THE MAKING OF PLANET OF THE APEs

Arip-roaring horror story, a classic thriller [and] the most unusual movie ever made!” So proclaimed producer Arthur P. Jacobs as he tried to drum up interest in an adaptation of Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel La Planète Des Singes, a sci-fi spectacular that might have starred Paul Newman and been directed by Blake Edwards.

How it instead became a modestly budgeted B-movie toplined by a largely naked Charlton Heston is detailed at length in a lavishly illustrated volume that sets out to be the final word on Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 classic.

That it largely succeeds is less down to the syrupy foreword from Heston’s son Fraser (“Dad had an uncanny ability to choose the right projects”) and more to the wealth of concept art, on-set photos and other memorabilia that accompanies author Rinzler’s (The Making Of Star Wars) exhaustive text. (Highlights include a four-page mock newspaper published to coincide with Apes’ UK release and pictures of Edward G. Robinson in orangutan make-up.)

Along the way we’re told the odd choice anecdote, one concerning a script draft in which writer Rod Serling had Lady Liberty salute Heston’s astronaut with a raised middle finger. But what really jumps off the page is the incredible forbearance of his latex-wearing co-stars, one of whom – Kim Hunter – needed a daily dose of valium just to get through it. Neil Smith