"The Naked Ape"

Desmond Morris' influential book The Naked Ape, although a runaway best seller, is hardly the sort of work one would expect to be turned into a hit movie. It's a scientific study, drawing on anthropology, zoology and sociology, that propounds a theory about how man got to be the way he is today. But to Donald Driver, director and playwright (Status Quo Vadis), it was a challenge he felt compelled to take on.

"When I read the book, I just saw it as this film," Driver says. So he wrote the screenplay, found backers (Playboy Productions and Universal Pictures) and set to work. According to Driver, the film, which was to premiere in Los Angeles August 17, and open at the Chicago Playboy Theater two weeks later, turned out "exactly as I had planned. I'm crazy about it."

As Driver visualizes it, The Naked Ape has "a powerful message—one that's meaningful today. We chose to handle it by showing three very real, contemporary young people, and how they face the genetic frustrations that have been carried over through centuries of human development."

Interwoven with the live action—which jumps back and forth over centuries of recorded and unrecorded time—are animated sequences executed under the direction of Chuck Swenson of Murakami-Wolf Studios in Hollywood. A far cry from Bambi, Thumper and their wide-eyed friends from the Disney pastures, these elaborate sequences make it possible for the entire process of evolution, from one-celled creature to Homo sapiens, to flash across the screen in a few seconds. Mixing its media, the film provides visual comparisons between the methods that man's ancestors, the apes, used to deal with such primal enemies as the saber-toothed tiger (through animation) and (in live action) those of present-day man, as exemplified by GIs engaged in jungle warfare.

Swenson, who's been in filmwork for ten years (among his credits: Frank Zappa's 200 Motels), sought out fresh artistic talent to draw the key scenes. "We didn't want them all to look the same." One fellow, Swenson recalls, seemed to be taking forever to produce a few drawings. "Then one day he showed up in a Volkswagen van—filled with some 12,000 drawings. We had a hell of a time sorting them all out." But sort them out they did, and the sequence packs considerable punch.

Another pivotal sequence in the film shows star Johnny Crawford walking through a museum where life-sized models of prehistoric man are on display in cases. In preparation for this, a dozen authentic figures were commissioned—with plans to donate them to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago as a permanent exhibit.

The three leading characters created by Driver are Lee, played by Crawford; The Girl, played by Victoria Principal; and Lee's buddy Arnie, played by Dennis Olivieri. Crawford won fame at an early age, when he spent five years playing Mark McCain, son of Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors), in The Rifleman, an oater that became the most successful syndicated series in TV history. After The Rifleman ended in 1963, Crawford played one-shot roles in several television series and appeared in a pair of unremembered films before doing a two-year stint in the U. S. Army. He was assigned to be an assistant director, script supervisor and occasional actor in combat-training films—experience he has finally got the chance to put to use in the warfare scenes of Naked Ape. Offscreen, he's a rodeo buff; a member of the Rodeo Cowboys Association since 1965, he specializes in calf roping and steer wrestling.

For Victoria Principal—about whom you'll learn a good deal more on this and succeeding pages—The Naked Ape is her second motion-picture appearance. She first hit the screen in last year's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and the impact was immediate. "She photographs," said one writer, "like a cross between the Ava Gardner of the Forties and the Jacqueline Kennedy of the early Sixties." But to Victoria, having a pretty face—while fortunate—is secondary to putting in serious, hard work at bettering herself in her profession. "I know what I'm capable of and I feel embarrassed if I do less," she says. "In The Naked Ape, I'm part of a film that will be revolutionary in the industry. It's made use of a number of facets—animation, live action, music—and combined them all to discuss a subject that's actually educational, and made it into a legitimate entertainment. And Donald Driver is wonderful. I would work for him again any day, without pay. But don't quote me on that."

Dennis Olivieri made his Broadway debut at the age of nine as the juvenile lead in Auntie Mame. At 11, he appeared in the Walt Disney circus film Toby Tyler. Since then, he's appeared on TV and in community theaters. It was his skill at comedy that recommended him to Driver and producer Zev Bufman when they were casting The Naked Ape.

Cast, crew and executives are all enthusiastic about the prospects for this offbeat film venture. Bufman believes Naked Ape is going to be "the most unusual picture of the decade." Driver says, simply, "It's the best thing I've ever done." The rest is up to the audience.