BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970)

Cast

Plot

Under the planet of the apes an older civilisation is discovered, living in the ruins of New York, and worshipping an atom bomb. This is the first sequel, and has some of the mystery and invention of the original, but lacks the originality of the plot. Not bad at all, it picks up immediately where Planet left off, the film quickly jettisons Heston (who didn’t want to appear at all, donated his salary to charity, and only agreed to what amounts to a cameo role after the studio agreed to kill off his character) and replaces him with James Franciscus, who plays another astronaut who also crashes on earth 2006 years into the future.