Pierre Boulle Wrote a Winner.

The original French version of the science fiction novel is rather different from the movie. Both (French novel and American movie) are very enjoyable. The twist at the end of the French version of the novel is something wonderful. If you only know the film version, you will enjoy the novel too. It has many differences and you will not know what is coming. 

As I have said before. When Charlton Heston starred in the 1968 movie, Planet of the Apes, I was nagging my Mother to take me to see it. We were on holiday at Margate in Kent. My Mother often took my sister and me to the cinema. Especially on holiday.

Needless to say, I loved the movie and had all the picture cards concerning the movie too. As time went on sequels were made like Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Escape from the Planet of the Apes and two more. I always liked the first and third films best.

I picked up a book in W.H. Smith’s store once. It was called Monkey Planet. It was by Pierre Boulle and on the front cover it had a caption saying, ‘The book that inspired the movie Planet of the Apes.’ The front cover was of a group of wild Earth Chimpanzees in a pack or whatever such a group is called. They were in an Earth tropical jungle setting. A naturalist photo. It was not an inspiring cover for me.

I think the book was later called Planet of the Apes and there were new cover designs etc. I never got around to reading it. I had it on my bucket list for fifty years. Then one day, I decided to give it a go. I had heard tell the science fiction story was original of French origin.

I’m not taking anything away from the 1968 American made movie. It was a splendid story and made a dynamic impression upon me. However, the original Pierre Boulle book was an absolute peach of a read. I loved the story to bits. Much of the story runs along similar lines to the first film with the second part of the book a little like the third story Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

Our space explorers are, of course, three Frenchman and they journey to a distant star called Beetlejuice. It is three hundred light years from Earth. Not a future Earth as in the movie. They land via a shuttle landing craft that is all controlled. Not a crash land as in the movie. They know there is a civilization on the planet because they have seen cities and cultivated fields upon their decent. They deliberately land away from these areas at first in a wilderness. They are scientists and want to run a few tests. Next, they meet the strange dumb humans living in the wild. They are all perfect physical specimens and are completely naked. They come across a beautiful mutt woman and call her Nova etc. There is a little time spent on this and then one morning, after a few escapades, they are woken amid the wild human gathering. It is the sound of drums, trumpets and whipping sticks etc. Mass panic and the hunt as in the movie. One scientist is killed and the journalist is captured. The old professor goes missing too. He turns up in the human cage of a zoo later in the story. We do not know if he is lobotomised. This was not made clear in the novel the way it was in the film. The professor has regressed to a mutt timid human specimen like many of the wild captive humans. Also, there is a rather horrific discovery of experimental brain surgery being performed on human subjects. An animal laboratory that scientist apes use.

The apes do not speak our language, and our captive French astronaut must learn the language with the help of a female chimpanzee scientist called Zira. As in the movie. Zira learns French and the Frenchman learns to read and write the Ape language. Once he is introduced to a big scientific gathering, the French astronaut makes an impassioned plea to this gathering. He tells his story etc. And it is in front of all the ape society journalists and various other news media outlets. The story then goes along the lines of Escape from the Planet of the Apes except it is a human in a civilized ape world where the monkeys are amazed by this talking human. This educated and highly intelligent human. Also, the ape society is much more technologically advanced compared to the film. They have motorcars, television, aeroplanes etc.

When they did all the new awful revamped versions of this the story, I thought, “Why?”

Surely something closer to the book could be made. It was a terrific story with an absolutely fabulous ending. Two big surprises.