Archives Of The Apes: Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (1972): 50th Anniversary

The awesome Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes was released fifty years ago today.

Cast

Roddy McDowall (Caesar)

Don Murray (Governer Breck)

Ricardo Montalbán (Armando)

Natalie Trundy (Lisa)

Severn Darden (Kolp)

Hari Rhodes (MacDonald)

Lou Wagner (Busboy)

John Randolph (Commission Chairman)

Asa Maynor (Mrs. Riley)

H.M. Wynant (Hoskyns)

David Chow (Aldo)

Buck Kartalian (Frank)

featuring:

Gordon Jump, John Dennis, Dick Spangler, Joyce Haber, Hector Soucy, James Bacon, Rayford Barnes, William Bassett, Erlynn Mary Botelho,
Maxine Botelho, Paul Comi, William Bryant, Jean Byron, Sam Chew Jr, Tony Dante, Francis De Sales, Peter Paul Eastman, Erin Fleming,
Bob Harks, Kathryn Janssen, Daniel Keough, Paul King, Monty O'Grady, Ron Pinkard, Hank Robinson, Victor Romito, Clark Ross
and Jeffrey Sayre.

A contemporary "review" from Variety:

The Planet of the Apes series takes an angry turn in the fourth entry, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

The story begins about 20 years in the future, after a world epidemic has destroyed all dogs. People first had turned to apes as pets, but because of their intelligence the apes have become servants under civil regulation of computer-age overseer Don Murray. Into this milieu comes traveling circus operator Ricardo Montalban who, at the end of the prior film, had concealed the nearly-human offspring of the murdered Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter. McDowall now has shifted to the role of his son.

In the new world, McDowall has to Uncle-Tom his way through the prevailing slave environment, until Murray’s inexorable search for the long-missing ape-human child leads to Montalban’s death under torture-grilling by Severn Darden. McDowall then organizes a bloody revolt which occupies the last third of the film.

and a New York Times review from Howard Thompson (June 30, 1972):

By all rights, the series squeezed from that grand sci-fi thriller, Planet of the Apes, should be shedding hair all over the place by now. Number Four, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, arrived yesterday. It's not bad, as apes and 20th Century-Fox go, at least hand in hand. There's the plot, with a talking chimpanzee befriended by a circus owner and finally leading a swarm of enslaved hairy-clad pals in revolt in a futuristic world of icy-veined humans. The series' writer, Paul Dehn, nimbly continues the story from the predecessor, weaving in just enough crisp philosophising on both sides to command attention. Furthermore, J. Lee Thompson's direction furiously propels the action in a compact chromium-and-glass setting — and wait till you see that last battle royal. Don Murray, Hari Rhodes and Ricardo Montalbán do well on the erring human side. But yesterday's audience at the New Embassy cheered the persevering apes and so did I. At 'em, boys! Can an ape look foxy? Roddy McDowall, who steals the picture as their articulate leader, certainly does, with those piercing eyes blinking through a shaggy hide. Anyway, yesterday the apes conquered the planet. Now let's have a sequel called "Take It Back."

Trivia

adapted from IMDb and The Sacred Scrolls.

The jumpsuits worn by the apes (to save the cost of fake fur for the crowd of ape extras) were leftover costumes from the 1964-68 Fox TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The Ape Management insignia patches and computer and electronic cabinets all came from the Irwin Allen series, The Time Tunnel (1966). The large set that comprised Ape Management Center (where apes are processed and trained to become docile servants) is a re-dressed set from City Beneath the Sea (1971). Governor Breck's Ape Auction throne was first used in Taylor's spaceship in Planet of the Apes (1968).

This is the only film from the original Apes series that was not rated G, and the only entry released without a pre-title sequence. The opening was deemed too violent, and the producers wanted to avoid an R rating. The opening showed police on night patrol shooting an escaped ape and discovering his body covered with welts and bruises that are evidence of severe abuse (Governor Breck and MacDonald refer to this incident in a scene that survived the final cut). That and many other bloody images were deleted after a pre-release print was shown to a preview audience. The opening scene appears in the novelisation and the comic book adaptation of the movie. The 2008 Blu-Ray unrated version restored many of those graphic scenes (but not the pre-title sequence).

Writer Paul Dehn conceived the film as a simian take on the American Civil Rights movement of the time. Ironically, Dehn was English but brought an astute sensibility to the project. (Not surprisingly, the film was very popular with black audiences.)

The female chimpanzee at the breeding facility is often mistaken for Lisa (Natalie Trundy), who later went on to become Caesar's wife and mother to his son Cornelius. She is in fact an unnamed ape played by actor Maxine Botelho, whose twin sister Erlynn also appeared (uncredited) as an ape in the movie (and appeared (again, uncredited) in the original Planet Of The Apes (1968) as Dr Galen's veterinary nurse).

Conquest marked Natalie Trundy's first appearance in ape make-up. In her previous appearances in the series she appeared as a human: mutant Albina in Beneath and Dr Branton in Escape.

Of all the Apes films (including the revivals), this one had the smallest production budget.

The idea of a continuing franchise of sequels was quite a novel one to 1970s audiences, although the budgets kept decreasing with each successive film. This was mainly noticeable with the limited amount of ape characters using John Chambers's make-up. Most wore pull-over masks. The budgets on the Apes movies were constantly trimmed because 20th Century Fox was still in financial trouble following the huge flops of Cleopatra (1963), Star! (1968) and Hello, Dolly! (1969).

Zelda, the female orangutan, is the only female ape in any Apes movie or TV show who is not a chimpanzee.

All five original Apes movies were number 1 at the U.S. box office when released. Conquest spent one week as the number 1 top grossing film: the week of 2nd July 1972 it made $4,395,549.

The film is the most violent film of the Planet of the Apes film series: 59 people are killed in the film.

When the chimpanzee busboy (who was played by Lou Wagner, who had portrayed Lucius in the original film) is adding kerosene to a frying pan over a flame, it ignites in flames as he pulls it back off the flame. The flames can be seen going over his hands and up around his head.

The movie originally ended with Caesar's yell of "That day is upon you now!" and the apes beating Governor Breck to death despite MacDonald's plea. Poor testing resulted in the addition of Lisa whimpering "no!", which was followed by repeated footage of Caesar's speech dubbed by Roddy McDowall to make him reconsider his decision and give the film a more hopeful tone.

Filming began on 31st January and wrapped on 13th March 1972.

Scenes featuring the ape 'auction block' for the simian slaves and other modernistic outdoor locales were shot on the campus of the University of California at Irvine. Crowds of students and other curious onlookers gathered to watch the ape-adorned actors at work. One such student was Bobby Porter, who reacquainted himself with friends in the film crew, leading to his role as Cornelius in the sequel Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

In Italy the film was released under the title 1999 - Conquista della Terra (1999 - Conquest of the Planet), even though the action was still set in 1991.