Simian CINEMA
The Comprehensive Guide To Films And Videos That Feature, In A Major Role, Our Primate Pals.
by Justin Sane!

Ever since I was a small lad I have been fascinated with the world in which monkeys and apes alike frolic alongside human friends. It seemed like such a natural pairing… Homo sapiens and our dear, distant relatives working together in a world our species never made. We would face the perils of everyday life together, always keeping the largest of banana-smeared grins upon our faces as we challenged the way society looks at monkeys and people sharing living quarters and a single, solitary toilet.

I felt secure in the knowledge that others felt as I did. Screenwriters whose love for those of the simian persuasion was so great that they felt the need to churn out one-hundred and twenty page tomes dedicated to bringing our furry friends to the forefront instead of working on something as boring as the next Academy Award surefire winner.

No film featuring a chimp as a main character has won an Oscar, I can tell you, though I cannot tell you why. Perhaps my dream project of an all-simian Hamlet will one day rectify this incredible injustice. But when one yearns for slapstick antics featuring a cute-as-a-button orangutan, where should one start? Surely one's relatives and friends would never admit to "stooping to the level" of your average "Simian Cinema" buff, thus will have no advice when one wants recommendations.

Have no fear, fellow patron of the primate arts! Your salvation is here in the form of Justin Sane, who does little to conceal the fact that he eats, drinks and sleeps monkeys twenty-four hours of the day. It isn't often, when I begin to stare into space, that I don't think of eight dapperly dressed chimps dancing the Can-Can to the strains of "Turkey In The Straw". There is no need for embarrassment… sure, there are film snobs who turn up their very noses at the mention of such films as Any Which Way But Loose and MVP: Most Valuable Primate, but their reign is to be short lived. Let us hold our heads high and raise to the heavens the monkey hoot of victory as we usher in a whole new era.

Let the film snobs have their Scarlett O'Hara. We have Dunston.

Until our day comes, my friends, let us be brave and go unto our local video store without shame to pick up some of the fine pieces of celluloid we will be talking about below!

Bedtime For Bonzo (1951) brought about a virtual renaissance for monkey-themed film. Starring former sports announcer and future president Ronald Reagan, it features Mr. President as Professor Peter Boyd, who is engaged to the Dean of his university's daughter. The news that Boyd's father was a convict greatly distresses the Dean, and thus he sets out to prove that one's environment is stronger than one's heredity. How to do it? Simple. Boyd kidnaps the Science Department's chimp ("Bonzo") and sets out to prove that it is your environment that shapes your ability to understand right from wrong, not genetics. His time spent on this film would later deter President Reagan from his initial plans to alter the genes of the American people to correspond with his own personal beliefs system and just alter our environments instead. Just kidding. This is a very popular and nostalgic film for monkey fans and Republicans alike… although most people have a hard time differentiating between the two.

Bonzo Goes To College (1952) again stars that lovable scamp, although it suffers greatly from sequelitis. Bonzo this time escapes from a circus and shacks up with a football coach in a college town. No Reagan, however, who after the first Bonzo must have decided he was destined for greater things. How wrong you were, Ronnie… how wrong you were.

Monkey Business, which also came to us in 1952 (apparently a banner year for apes), features a precocious chemical-testing chimp named Esther who mixes up a concoction her owner (Barnaby Fulton, as portrayed by Cary Grant) only wishes he could. Esther then dumps the concoction in the office water cooler and wackiness is sure to ensue! Also features someone named Marilyn Monroe.

Only the genius of Disney could have brought you the 1971 film The Barefoot Executive. Starring Kurt Russell as a mailroom boy at a television station who desperately wants to do more than sort letters. That's right, he wants to work with the big boys and finds his opportunity in his neighbor's pet chimp, which has a talent for picking successful programs. Using the chimp's ratings clairvoyance, good ol' Kurt gets a job in the programming department. Also starring Jack Tripper himself, John Ritter! Yes, that's right, the John Ritter!

For the next seven years the domain of the monkey movie would be a barren and forgotten place… until Warner Brothers bet on the little film that could, and called it Every Which Way But Loose (1978). It starred former Spaghetti Western vet Clint Eastwood and also brought about a resurgence of another all-time classic genre, namely, the "Good Ol' Boy" film. The heartstring-tuggin' story of an ass-haulin' fist-fightin' trucker and his orangutan Clyde, it also stars future Ratboy director Sandra Locke and Ruth Gordon, known to one and all as either Harold And Maude's feisty old lady or the weird naked neighbor from the horror classic Rosemary's Baby.

What to do next with such a large hit on your hands? A sequel, of course (shades of Bonzo?) in the form of Any Which Way You Can (1980). This is one of those rare occasions where virtually the entire cast has reunited in one of the rare better-than-the-original sequels. Philo Beddoe (Eastwood) wants to retire from bare-knuckle fighting, but how can he when he's got an orangutan to support and the Mafia insists he get into the "ring" once more? Also features a rather disturbing sex scene in which Eastwood hangs from a chandelier and grunts like his chuckle-inducing companion.

Though not in stock here at Le Video (for unknown reasons), I should point out another fine film that features two television alumnus, Shakespearean-trained graduate of Yale Tony Danza and his fellow Taxi star (and the least-aging man since Dick Clark) Danny DeVito. The movie? Going Ape! (1981). Oscar (Danza… not named "Tony" for a change) must care for 3 orangutans for three years if he ever hopes to see the five million dollars inheritance his circus-owner father is going to leave him. If anything happens to the orangs the money all goes to a zoological society (which isn't as noble a cause as Danza's drama school fees). If they had really wanted to spice things up, they could have written all of Tony's dialogue in his near-native tongue of iambic pentameter.

The British import Link (1986) is one of the increasingly rare "horror/monkey" genre starring Leaving Las Vegas hooker Elisabeth Shue, Limey star Terence Stamp (with a hairdo more frightening than anything in the film) and a playing-with-matches manservant orangutan named Link. From the monkey's point-of-view beginning to its maddeningly catchy title tune to its lovingly long shots of lecherous stares by Link (one of which happens, in a mind-bending moment, when Link decides he wants to take a shower with Shue and they stare at each other naked), everything is top-notch. Oh, except the actual horror. Link is far too gifted a comic actor to make us fear him.

1987's Project X was the perfect vehicle for Hollywood loose cannon Matthew Broderick, who, hot off the success of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, saw this as his opportunity to work with our hairy cousins. The story of a top secret government operation involving chimpanzees, Bueller, er, Broderick must free his charges to avoid chimp slaughter en masse. This film has a rather touching performance by the Gielgud of the simian set, Raspberry, and his death scene is no less weep-worthy than Wrath Of Khan's Spock.

Riding on the wave monkey mania, Night Of The Living Dead director George Romero taught us to fear a tiny capuchin monkey in Monkeyshines: An Experiment In Fear (1988). The story of a quadriplegic man and his human brain cell-injected helper who just happens to act on her master's subconscious anger terrified audiences so much that it has been banned in ten countries. Features one of the most grisly monkey deaths this side of Faces Of Death, so the sensitive might want to skip this one.

Thora Birch, who would later be typecast in angsty teen roles in such films as American Beauty and Ghost World started off innocent as a little girl who adopts a kleptomaniac capuchin (at least he's not a killer!) in Monkey Trouble (1994). The film also stars (in mind-boggling fashion) Harvey Keitel as the monkey's original Gypsy owner. When the film came out reviewers speculated whether Harvey would be giving a little full-frontal nudity (as was his style at the time) to the 12-and-under set. Sadly, Harvey's monkey does not appear, but his outlandish accent does.

If you've ever stayed up late with your eyes open, clutching yours covers up around your neck, wondering what the Citizen Kane of Simian Cinema could possibly be, wonder no longer, as I am about to reveal all. If you want a high-quality film good for adults as well as children, give a chance to what is possibly the most talent-packed monkey movie in history, Dunston Checks In (1995)! Starring no less than Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown), Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), Rupert Everett (Shakespeare In Love), Paul Reubens (a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman), and one damn cute orangutan. A jewel thief (Everett) and his orangutan accomplice Dunston check into a five-star hotel managed by Alexander with designs on stealing some diamonds. Dunston, however, is sick of his owner's abuse and escapes, stumbling upon one of Alexander's sons and being immediately adopted by him. Dunaway, the hotel's owner, thinks Everett is a travel-guide critic about to bestow a sixth star upon her hotel, which leads to misunderstandings, and, well, you get the picture. If you are not enthralled by the antics of Dunston, you should turn in your monkey-viewin' cap right now and start watching foreign-language romance films.

>Hoping to beat the high quality that is Dunston, Hollywood tried to recapture the magic by teaming TV's Matt LeBlanc (Friends) with a chimp is the baseball box office bomb Ed (1996). What the studio didn't realize is that people go to see monkey movies for the real-life honest-to-goodness live monkeys. The makers of Ed, not content with having to deal with a live chimp, thought it best to substitute an animatronic in its place. Apparently they thought there was no way a chimp could throw a baseball or fart on cue. The story of a baseball team with a very unusual third-baser died a quick death at the multiplexes, being overshadowed by fellow Friends star David Schwimmer's The Pallbearer, whose grosses must have looked like those of Star Wars by comparison. Overall, it shouldn't even be spoken of in the same breath as our next film…

That film, which died an unfair death at the box office, was 1998's Babe: Pig In The City. Apparently, poorly handled advertising for the film and the fact that it was darker than its predecessor led to its downfall despite being a superior film. And although it is a better film even than Dunston Checks In, it cannot qualify for "Citizen Kane Of Simian Cinema" simply because the highly talented cast of chimps play "second banana" to a talking pig, a goofy duck and singing mice. Does this mean their parts are small? No, indeed they play a huge part in the story. It just so happens that this is less a monkey movie than a pig movie. The three chimps work for Uncle Fugly (subversive adult humor at work) a clown who puts on shows with the aid of his pets for sick children. When the chimps find Babe (who is staying with "The Boss' Wife" at a pet-packed rooming house in the "City"), Fugly makes him part of the act. This leads to one of the scariest moments in the film (and there are many), in which Babe accidentally trips Uncle Fugly who is about to light a confetti cannon, forcing him to drop the lit torch which sets drapes on fire, scaring children and apes alike. Unfortunately, since the film did so poorly there will probably not be another sequel, which in the days of rehashes of the same film over and over is the norm, is a sad thing. Babe and Babe: Pig In The City could not be more different, nor could they be more special (you can cry now).

Summer Of The Monkeys (1998), which ironically was not a summer release (it came October 30th), told the story of a young boy who, after hearing about a crashed circus train and its escaped monkeys, vows to find the monkeys and collect the reward. Notable mostly for the presence of Cocoon star and oatmeal spokesman Wilford Brimley, who plays, as you may except, "Gramps". Not having seen the film, I can comment little on it, although everything I've read states that it's pretty saccharine.

2000's MVP: Most Valuable Primate (and its sequel) shows that Simian Cinema is alive, well, and kickin', it boasts the resume-brightening involvement from the makers of Air Bud, Air Bud: Golden Receiver and Air Bud: World Pup (is there anything that dog can't do?). I suppose they felt, after tackling such sports as basketball, football and soccer, that hockey was the next logical step in the evolvement of the "pet-plays-sports" genre. And I suppose, after figuring that there was no way they were going to get a dog on ice skates, they settled for man's other best friend, the chimp (in this case one named Jack). The plot shares a lot of the same similarities as Ed, except that this chimp is real, and so are his hockey moves. Yes, I'm sure in the future Wayne Gretsky is going to be shaking in his skates over this ice-shreddin' simian. All in all, look for MVP 3 in the future, as I'm sure this chimp won't get sent to the penalty box and time soon.

Now that we've talked a bit about films involving monkeys, let's concentrate a little bit on some, which by title, you may think feature our little pals, but are misleading.

Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992), features not ONE monkey. Sure, the main character is named "Monkey", but other than that we are horrendously led to believe we may find some ape action inside this quirky low-budget comedy. Eerily, it features Dunston's Rupert Everett and Katherine Helmond, who co-starred with Tony Danza (Going Ape, remember?) in Who's The Boss? There must be some kind of a puzzle to work out here…

The otherwise fabulous film based on the short film La Jetee, Twelve Monkeys (1996), has only the lack of monkeys going against it. There are a few clips here and there, with lab monkeys (sadly), a monkey with a camera strapped to its head holding a roast beef sandwich (happily) and victorious monkeys climbing on buildings after their zoo escape. There are numerous monkey references throughout the film, with a classic line delivered from a manic Brad Pitt, "We're all monkeys!" Preach on, brother.

Called one of the 50 Worst Movies Of All Time, the animated Alakazam The Great! (1960) was a Japanese film dubbed into English with the voices of Frankie Avalon (Alakazam), Johnathan Winters (Sir Quigley Brokenbottom the pig) and whiny-voiced Arnold Stang (you may remember him as Arnold Schwarzenegger's sidekick in Hercules Goes Bananas) as a weirdly-proportioned cannibal. The story concerns the monkey king's (Avalon) quest to do battle with a weird bull-thing with the aid of some very unusual friends. It will probably please a lot of the Pokemon-addicts out there as it's glittery, sometimes fast and weird as all get out. When it originally came out the producers had contests in the lobbies of theaters playing the film where you could win a real, live squirrel monkey with cage. Now, it was cruel to have the monkey sitting in the lobby with tons of screaming kids around, but what kid wouldn't want to win a squirrel monkey?! I know I want one, and I'm in my mid-twenties.

Finally, let's discuss a few of the television programs featuring monkeys that you may want to look into.

Probably the most well-known TV show about a monkey, BJ and the Bear (1979) featured My Two Dads' Greg Evigan as a guitar-playing trucker and his chimp, Bear. The show seems to want to recapture the magic of Every Which Way But Loose by using the same general concept and replacing the orangutan with a chimp. Evigan later moved on as the star of William Shatner's emmy-winning Tekworld. Congrats, Greg!

While BJ&TB is arguably the most popular monkey show, the one that is most well-remembered is Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (1970). The story of a James Bondish chimp superspy (and member of the Agency to Prevent Evil, or, A.P.E.) and his female partner battling the evil C.H.U.M.P. (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan). In his spare time, Lancelot has time to play in the hip band Evolution Revolution. More fun than a TV show deserves to be, it was cancelled in 1972, but started making appearances again on Nick At Nite. Thank God.

Mr. Smith (1983) told the story of a talking orang with an I.Q. of 256, working as a political advisor in Washington DC. It is my theory that this is a true story and that Mr. Smith has been making most of the decisions for the president. I can just imagine Mr. Smith, all decked out in his little suit, walking down the halls of the White House with the president as he said "You know, sir, it might be in our best interests to take over Columbia's banana plantations and let them have their drugs." I don't know what I was watching in '83, but this seems like it was right up my alley. Sadly, I've never seen an episode (to my knowledge… it sounded a little familiar when I read the plot synopsis).

The Chimp Channel (1999), the last monkey-themed show to date, concerned a television station run by chimps and their various shows. New intern Timmy is enthralled at meeting his favorite female star, Candy, jiggly lead in the show "Treewatch", and, in typical sitcom fashion, everyone at the station is wacky. I thought the show was hilarious and I have been waiting for them to be released to DVD, but alas, there is no word. The makers of this also created "Monkey-ed Movie Shorts" for Superstation TBS, which are no less giggle-inducing. It was cancelled not too long after it began… it seems to be the fate of the monkey television show.

There you have it, my friends. Whether amusing us by giving raspberries or pretending to be a superspy, the noble monkey and ape are fixtures in entertainment history. Love them or hate them, they are undeniably something that human beings will always take an active interest in. Not quite man, not quite animal, they are something far more special than either… and way more entertaining than both.