Policeman Tom Duncan has put a bullet through his head with the revolver.At 3:00 a.m.(displayed on a giant grandfather clock), his "widow" Bertha Duncan (Jeanette Nolan) descends a staircase and discovers his body.The lieutenant has "fortified" himself with drink to bolster his courage.Flares are to be sent up at five-minute intervals to guide them.Crawling in the dark through the scarred land full of shell holes, twisted barbed wire, watery pits and rubble, he Lieutenant sends the private out ahead as an advance scout, although Paris thinks it is unwise to split a night patrol.His name was Caesar, and this is his story in those far-off days.The film returned, in flashback, to a "remnant" of he post-nuclear rural society in the year 2003 A.D.(only about welve years after the events in the previous film, some years after a ""vile"" thermonuclear war (off-screen) devastated the major cities but left the countryside untouched), where talking apes (composed of the classes/castes of chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas) were dominant.The script meandered around at times with non-essential plot diversions and red herrings, the ime frame of some of the events didn""t match up, and it appeared hat the main characters never slept.