“For years, I’ve been looking for the striped bathrobe that Roddy McDowall’s character wears in ‘Escape from the Planet of the Apes’ (1971). It’s a heavy terry cloth robe with orange, green and yellow stripes — trendy colors at the time — and a beautifully cut collar. This, and only this, is the bathrobe I want, although a similar one would also do.” — Nina, Vienna, Austria
How thrillingly specific! “Escape from the Planet of the Apes,” which is widely considered the best of the four sequels to the 1968 original, “Planet of the Apes” (no comment on the more recent reboots), starred the British American actor Roddy McDowall, who returned to the franchise as Cornelius after another actor, David Watson, had temporarily replaced him in 1970’s “Beneath the Planet of the Apes.” Before succumbing to a rather tragic fate, the chimpanzee scientist appears onscreen in this plush bathrobe, which is, as you note, made of a heavy terry cloth with notched lapels rather than a more traditional shawl collar.
Image
