Planet of the Apes (1968)

On a recent night flight from Salt Lake City to London, I was unable to watch many of the movies  because  the sound quality of the complimentary set of ear buds was so poor (must  acquire proper earphones). As I can't sleep on airplanes, and not wanting to disturb everyone around me by keeping the light on for the sake of the latest Sue Grafton, movies were the only time-passing option I had besides grabbing any wine on offer. Peering at other screens yielded only films I had no interest in, like "Ali" or "Mother's Day" (the two popular choices with men, strangely enough), so subtitles it had to be, except that precious few of the movies had English subtitles. One that did was "The Intern", which I duly watched by reading the dialogue instead of using the audio. It was an extended advert for Apple and Audi, with said intern - an improbably perfect 70 year-old - thrown in as padding (Robert DeNiro in his comedy, face-pulling mode). After that, it was back to slim pickings until I spotted the original 1968 "Planet of the Apes". This was manageable, as the dialogue was well articulated (and surprisingly intelligent), and the famously atonal soundtrack lent itself to the uncomfortable environment. I'd seen it before, decades ago, so it was a pleasant re-visiting of something familiar. Charlton Heston's performance is committed: he's mostly half-naked, under stress, mistreated, but he really goes for it and is totally convincing. I still have a soft spot for Heston because of "The Ten Commandments", first seen at age 10, although now it's a bit disconcerting to realise how similar his facial features are to Andy Murray's. Nevertheless there he was doing his Taylor thing, and there were the 'apes' doing their highly evolved thing with brilliant prosthetics, and it was all very well made and entertaining.  Philosophical notions of religion, scripture, animal rights, non-violence, even vegetarianism are in the mix too, testiftying to the cold war fears and hippy developments of the time. I've ordered the novel it was based on (Pierre Boulle, La planète des singes) and will be interested to see how the orignal story and the Hollywood version differ. "Never trust anyone over 30", Taylor facetiously advises young chimpanzee Lucius towards the end - though without noting the irony that he's way over 30 himself. Apparently the film was selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry in 2001 for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Quite right. Whether one agrees with its politics or not, it is a memorable film. And it translates remarkably well to an airline seatback screen and bad quality ear buds.