Posted By Dan Greenfield on May 26, 2025 | 8 comments

The first Planet of the Apes sequel debuted May 26, 1970…

By WALT GROGAN

I love the original Planet of the Apes film series. All five of them! And the second movie in the series, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (referred to as Beneath for the reminder of this article), turns 55!

Directed by Ted Post, and written by Paul Dehn from a story by Dehn and Mort Abrahams, the movie was released May 26, 1970. Beneath was the follow-up to the incredibly successful first installment of what became an incredibly successful series. And while I used to consider it the weakest of the five due to its length, barest thread of a plot, and underdeveloped themes, it has really grown on me over the years. That’s because those underdeveloped themes still resonate today. And that’s what science fiction is supposed to do!

While there’s a lot to love in all five installments, the watcher does have to employ quite a bit of suspension of disbelief — something I knew even when I watched it as a 10-year-old in 1970.

So without further ado, here are 13 WACKY AND WONDERFUL THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES! Note that every point is a spoiler for this 55-year-old movie, so proceed at your own risk!

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1. ANSA astronaut John Brent, played by veteran TV series actor James Franciscus, is sent on a rescue mission to retrieve Charlton Heston’s Taylor (the lead in the previous movie) and the rest of the original crew. What’s crazy about this is that Brent ends up on the same planet and within weeks of Taylor’s ill-fated landing in the year 3955. Talk about the Hasslein Curve providing good luck! He very quickly meets up with Linda Hamilton’s Nova, Taylor’s mute human companion from the prior film, and with very little communication, they are off on their quest to find the missing astronaut.

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2. And then there’s James Gregory as gorilla General Ursus. Orson Welles was approached for the role but didn’t want to wear a mask, so the role went to Gregory. I have a confession, when I was a kid, I never liked Gregory’s acting because I thought it wasn’t very subtle. But over the years, I’ve come to really love his delivery for precisely that lack! Gregory is bombastic and over-the-top as Ursus and he’s absolutely a joy to watch.

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3. Ursus wants to take over the what-had-been-presumably-uninhabited Forbidden Zone to expand the reach of Ape City and provide food and security for the inhabitants of his community. His motive is transparent, however, and it’s clear that the welfare of his fellow apes is secondary to his quest for power.

He pleads his case in front of a gathering of the citizenry and here’s the crazy bit: Many of the background apes have hollow, lifeless eyes! That’s due to the film’s low budget — pull-over-the-head, rubber ape masks were created for the extras but it gives them a very surreal look in the film, especially when compared to the actors who received full make-up.

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4. Brent makes his way to Cornelius and Zira’s home under the guidance of Nova, and Zira uses her veterinary skill to patch up Brent’s bullet-grazed arm. Sadly, both Cornelius and Zira (Kim Hunter), characters from the first film, have very small roles and due to a scheduling conflict, actor Roddy McDowall could not reprise his role as Cornelius. Actor David Watson does a good job filling McDowall’s shoes.

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5. Just as the gorillas take their leave on their mission of conquest, they run into a group of pacifist chimpanzees protesting the gorillas’ actions. While the gorillas initially want to beat the chimpanzees, they opt to jail them instead. Not a very subtle commentary on the anti-Vietnam war protests of the time.

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6. Meanwhile, Brent and Nova are discovered and tracked by a band of Ursus’ gorilla army but end up finding a cave that leads them into an underground passage. This passage turns out to be part of Manhattan’s subway system! My only gripe here is that as Brent and Nova make their way through the devastated area, the matte paintings are not very convincing, although some fare better. That said, the sets are very good.

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7. I was excited to see a young Gregory Sierra, in his first film role, as the initial mutant Brent and Nova encounter as they travel farther into the subterranean streets of Manhattan and ultimately into the remains of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

These beings have developed telepathic powers that allow them to both project and read thoughts, as well as control lesser humans.

Sierra became a well-known character actor, appearing in many TV shows and movies including Barney Miller, Soap, and a very brief turn in the early episodes of Miami Vice. Yet, after the first meeting in the church, Sierra was not seen again.

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8. But then Victor Buono hits the screen and what self-respecting Batman ’66 fan wouldn’t love seeing the actor who played King Tut? His appearances were also too brief.

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9. Now captured, Brent and Nova are dressed and taken to the mutants’ church service and it is simply amazing! Screenwriter Paul Dehn riffs a Catholic mass in its intonation and prayers but what are these mutants praying to?

I want to check out Dehn’s book of poems, Quake, Quake, Quake, with illustrations by Edward Gorey!

10. The mutants’ object of worship is revealed to be a doomsday bomb with the Alpha and Omega letters, conveniently, painted on. Dehn’s screenplay suggest that cults can spring up around anything and how easy it is for even the seemingly intelligent mutants to fall under that spell.

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11. The big shock of this movie is when the mutants reveal that their faces are actually masks and that they are disfigured from radiation. While a stunner, this beat raises so many questions! If humans nuked the planet sometime after 1991, that’s still over 1,000 years to the timeline of this movie. Why have they created masks to cover their faces? How do they choose the look of their masks? And with all of that radiation coursing through them, how are they living to at least their 30s and 40s and reproducing? The wonders of evolution, I guess!

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12. After discovering the mutant church, murdering all of the mutants, as well as astronaut Brent, General Ursus almost accidentally commits genocide by setting off the bomb. BUT Charlton Heston’s Taylor, in his dying act, actually does so — seemingly on purpose. Sure, Charlton Heston wanted his character to die, but taking out the planet? It’s a madhouse!

From the Blu-ray commentary of the movie, it’s said that when 20th Century Fox president Dick Zanuck was fired, he said just blow up the Planet of the Apes and that’s what happened!

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13. And the credits are nuts! David Watson gets demoted to sixth from the end because he’s not Roddy McDowall. Which Gorilla Sgt. is Eldon Burke? And poor mutants Victor Buono (“Fat Man”) and Don Pedro Colley (“Negro”) are the only two who aren’t even given character names!

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All in all, this too brief and underdeveloped movie had a lot to offer and a lot of promise. Unfortunately, the film’s budget was cut in half. Had it remained, and had the movie been granted a longer running time to explore the themes of Ursus’ expansion desire and how the mutants developed their worship, this movie could have been a lot better. Yet, it did really well at the box office, which guaranteed another sequel.

But how could it — after the destruction of the Planet of the Apes?!?

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MORE

— REEL RETRO CINEMA: BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES: Still Bizarre — and Fun — After All These Years. Click here.

— LOVE AFFAIR on the PLANET OF THE APES. Click here.

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A 10-year-old Walt Grogan fell in love with the original Captain Marvel thanks to essays written by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson in the paperback edition of All in Color for a Dime, released in 1970 and bought for him by his father off a paperback spinner rack in a liquor store on the South Side of Chicago. Walt runs The Marvel Family Web Facebook page devoted to all incarnations of the Fawcett/DC Captain Marvel and blogs about Captain Marvel at shazamshistorama.com.