Remembering 'Planet Of The Apes ' ( 1968 )

Was a director's cut of the first Planet of the Apes movie ever made? Or seen by anyone? Any longer versions on network TV? I love this movie so much. If there was a longer version released, I would buy it in a second!

 

That would be La-La Land Records. All of their titles are currently on sale through the end of May for 30% off. I ordered the POTA set three weeks ago, and and anxiously waiting for its arrival in the mail.

 

You will not be disappointed!

 

First time I ever saw it was when I was in college in 1972. Few people had tvs in their form room so many evenings there was a crowd in the tv room for whatever was on that night. The final scene (Taylor and Nova riding the horse on the beach) had one of the science majors (with the proverbial plastic protector for pens in his shirt pocket) going over and over “This is the greatest scene ever! This is the greatest scene ever!”.
This same science major was also upset one evening when he waltzed in and found we were watching the Mary Martin version of “Peter Pan”. We ignored him and clapped that we believed in fairies to bring back Tinkerbell.

 

Me too. In fact I'd say the remake was crap.

 

There's no "director's cut" out there... I think Schaffner was deceased (or at the very least elderly) before director's cuts became a thing... I'm pretty sure he got what he wanted with the film anyway.

No longer cuts of the film for TV either. "Planet of the Apes" was shown in a 2.5 hour slot when originally aired on CBS if I remember correctly, so the movie was long enough to fit into a slot of that length-They didn't need to pad it out with any deleted scenes or anything. Of course that wasn't the case with "Battle" where there were indeed things cut in to stretch the film's length out a bit for network broadcasts.

Do you own the stand-alone two DVD release of the documentary "Behind the Planet of the Apes" (the one with the AMC documentary, plus other things like dailies, promos, some of Roddy's home movies, etc. as well as the full length Roddy McDowall interview)? If not, I'd highly recommend it to you. I don't have mine accessible right now, so I can't tell you who distributed that, but I think it'd be easy enough to find. That two DVD set includes the NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) mini-version of the film, which includes a few extra scenes not seen in the film, so it may interest you for that alone.

Also, in 2018, an excellent book about "Planet of the Apes" was released-It's titled "The Making of Planet of the Apes", written by J.W. Rinzler. 305 pages, lots of great photos and information.

And, Pithikos Entertainment has a book devoted to Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack to the film called "Simians and Serialism"-This book also has a lot of information on the film itself, not just the score of the film. It's recently been updated to include info on Rosenman's score to "Beneath", as well as info on Goldsmith's score for "Escape". (pithikosentertainment.com).

 

It’s also on the Planet of the Apes: 40-Year Evolution Collection Blu-ray set, if not elsewhere too.

 

Thanks for the tip, I didn't know they included it on that set. (I didn't buy that set when released, as I didn't own a Blu-Ray player at the time.)

 

I forgot to add that John O'Callaghan has another book out titled "Location! location! Location!", which is all about the various shooting locations they used when they made "Planet of the Apes"... Also available from Pithikos Entertainment.

 

For anyone who's interested, there's a new illustrated version of Boulle's original novel out now:

https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/planet-of-the-apes.html

A little costly at nearly $50.00, but it is the grand-daddy of the "Planet of the Apes" franchise, and it's an interesting novel within itself. (But don't get me wrong, the movie blows the novel outta the water and into another orbit.)

 

The original Topps trading card series had a deleted scene on card #38 The Search

 

There was also a scripted scene that was supposed to have been shot, where Zira tells Taylor that Nova is pregnant. According to Lou Wagner (who played Lucius), Kim Hunter supposedly nailed the scene.

Ultimately the whole pregnant Nova thing was dropped of course. I've heard and/or read two different reasons for this, the main one being that the suits thought it would have been in bad taste to have what is essentially a cave-woman pregnant by Taylor, and another reason I've heard thru the years is that they decided to just drop that aspect of the story because then if she was pregnant, would the child be smart like Taylor, etc. and they'd be going off into a whole new direction that they didn't want to deal with.

 

Even though i know the film off by heart, the ending still sends a chill. Its one of the greatest sci-fi films of all times. No, its not lost its impact for me. PQ of the bluray is also top notch. I have the box set only becuase i got it new for around £5!!! The sequels are dire. But for that price the box set was cheaper than buying the movie on its own.

 

I totally agree-The movie "Planet of the Apes" (1968) never gets old for me either. It's my all time favorite movie, of any genre.

 

There's another (brief) deleted scene on card # 39 from that same set of trading cards... "The Forbidden Zone" has the following text on the back of the card.

"Cornelius joins the escape party. As they ride, they come upon the strange scarecrows. Lucius asks "Who put them up?' Zira: 'The Hunt Club.' Lucius: 'To scare off humans?' Cornelius: 'To scare us, too. We're entering the Forbidden Zone.' "

I'd have to dig out my copies of the old "Apes" magazine, but it seems like that scene was also included in the Marvel comics adaption of "Planet".