Released in the US on June 14th 1972, Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes was officially shown to metropolitan and (some) local film critics alike at the end of the following month. Later, in August, the movie went on general release into ‘the provinces’. Below are selections from the reviews published in half a dozen publications of the moment. Few of them had much that was positive to say about the movie.
“… a sequel to a sequel to a sequel, and that’s the way it looks too, a trifle tired and automatic like a television serial that’s hung around too long .. (it) stars Roddy McDowall, rather good as the chimp, Ricardo Montalban, rather bad as the circus man, and Don Murray, decidedly plastic as the governor. It is neatly put together but full of glib sentiments about the dispossessed and human destructiveness almost to the point of becoming stodgy allegory rather than entertainment. If you can get past this and liked the original and its successors, you’ll probably go along with it. I couldn’t and didn’t.”
Derek Malcolm in The Guardian, 29/7/72
“… there have been two sequels to (Planet Of The Apes), the last pretty indifferent, and now comes a third … which I can’t rate much higher … It is all done with great verve, but there is not the bite or allusion in the lines to turn it, for me at least, into anything very telling in the way of allegory.”
Patrick Gibbs in The Daily Telegraph 29/7/72
“You must not laugh at the apes of the Planet Of The Apes. Their plight, film by film, is getting seriouser and seriouser … (Caesar) tells the only sympathetic human, the governor’s chief aside who happens to be black: “The only means left to us is revolution. We can never be free until we have power”. If that sounds like Black Power or any Underdog power you’re right. Hence the grimness of it all … (But) I must say that the sight of Caesar the Chimp running through the flames brandishing his machine gun was positively cheering. The uprising scenes are superbly timed and photographed … But I don’t particularly relish the prospect (of a sequel).”
Valerie Jenkins in the Nottingham Guardian & Nottingham Journal, 29/7/72
“Sadly, the film is heavily directed by J. Lee Thompson in typically weighty, impersonal style and has a preview determined ending. Still, makes for interestingly subversive viewing.”
Time Out, August 4th, uncredited review
“(It is) the fourth engrossing fiction based on the hypothesis fiction based on the hypothesis that there could be a future society of educated and all-powerful simians whose intelligence puts man to shame … There are certainly illogicalities about the story and Mr Debh has clearly left his options open for the fifth simian adventure, now on the stocks. However, there are still notable allegorical references to contemporary American society and the position of the negroes.”
David Waterson, Aug 29th, Cambridge Evening News
“It draws parallels with present day injustices, notably those against the coloured communities, but the arguments tend to get lost in the action.”
Stephen Barr, Sept 22nd, Westminster and Pimlico News
“”Conquest of the Planet of the Apes,” arrived yesterday. It’s not bad, as apes and 20th Century-Fox go …series’ writer, Paul Dehn, nimbly continues the story from the predecessor, weaving in just enough crisp philosophizing on both sides to command attention. Furthermore, J. Lee Thompson’s direction furiously propels the action in a compact chromium-and-glass setting—and wait till you see that last battle royal … yesterday’s audience at the New Embassy cheered the persevering apes and so did I.”
Howard Thompson, June 30th, New York Times
The Almanac Of The Fantastical will return tomorrow …
The Almanac Of The Fantastical 