In the novel, the ape society is technologically comparable to the 1950s or 1960s, with cities, automobiles, televisions, etc., technology left over from the planet's human population. However, the budget could not accommodate the setting, so a more primitive depiction of ape society was used. In the original script, the female native humans were all bare breasted. This idea was quashed by Fox to appease censors. Of the original five 'Ape'
films, this was the only one to show the Fox logo before the film, and the only one that doesn't feature Natalie Trundy (who plays three different parts in the other four). One of the biggest stumbling blocks preventing 20th Century Fox from committing to the project was their fear over how the ape faces would appear on screen. Eventually they
stumped up $5,000 for a test scene to be shot with Charlton Heston playing alongside the made-up Edward G. Robinson as Dr. Zaius and
James Brolin as a character called Mr. Cornelius. The studio was very excited about the results of this test but still delayed green lighting the film for a further six months. It was only after
Fantastic Voyage became a hit and showed the viability of science fiction as a genre that "Planet of the Apes" was given the go-ahead, but without Robinson, as he suffered from a weak heart and didn't think he could endure the day-to-day rigors of performing in the ape make-up. One of the first films to have a major
large scale merchandising tie-in. Merchandise related to the film included toys and collectibles, action figures, picture and story books, trading card sets, books, records, comics and a series of graphic novels from Marvel Comics. Producer Arthur P. Jacobs enlisted several journalists to play background apes. This was a clever way of
ensuring that they would write about the film. Shortly after the astronauts have crash landed Taylor is asked where he thinks they are, having no idea he sarcastically responds, "We're some 320 light years from Earth on an unnamed planet in orbit around a star in the constellation of Orion." In the original novel the story takes place on a planet in orbit around the star Betelgeuse, which is in the constellation of Orion. Some viewers claim that the windows of the
Icarus, when viewed from inside at the beginning, resemble the eyes of the Statue of Liberty. The "See No Evil Hear No Evil" gag was entirely ad libbed on the set of the day of shooting. It was kept in because people found it amusing when the film was threatening to get too serious. The apes don't make their first appearance until 30 minutes into the film. The apes' village is modeled on the work of legendary Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi and the
Göreme Valley in Cappadocia, Turkey. The filming location of the classic final scene has been erroneously thought to be Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, but is in fact Malibu, California. For die-hard fans who want to visit the true location, it is a secluded cove on the far eastern end of Westward Beach, between Zuma Beach and Point Dume. Ignore the wide curving beach by the car park and clamber over the rocks to the east until you get to the quiet, often deserted, little beach
surrounded by cliffs. (The Statue of Liberty was an optical effect skillfully achieved with a matte painting blended into a still existing rock structure.) The final scene with Taylor coming across the Statue of Liberty was suggested by Rod Serling. According to rumor,
Pierre Boulle was greatly upset by this ending, but later warmed to it, preferring this new ending over the very different ending he had written. The skeletal remains of the torch appear as "set decoration" in the final episode
ofJunkyard of Space. The fourth astronaut Stewart was originally written as a man. The make-up team consisted of over 80 make-up artists. The movie's line "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape." was voted as the #66 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100). The rifles used by the apes are remodeled American M1 Semi-automatic Carbines, primarily used during the Second World War. The sound effect of the rocket ship hurtling through the atmosphere of the ape planet and then landing in the lake is the exact same sound effect used for the Batmobile in motion from the TV show "Batman" also produced by 20th Century Fox. The spaceship is inscribed with the acronym ANSA rather than NASA. The meaning of this in-joke is
uncertain. The ship itself has been named by fans as the USS Icarus, after Greek mythology's ill-fated flight pioneer.
Geek Dave gets his stinking paws on 10 things you might not know about the original 1968 Planet of the Apes.  1. The original 1968 movie Planet of the Apes is based on the 1963 satirical novel 'La Planète des singes' by Pierre Boulle. The screen rights were obtained by producer Arthur Jacobs who hired The Twilight Zone's Rod Serling to write the screenplay. Serling introduced cold war and nuclear war themes, and came up with the concept of the famous final Statue of Liberty scene. However, Boulle didn't like the new proposed ending, in his novel the Taylor character (called Ulysse) leaves the planet with Nova and their child, flies back to Earth and discovers it being ruled by apes (an ending which many complained about when Tim Burton incorporated it into his 2001 version). Boulle had been given certain reassurances of script approval, but when the movie was pitched to Charlton Heston, he loved Serling's new ending. And that sealed it. 2. Having a big name like Charlton Heston on board would surely mean Hollywood movie studios would be all over Planet of the Apes, right? Well, notsomuch. The movie was repeatedly pitched to all the major studios, but no-one was interested in making it. Finally, in March 1966, the then head of 20th Century Fox, Richard Zanuck, agreed to finance a make-up test to see if talking apes could be taken seriously, which seemed to be the main concern for many of the studios. The test was filmed with Heston (whose charater was named Thomas at this time, not Taylor), Edward G. Robinson as Dr. Zaius, James Brolin as Cornelius and Linda Harrison as Zira. You, Zira... The former Miss Maryland, Linda Harrison was romatically linked to Zanuck at the time, and it was he who bought her in for the make-up test. However she had to later audition for director Franklin J Schaffner to get the part of Nova. Though the make-up test was considered successful, 20th Century Fox didn't initially green light the project, until the movie Fantastic Voyage was released and became a huge success. Jacobs petitioned real hard, with the argument that science fiction was the big thing right now and they needed to move on this project quickly. And they did. 3. However, Serling's script was quickly deemed too expensive to film, so Michael Wilson (It's a Wonderful Life, The Bridge on the River Kwai) was brought in to perform a rewrite. If you watch the make-up test above you'll see that it depicts/hints at a more modern ape civilization, which was the cause of the inflated budget. Wilson's finished screenplay would eventually represent a more rudimentary ape society. The new screenwriter Michael Wilson had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era and so during that time he wrote scripts under the pen name of John Michael. Fifteen years earlier he'd provided the screenplay for another Pierre Boulle novel to film adaptation; The Bridge on the River Kwai. That movie was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Boulle received the award because of Wilson's then-blacklisting. It wasn't until after Wilson's death that he was posthumously awarded the Oscar in 1984. 4. One thing that wasn't in any of the scripts, but rather came from the star himself, was the idea for the crew to have beards. Charlton Heston surmised that hair would continue to grow while a person was in suspended animation. And who's to say he's not wrong? 5. As seen in the film, none of Taylor's fellow astronauts survived the movie. In real life Jeff Burton (Dodge) was a Los Angeles probation officer who'd acted in several television shows. Robert Gunner (Landon) only appeared in a handful of films and television shows, and Planet of the Apes proved to be his last film. The third astronaut, Stewart, was written as a male character but was actually portrayed on screen by Dianne Stanley, an elderly woman made up to look dead. 6. When Planet of the Apes was released in 1968, many reviewers lauded the parables and philosophical undertones within the movie, but for the public it was the amazing ape prosthetics that really helped to make the film so popular. But those prosthetics didn't come cheap! Planet of the Apes still holds the world record for the highest percentage of budget spent on make-up for any motion picture. 17% of the total budget went into the ape prosthetics, which in 1967 (at the time of production) cost £345,542. In 2021 that's just short of £3 million. Money well spent, methinks. 7. Just as Charlton Heston had come-up with the idea of the beards on the astronauts, another cast member added an important final aspect of the finished movie for the apes. The great Roddy McDowall, who played Cornelius here, Caesar in the sequels and Galen in the eventual spin-off television series, recommended to his fellow ape actors that they should frequently add tics, blinks and assorted facial gestures to add a sense of realism and keep the makeup from appearing "mask-like". McDowall reportedly loved being in character so much during the early part of the shoot that he would leave the ape make-up on and drive home, starring out his car window to shock the other drivers on the freeway. 8. Not everyone was so keen on the expensive facial prosthetic though. Kim Hunter (Zira) reportedly found it so claustrophobic that she resorted to taken a Valium each morning before the make-up was applied. 9. Hunter's claustrophobia was hardly surprising as all of the Ape actors and extras were required to wear their masks during breaks and in between shots because it took so much time to make them up. Because of this, meals were liquefied and drunk through straws. Something quite strange began to happen during those breaks - the actors made up as different ape species tended to hang out together, gorillas with gorillas, orangutans with orangutans, chimps with chimps. It wasn't required, the cast just slowly segregated themselves. 10. Taking $26million on initial release in the US alone (over $33 million with US re-release, adjusted for inflation equaling $258 million in 2021) and spawning one hell of a legacy - 4 sequels, a TV show, an animated series, comic books and 2 remakes - it was that final scene which left such a lasting impression on audiences, sealing a thirst for a return to the Ape world (which came in 1970 with Beneath the Planet of the Apes). The remains of the Statue of Liberty were shot in a secluded cove on the far eastern end of Westward Beach, between Zuma Beach and Point Dume in Malibu. As noted in the documentary Behind the Planet of the Apes, the special effect shot of the half-buried statue was achieved by seamlessly blending a matte painting with existing cliffs. However, if you're feeling a little cheated that the filmmakers didn't actually bury the real Statue of Liberty (!) then take comfort that an actual prop was indeed built, albeit a smaller plywood/styrofoam/papier-mache one, and was utilised for the shot looking down at Taylor through the crown of Lady Liberty. For filming, the prop was hoisted on top of scaffolding erected at the same Malibu beach, which you can see being installed in the image below... Over the years, the maniacs didn't actually blow it up but the prop did need some serious restoring. Eventually, in 2007, returned to it's original glory, the Planet of the Apes Statue of Liberty head went to auction with a guide price of approx $40,000... Imagine the fun you could have with that half-buried in a sandpit out in the garden? 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Where was the Statue of Liberty scene in Planet of the Apes filmed?
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