Tracking the Evolutionof Apes in the Movies

In 1913, the French serial master Victorin Jasset loosed the cinema’s first ape-man in “Balaoo,” according to “The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies.” Remade twice, as “The Wizard” (1927) and “Dr. Renault’s Secret” (1942), the early French fairy tale of a scientist’s semi-human simian and the doctor’s niece he adores is the prototype of “King Kong” (1933) and even of Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes.”

The attraction between two species is a recurring theme of horror and fantasy films. “It was beauty killed the beast” remains one of the most memorable lines in movie history, an epitaph for a giant ape’s strange adoration for Fay Wray.

And today, Burton’s film sets up a suggestive relationship between Mark Wahlberg’s astronaut and Helena Bonham Carter’s glamourpuss chimp.

The techniques of “Kong” and “Planet” underline two main strains in the depiction of primates through the ages. The stop-action trickery engineered by Willis O’Brien for the movies’ most famous ape relates to today’s sophisticated animatronic puppetry, while the return to the planet ruled by nonhumans delivers a modern variation on the man-in-an-ape suit that has been played for terror or for laughs nearly since the beginning of the medium.

Then, too, there have been real animals on camera, most notably the chimpanzees that provided comic relief in “Tarzan the Ape Man” (1932) and its sequels. But natural performers though they seemed, the chimps cast as Cheetah and other playful monkeys sometimes suffered from disturbing breakdowns because of their training.

Apes can be also be volatile, so costumed actors have mingled with real animals in films such as “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” (1984) and “Gorillas in the Mist” (1988). Rick Baker, who created the new breed of ape suits for those films, also devised the makeup and costumes for Burton. (John Chambers won a special Oscar for his work on director Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 original.)

The apes in Burton’s film, headed by Tim Roth’s evil ape general, are far more dangerous and violent than in the first film. But in recent films it has been customary to treat primates as victims or genial sweeties rather than as killers.

Real orangutans have become particularly popular. Clint Eastwood’s 1978 “Every Which Way But Loose” featured a real simian named Clyde and the 1995 “Dunston Checks In” starred a 5-year-old scene stealer named Sam, as well as Faye Dunaway as a hotel-world Queen of Mean.

Mostly, though, actors have donned big heads and hairy body suits to play apes. Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story has been made at least three times, in 1932 and 1974 as “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and in 1954 as “Phantom of the Rue Morgue” (with Karl Malden at his hammiest). And there has been many a film with “Gorilla” in the title, with plots centering on men, or women, in ape suits. (Two of the big names who once donned the hairy outfits are Walter Pidgeon and Anne Bancroft. Where can one get hold of these lost gems?)

Perhaps the entertaining use of a gorilla costume came in Carl Reiner’s 1970 “Where’s Poppa,” in which George Segal suited up for a scamper across Central Park.

Oddly enough, the film’s most hilarious performance came from Ruth Gordon, also Eastwood’s co-star in his orangutan pictures. She must have had an affinity for going ape.