Beneath the Planet of the Apes (James Franciscus, Kim Hunter)
I have no problem admitting that I enjoy the original Planet of the Apes. Setting aside the fact that the 1968 film spawned a bevy of sequels, it has been an influential and signficant entry into the sci-fi category. With a cast including Roddy McDowall, James Whitmore, Linda Harrison and Charlton Heston onboard, the screenplay came through as both a morality tale and an adventure story. I'd also seen last year's impressive -- but certainly different -- remake directed by Tim Burton. Until now, the various sequels were on my to-do list.
I began with the natural choice, 1970's Beneath the Planet the Apes, which picks up directly where the first installment leaves off. Taylor (Heston) has ridden off into the sunset with his beloved mute female companion Nova (Harrison). He discovers a harrowing secret about the origins of the apes and makes for the desert. Due to Heston being (understandably) hesitant to even appear in the sequel, the writers make Taylor's character vanish inside a mountain wall and he is then absent for a signficant portion of the film.
That's where James Franciscus comes in. He plays Brent, an astronaut who has crash landed on the planet and looks remarkably like Heston Taylor. Anyway, he comes across Nova who, in the hopes of finding the lost Taylor, leads him to some old acquaintances (Kim Hunter plays the ape Zira and David Watson is her whatchumacallit Cornelius). There is a really odd filler sequence where Brent and Nova escape, then are recaptured, then try to escape again. Add Zira and Cornelius trying to hide it all from Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), and you get a failed space episode of Three's Company.
For reasons not clearly explained, Brent comes across a group of mutant telepaths beneath the planet who wear masks to hide their facial deformities. There is a confrontation scene that is so clumsy that almost all of the dialogue is laughable. Everything culminates with a truly silly ending that will leave you puzzled as to how they ever managed to make so many sequels. Like Jason Voorhees or Freddie Krueger though, death and destruction cannot stop movie studios from trying to churn out more entries in a series. Even when the production values are this poor and the selfish motivations are so transparent.
Perhaps not much more needs to be said about Beneath the Planet of the Apes, because it was ultimately quite a forgettable experience. The film was directed by Ted Post, who is best known for having previously directed episodes of Columbo, Baretta, and Cagney and Lacey. Um. Yeah.
