it was hugely popular as an adventure film with children,but the idea of man destroying the world and apes taking over at a time when Earth was threatened nuclear apocalypse,students were rioting,and established values were being challenged as never before.

Award-winning film journalist and writer Brian Pendreigh went to Los Angeles and vistied locations,pored through boxes of old letters and papers,tracked survivors from the film to retirement and even hospital beds,discovering secret intrigues behind the scenes,and how a major star was dumped as shooting was about to start,He traces the story of Planet of the Apes from the original French novel.through the struggle to turu it into a film,to box=office success,before considreing the sequels and the new version from Tim Burton,director of Batman and Edward Scissorhands.

In this independent history Brian Pendreigh pays personal tribute to the writers,askd leading scientists'Could it happen?'and gets some surprising answers,And for the first time,he reveals the truth of how writers,producers and director conspired to keep the film's political meaning from studio bosses and from a conservative star who had come to symbolise western civilisation and who was now to be humiliated by damn dirty apes.