only the sterile ghostly lit backdrop of Century City (and Robert Surtees crisp cinematography is terrific). The reinstated violence is bloody and disturbing, with many close-ups of apes and humans being shot in the face. The most hardcore moment has the revolting apes stacking the crimson police bodies like cordword — and then beating the corpses with gun butts.

Of course, we finally get to see what happens to Don Murray, and McDowall’s final speech is complete and prophetically apocalyptic. I’ll say it again: this is one of his finest performances. I do rather miss the “no” spoken by the female ape edited into the original cut to make it appear as if Caeser succumbs to integration and compassion, but this fiery climax is the most apropos, leaving an even more very 1970’s feeling of ominous future shock.

Che!

I think Steven Soderbergh is one of our great filmmakers, and he’s always interested in pushing esthetic boundaries. I met him at the Austin premiere party for THE LIMEY in 1999 and he was wry, funny and truly unpretentious. When I interviewed him for “Creative Screenwriting” for TRAFFIC (2000), he was even more so (if I can figure out to post audio here, I’ll put up the whole interview). Naturally I’m dying to see his two part epic, CHE, which will be playing in select cities via the Roadshows (with intermission) of the 1960’s. I trust Soderbergh’s objective style will suit such a controversial, contradictory subject, and this much Benicio Del Toro is a bonus. Viva La Cine!