Planet of the Apes Revisited: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Classic Science Fiction Saga

Apes fans, this is it: aside from an early '70s article that appeared in Cinefantastique, nobody but nobody's paid much attention to the making of the groundbreaking Planet of the Apes saga. The wait is over, though--and how. Unapologetic fanboys Joe Russo and Larry Landsman (and, later, Edward Gross) have been laboring over this exhaustive, fact-packed, behind-the scenes record of all five movies, the TV show, and the cartoon for the better part of 17 years. The effort shows, with countless on-set pictures, unprecedented access to the estates of Rod Serling, Roddy McDowall, and producer Arthur P. Jacobs, and extensive quotes from virtually everyone associated with the project, from screenwriters to actors to makeup artists to the special effects crew. (To give you an idea of the devotion we're talking about, Russo actually wrote his first "making of" Apes book back in the fifth grade. It was hand stitched with a plastic cover.)

Deserving of special note is Charlton Heston, who contributed not only the foreword for this book but scores of entries from his swaggering personal journals. ("A helluva long day, in the course of which I was finally brought to earth as Taylor. Having evaded clubs, whips, horsemen, crowds, they tripped me ass over teakettle into a thrown net and hoisted me high.... Upside down in a net, a man isn't worth much.") But even more interesting are the minutiae that inevitably emerge in any close examination of a production this complicated: that Marlon Brando had been considered first for the lead, that there were racial casting concerns in the wake of the Watts riots, even the fact that Planet of the Apes hit the small screen in an attempt to knock off Sanford and Son. This account may sprawl a bit in spots, with some quotes that overlap overmuch and minutiae that's awfully minute, but any fan who has even an ounce of Russo and Landsman's enthusiasm will be hard-pressed to complain. --Paul Hughes