FOTW Audio Productions

Over the years I have re-watched the original 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, partly out of nostalgia, as it reminded me of Saturday afternoons at home, where it was shown on TV every couple of years. But it has seriously grown on me as a film.

The original had an amazing soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith of mostly experimental percussion. It was influenced by earlier modernist composers like Edgar Varese and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and was a style of film-scoring that was used a lot in the late sixties – particularly by Goldsmith. Hearing it, paired with images of men struggling through a desolate landscape, is evocative both of an era of movie-making, and of a particular type of epic journey, that staring up at the midday sun, gasping for water, solar flares spinning over the camera lens.

Also, the key sociological themes of the film about the unthinkable, impermanent nature of human civilisation, and the role of truth and versions of history when it comes to maintaining social order, can never really date, and will pretty much always be relevant, as long as the earth is turning and human beings are on it.

Finally, there is something about monkeys that strikes a special chord with viewers: muscled out of the civilisation game, experimented on by various industries, and basically not treated as you would a near relative, them gaining the upperhand is not such a far-fetched and implausible idea. It is just a matter of how.

So I was pleased to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes turning up on the big screen.

James Franco is great. The CGI is used well, and not too over-the-top. There is an element of realism in the film, which is a strong-point of good, young directors in Hollywood at the moment (and one of its saving graces). The film as a story also goes against the grain of being a staid rehash of something old. There is an innovative and fresh feel about it, and it is cleverly constructed, in the same way that Inception was.

The trailer (depending on which one you see) is slightly misleading, as it seems that most of the film will be about humans and monkeys fighting, which is not really the case: the main story lies with Caesar and his relationship with his mad-scientist type father, as well as the slow and gradual bonding of Caesar with other monkeys, as an organised, revolutionary movement.

There are a few links to the original Planet of the Apes film like Caesar building a cardboard model of the Statue of Liberty, and a quote from the original, uttered by a lesser character; but the film didn’t really need them: it stands up so well on its own, that people can watch and enjoy it without having a clue about its history. It also manages to end on an epic suggestion, that does capture the impact of the original, that you honestly do not see coming.

And its also an enjoyable film, which really is the most important thing for a Hollywood blockbuster. It’s not everyday that you  get to see monkeys tram-surfing up the hills of San Francisco. So do yourself a favour, buy yourself a choc-top and some popcorn, and get behind those monkeys.

You won’t be disappointed.

“When I was a little boy, I lived with my parents in what was then a small suburb of Los Angeles called Hollywood. My father was general manager in charge of production for Firmament-Famous Artists-Lewin. It was a mouthful, but I used to have to remember the whole thing for the your-father-my-father arguments I was always having with a kid down the block whose old man was only an associate producer at Warner Brothers.”   
                                                                                          – From Some Faces in the Crowd

Budd Schulberg, who passed away last year at the age of 95, was one of the first true Hollywood insiders, a great novelist who wrote the screenplay to On the Waterfront, and a key figure in the blacklisting of Hollywood writers during the McCarthy era.

His father, B.P. Schulberg, a founding mogul of Hollywood, relocated his family from New York to Los Angeles when Budd was just a boy to share a film studio with the infamous Louis B. Mayer (who would later become his rival). B. P. Schulberg was responsible for evolving the art of the screenplay (known as ‘photoplays’ at the time), as well as launching the careers of some of Hollywood’s most famous stars, like Clara Bow and Gary Cooper.

Roaming the studio lots with the sons of other studio heads, Budd had a privileged chilhood, pelting the stars with figs and collecting autographs; all the while, the movie business growing up around him. At his family home in Malibu, his parents nurtured in him a love of literature; his father, a once aspiring writer would read classics to the family every Sunday, while his mother would pay him 25 cents for every book he read.

During his summer breaks he worked with the Paramount publicity department, writing copy for movie magazines, interviewing everyone from Gary Cooper, to the great Russian director Sergei Eisenstein (who was planning, unbelievably, to make a Western for Paramount).

But Budd Schulberg’s dream was to escape Hollywood and become a more traditional type of writer. He had seen how the wordsmiths working for his father operated – mismatched collaborators in cramped rooms, drinking and gambling, under tremendous pressure from the studio chiefs.

After graduating from Dartmouth College, he initially worked for the studios; but by age 26 he had completed his first novel What Makes Sammy Run?, the story of the unscrupulous Sammy Glick who claws his way to the top of the Hollywood food chain at the expense of his friends and colleagues. 

Budd’s father, thinking of the future problems the book could cause his son, advised him not to publish it: Schulberg’s unique Hollywood childhood had given him an unprecedented insight into the world of silver shadows and its secrets, and there were those in the business that would not be happy to have their dirty laundry aired.

But having witnessed his father’s ill-treatment at Paramount – demoted, despite being one of their top producers, Budd was keen to expose the hypocrisy of a system that promoted family values in its films, yet was saturated with backbiting, vice and infidelity. 

The book launched his writing career, but as his father had predicted, it alienated him from the community he had grown up in.

He would later experience a second round of alienation during the McCarthy-HUAC investigation into the communist influence in Hollywood. Named as a former member of the party, Budd in turn named others, and it was perceived as a severe betrayal by those around him. 

However, Budd Schulberg always had a strong social conscience, identifying with the underdog in society. In the aftermath of the Watts Riots of 1965, he set up a writers workshop for the mostly African-American community of Watts.  It attracted the support of Robert Kennedy, and Budd later acknowledged that this was the thing he was most proud of in his life.   

LINKS:

IMDB Entry for Budd Schulberg: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0775977/

Like film noir movies?

Then check out the Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of film noir heritage. For a small donation you can receive their hardboiled bi-monthly electronic magazine The Noir City Sentinel and be kept up to date with articles, news, and events from the shadowy world of Noir City.

–Which is also the name of their annual film festival in San Francisco. Noir City 8 will take place in January next year and you can check out the movies on their program here. (You can also have a look at some of their fantastic past exhibition poster-art).

The Foundation also works in conjunction with Back Alley Noir, a movie site that has a weekly analysis of film noir movies and a higly active discussion board, the Foundation will also provide answers to any questions you might have for them about this dark underbelly of American Cinema.  

Late night shadows in RKO’s “I Walked With A Zombie” (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1943) 

For those of you living in Australia, a great untapped resource for good films is the national broadcaster, the ABC.

Fluctuating between old British films from studios like Pathe and Rank - and what could almost be a complete collection of  RKO films (the now defunct American studio that created Citizen Kane, a truckload of film noir, and the classic Tourneur/Lewton cycle of psychological horror films) - the ABC after midnight is an almost requisite experience for film students, movie lovers, and anyone interested in the history of cinema alike.

Although RKO (1929–1960) sat on the outskirts of the Hollywood studio system, it contributed greatly to what is now regarded as the Golden Age of Hollywood. The majority of RKO films were made on a lower budget than the big studios like Warner Bros and Paramount, but still turned out quality films with great soundtracks from composers like Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman, and notable actors like Robert Mitchum and Loretta Young.

They made lots of genre films - Westerns, War stories, Detective dramas, and Gangster films — and helped to revitalise the horror genre, moving it away from the old world horrors of Frankenstein and Dracula, into a more modern and elegant form of horror, drawing on inroads made in the study of psychology, and techniques of suspense developed in thrillers and film noir. 

They also distributed Rashomon in the US, an early film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, a significant moment, signalling an American open-mindedness to foreign films (which is not always present today) at a very important time in film history - as well as world history (it was only five years after the close of WW2).

RKO now exists only as a small distribution and production company, and although its logo of a beaming broadcast tower is not as well known as the growling lion, the lady with the torch, or the roving spotlights, it occupies a significant place in movie history, one that’s worth having a look at. 

There is no need to subscribe to pay tv to watch classic and classy films; just stay up late with a cup of coffee, and you’ll have something good to think about while your boss is wondering whether to fire you for sleeping on the job the next day. 

ABC Program Guide