A Vintage Vantage: James Franciscus in Beneath the Planet of the Apes

'The only good human... is a dead human!'

I have loved the original Planet of the Apes movie since first seeing it when I was a kid. Although I have watched, and appreciated the recent remakes, those 70's actors in masks and costumes were more real to me as a kid than the computer generated apes in the recent versions. I tend to stay away from sequels, and never really watched any of the sequels of the original, I may have seen clips, or parts on TV, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I gave one a try.

The movie was Escape from the Planet of the Apes, (1971) the second sequel in the series. It was character driven more than plot and action driven and I found myself really drawn in, especially with the performances of Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter. The movie had little action, and only three (and then two) ape characters. Their 'strangers in a strange land' journey was compelling and the performances made it worth my journey in.

At the beginning of the film, a few scenes from the second movie, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) were shown to fill viewers in. The clips, including actor James Franciscus in a loin cloth, had me DVRing an upcoming airing on one of my movie channels. In some of the promotional photos, Franciscus reminded me of Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi. If I had any photo shoppe skills whatsoever, I would have put the loin clothed actor in front of Jabba the Hutt.

Although I recognized his name, I don't think I had seen Franciscus in anything before watching this flick. The movie itself was so so, pretty good until they finally got 'beneath' to a silly science fiction story that put the power of the original film in jeopardy for a minute or two. Thankfully, the odd underworld seems to have stayed in this film, and not infiltrated others in the series.

Franciscus did make the viewing enjoyable as he remained in his loin cloth for about half of the film, running, jumping and rolling around throughout. Not sure what to expect, but there are two more 70's sequels I look forward to checking out.