20 things you didn't know about the Planet of the Apes movie.

THE whole world is going bananas since the Planet of the Apes swung into cinemas this summer. Now director Tim Burton's sci-fi epic is coming to Ireland on August 17. But if you're still scratching your head over this astonishing film and the 1968 original then here are just a few ape facts to fill you in...

THE original Planet Of The Apes started life as French novel, La Planete des Singes, by former World War II spy Pierre Boulle. Based on his experiences as a prisoner of war, the relations between apes and man were a metaphor for the brutal treatment of Allied prisoners at the hands of Japanese soldiers. Boulle also wrote the novel on which The Bridge On The River Kwai was based.

ACTOR Charlton Heston, who played the astronaut Colonel George Taylor in the 1968 film, compared the tale to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. He said: "You can look at it as a big slice of adventure or a satirical comment on our society."

THE original 1968 sales pitch read: "Somewhere in the universe there must be something better than man. In a matter of time, an astronaut will wing through the centuries and find the answer. He may find the most terrifying one of all on the planet where apes are rulers and man the beast."

FILMING in the heat of the Arizona desert created problems for the creators of the original production - the actors' sweat caused their rubber monkey make-up to fall off and they had to sit in refrigerated trucks to keep cool.

FOR the new version of the film, actors studied apes in the zoo and on video in the wild. But back in 1968 Roddy McDowell said that he studied Groucho Marx as research for his role as the ape Cornelius in the original.

THE cost of the original film was pounds 4million. This year's remake cost more than pounds 75million.

IN the original finale, when Taylor discovers the Statue of Liberty half buried in the sea he was only supposed to say: "My God!" Heston claims he wrote the closing lines: "You blew it up! Damn you! God Damn you all to Hell!" At the time "God Damn" was still banned by the Hollywood censors. But Heston argued that he was using the phrase precisely - literally calling on God to damn the destroyers of civilisation - to get the scene passed.

THE human imagination knows no limits but film budgets do. In the novel apes drove, flew and had space satellites. To save money, the apes in the 1968 film were less technically advanced.

DURING breaks in the filming of the first Planet of the Apes, the actors seemed instinctively to form groups according to their species: gorilla hung out with gorilla and chimpanzee with chimpanzee.

FOR the 1960s soundtrack, the wind section played their instruments with the mouthpieces on backwards and composer Jerry Goldsmith allegedly wore a monkey mask to conduct.

DIRECTOR of the modern-day version, Tim Burton, shot some of the action for the new film at Independence Bay, Arizona, several miles from where the first movie was filmed.

THE star of Lassie Come Home, McDowall spent three hours having his ape make-up applied and 90 minutes having it removed.

THE original film spawned four big screen sequels: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1969); Escape from Planet of the Apes (1971); Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973).

THE summer of 1974 saw the peak of Ape mania for Charlton Heston, above with 2001 star Mark Wahlberg. Eleven cinemas in New York alone showing all five films back-to-back in an eight hour continuous programme.

WITH the re-release of the five films more than 300 items of merchandise, from lunch boxes to models and Halloween masks to bubblegum, were made. Arrow Games' Planet of the Apes boardgame featured an "exciting three dimensional, spring release human trap".

A TWO-person Planet of the Apes stage show, Meet Zira and Cornelius, toured the US in 1974. Today we have Apemania, a nine-strong group who dresses up as apes from the film and hire themselves out for private functions.

AS SOON as it had begun, ape fever was over. The Planet of the Apes TV series in 1974 starring McDowall was axed after just 13 episodes.

FOR the new film, starring Tim Roth below, bosses scouted the world for the ideal jungle bog before building their own at LA Centre Studios. Designer Rick Heinrichs explained: "What we needed was the sense of the jungle, not the literal jungle." The problem with the literal jungle was that they couldn't move the trees about.

IT took 100 people four months to build Burton's Ape City out of wood, steel, foam, plaster and concrete.

FOR the 2001 film score, composer Danny Elfman used "instruments" such as dustbins, miner's pans and even beer cans.

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STAR ROLE: Actress Helena Bonham Carter in her Planet of the Apes costume