20th Century Studios
A grinning man behind bars.
A still image from "Planet of the Apes," 1968.
There was but one man who could conquer planets full of apes and overcome an agitated Mother Nature, and that man was Oscar-winning actor Charlton Heston. To celebrate Heston’s cinematic triumphs — specifically his triumphs over more apocalyptic scenarios — the kind folks at the UW Cinematheque have put together a film series titled “Damn You All To Hell!: Charleton Heston and the End of the World,” which kicks off at 7 p.m. on Nov. 5, at 4070 Vilas Hall with the 1974 disaster epic Earthquake.
The series continues at 7 p.m. on Saturdays throughout November and December, including: Two-Minute Warning (1976, Nov. 12), The Omega Man (1971, Nov. 19), Soylent Green (1973, Dec. 3), and a double feature (6 p.m., Dec. 10) of Planet of the Apes (1968) and Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970).
Isthmus talked to director of programming Jim Healy and fellow programmer Ben Reiser about the Heston showcase and the duo’s respect for the versatile actor.
Healy says he has been wanting to do this Heston series for years. Reiser grew up watching Heston’s movies on his local Brooklyn ABC affiliate’s 4:30 movie specials. Both men are most impressed by Heston’s surprising pivot from the biblical epics of the 1950s and '60s to the disaster-depicting, end-of-the-world films of the 1970s.
Through a “canny sense” for interesting scripts, Heston managed to change the course of his career completely, Reiser says, at a time in his career when “other actors would just start to coast on their laurels.”
“He became the king of these sort of wildly entertaining but bleak science fiction contemporary thrillers,” Reiser says.
Heston also had well-defined qualities that benefited him when tackling a more diverse range of stories. “He had a square-jawedness and humorlessness” that certain filmmakers used effectively, Healy says. “I think he clearly had a degree of vulnerability or at least sensitivities” that allowed him more flexibility in choosing his material at the time.
“Without exception, these movies are exciting,” Healy adds. While some of the subject matter of the series may not be fun — such as the food shortages and climate change effects in Soylent Green or the mass shootings in Two-Minute Warning — Healy says the films are “engrossing, they’re captivating, they’re cinematic.” The point isn’t to make people depressed; the programmers want people to enjoy themselves! “That’s principally why we do what we do,” says Healy.
The people at UW Cinematheque also want to expose people to important films. Their greatest ambition is to “expand the idea and discussion of what is the international cinema canon,” Healy says. “It’s very important to us to create discussions and reputations for a lot of these movies.”
While people may know about Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes, both Healy and Reiser hold the lesser-seen Two-Minute Warning in high regard. Reiser, in particular, remembers being “riveted and devastated” by the film. “I was taken to see this movie,” he says, “which is an R-rated, extremely violent, extremely downbeat thriller/disaster movie, for a friend's birthday party."
Decades later, Reiser adds, “I was surprised to discover that it was actually as good as I remembered it,” Reiser says. He calls it “powerful and amazing,” and describes the 35mm print to be screened as a “chef’s kiss.”
Reiser says that even film buffs like himself will discover something new through Cinematheque. Reiser gushes about a 1946 Olivia de Havilland romance, To Each His Own, that he saw during a Kirk Douglas/de Havilland series a few years ago. The film “instantly” became one of Reiser's favorite films.
“That idea that even somebody like me,” Reiser says, “who has been watching movies fairly religiously almost his whole life, can still be exposed to masterpieces that I wasn’t even aware of,” is one of the things that makes UW Cinematheque special. Healy also discovered a love for To Each His Own during the series. “I wasn’t expecting it to be that good, but it’s just….” He pauses, collects his thoughts, and finally calls it “a masterpiece.”
Both men, ultimately, just hope to engage audiences, whether the flicks are new to the viewers or not. “These are all films that you would be more likely to walk out of the theater stimulated instead of depressed, no matter what’s going on on screen,” says Reiser. Despite the dour, occasionally nihilistic tone strewn throughout this Heston series, Healy says it all winds up feeling hopeful. “Entertainment is always hopeful,” he says. “If you’re the one being stimulated by something, I see that as essentially hopeful.”
