“Conquest of the Planet of the Apes,” the fourth in the five-film “Planet of the Apes” series, was filmed at UCI in 1972.  Much of the film, including the opening sequence, was filmed outside of Social Science Tower. In the film the ape Caesar, son of the late simians Zira and Cornelius (and played by Roddy McDowall), leads the apes to a revolution against humans. Dogs and cats have been wiped out by a plague, and humans (led by Governor Breck, played by Don Murray) have domesticated the apes and are treating them like slaves.  Zira and Cornelius were murdered twenty years before because they had the ability to think and speak, but Caesar was spared. He works for and is protected by the circus keeper Armando (played by Ricardo Montalban). The protest and demonstration scenes, in which Caesar leads the apes in an attempt to overthrow the humans, were filmed at the University Administration building.  The film originally had a darker, more violent opening and ending. Test audiences had a negative reaction to the original ending, and changes were made in the final version. Even with those changes, the film was the only film in the series that didn’t receive a G rating, it received a PG rating.

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AS-061. University Communications Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

See more about the film (including the trailer) at IMDb.