The Legacy

Planet of the Apes
Episode	The Legacy
Season	1
Production Number	B-504
Air Date	Friday, October 11th, 1974
Network	CBS
Director	Bernard McEveety
Writer	Robert Hamner
Continuity	TV Series
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Previous Episode: "The Good Seeds" Next Episode: "Tomorrow's Tide"

"Could Man ever have known so much, and done so little with it?"

―Galen

"The Legacy" is the fifth episode of Planet of the Apes.

Cast

Starring:

• Roddy McDowall as Galen
• Ron Harper as Alan Virdon
• James Naughton as Peter Burke

Guest Starring:

• Mark Lenard as Urko
• Booth Colman as Zaius
• Zina Bethune as Arn
• Jackie Earle Haley as Kraik
• Robert Phillips as gorilla captain
• Jon Lormer as scientist
• Wayne Foster as gorilla sergeant
• Victor Kilian as human
• Dave Rodgers as gorilla guard #1
• Ron Stein as gorilla guard #2
• Shelley Snell as gorilla guard #3
• (Nick Dimitri as gorilla)

Production Crew

• Assistant Director ... Gil Mandelik
• Music ... Earle Hagen
• Film Editor ... Clay Bartels

Synopsis

The astronauts make their way to a ruined city, Oakland, where they find a holographic projector that tells of a buried site containing a chunk of the world's knowledge, buried in anticipation of the apocalypse that ended human rule. If they can elude gorilla pursuers long enough to repair the ancient projector, the film will tell them why their world was destroyed. They are aided in part by a young woman, Arn, and a street urchin, Kraik. Alas, Urko is hot on the fugitives' trail. Alan is captured and put in a cell with a young stool pigeon.

Notes

• The Legacy, together with The Horse Race, was novelized as Planet of the Apes #3: Journey Into Terror by George Alec Effinger, and published by Award Books.

• This episode formed the second half of the second TV movie The Forgotten City of the Planet of the Apes (paired with The Gladiators), originally broadcast in 1981.

• See Also: Planet of the Apes Encyclopedia: The Legacy (reprinted from Ape Chronicles #40 by Terry Hoknes)

Trivia

• The fifth episode to be broadcast (11 October in the USA, 10 November in the UK), this was the fourth episode filmed, chronologically, according to the Production Code.

Behind the Scenes

Ron Harper remembered: "There’s one that took place in a castle. A castle right in the middle of what was supposed to be Oakland, California - that was very strange! Again, I enjoyed that episode, because it was a kind of an acting thing with Zina Bethune and the little boy (Jackie Earle Haley) playing her son. They were supposed to be symbolic of my character's wife and son on Earth, back in 1980. Anyway, that castle set was left over from a Mel Brooks movie, 'Young Frankenstein' [1974]. It was going to be torn down, so Stan Hough, who was a hands-on producer, asked, "When do you have to tear it down?" They said, "Next week." He said, "All right, we're gonna shoot it." So we shot it that week! To save money, they tried everything they could do!"

Filming 'The Legacy', August 1974

Zina Bethune believes the set of "The Legacy" (which she remembers as MGM Lot #11) was also used for Earthquake, the 1974 disaster movie starring Charlton Heston, John Randolph and a vast number of POTA stunt performers. Bethune was able to explain the appearance of a dog in the opening scenes, a species whose extinction was central to the plot of the original movies: "There was a stray puppy running in and out of the shots. James [Naughton] fell in love with him and took him home. I am a big animal activist, so that meant a lot to me."

Harper also recalled, "There was a photograph Virdon carried around of his wife and son. The photo was actually of my wife, Sally Stark and the producer's son. But when we filmed "The Legacy", they had cast a blonde actress, Zina Bethune, as the mother. Sally had dark hair, and to reinforce the story's point, they had to reshoot the photograph with a blonde actress." This might also suggest that the character - Sally Virdon - was named after Sally Stark.

External Links

• Planet of the Apes (TV Series) at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
• Planet of the Apes (TV Series) index at TV.com

References

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Planet of the Apes TV Series
"Escape from Tomorrow"	"The Gladiators"	"The Trap"	"The Good Seeds"	"The Legacy"	"Tomorrow's Tide"	"The Surgeon"
"The Deception"	"The Horse Race"	"The Interrogation"	"The Tyrant"	"The Cure"	"The Liberator"	"Up Above the World So High"