EDITORIAL - Movie buffs and political junkies don’t usually go together, but for all of you who check the boxes in both categories, tell me this–don’t Congressional investigative panels always remind you of the courtroom scene in the original Planet of the Apes, when an orangutan kangaroo court is convicting Chuck Heston of being a public menace?

Arlen Specter grilling Alberto Gonzales on the checks and balances in the Constitution reminded me of one of the best lines in the movie. Three talking orangutans are trying a naked human (Heston) on trumped-up charges. One of the panel of judges allows a line of questioning from Heston’s defenders, who are also talking apes, but then warns, “But do not make a mockery of this trial.”

Rod Serling wrote the screenplay for the original movie, and it has all the quality, cynicism and mind-bending reversals we had come to expect from the creator of The Twilight Zone. Most people remember the ending (which we won’t give away, for those of you who haven’t seen it). But many forget the long first act when the stranded astronauts are trekking across a hostile desert, ruminating about the nature of man in the universe. Charlton Heston, the leader, maintains that, in this vast universe, “There’s gotta be something better” than man. As with most of Serling’s protagonists, he is proven right, but in the most mind-blowing manner possible.

Apes lording over humans was a provocative and unimaginable scenario in 1968, but those House and Senate panels seem determined to keep the concept alive. It doesn’t matter which party presides, who’s on the hot seat, or what the topic is–Senators and congressmen always play the part of the bullying apes, applying their own self-serving rules to badger helpless witnesses toward a foregone conclusion. If there’s a congressional investigation that doesn’t follow that scenario, I haven’t seen it.

Planet of the Apes is a terrific movie, which holds up well even though the premise and resolution are widely known. Heston is terrific as the granite-jawed cynic, Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans make you forget the constrictive makeup with their expert acting, and director Franklin J. Schaffner’s off-kilter camera angles add a disorienting perspective to the impossible fable (he would win an Oscar two years later for Patton). Most of all, Rod Serling’s script is a gem of science fiction, adventure thriller, and political commentary all rolled into thought-provoking entertainment, in the best tradition of one of America’s finest writers.

But ultimately, no matter how much fun it is to watch all the simian silliness, Planet of the Apes is a powerful warning we must all heed--not to let the monkeys take over Washington.