La Planète des Singes, Trahison

These days the Planet of the Apes television series is readily available on DVD, but that wasn't the case in the early 1980's when five TV movies were made by editing together episodes of the Planet of the Apes TV series. At that time the TV movies gave loyal fans of the Planet of the Apes series a much wanted glimpse of the long canceled TV show, and I really enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed Roddy McDowall as Galen. McDowall said in interviews that Galen was his favorite Planet of the Apes role, and he is my favorite character of the entire franchise as well. The TV series allowed McDowall to play a variety of different types of apes thanks to Galen's knack for impersonation, and we definitely get to see that in this TV movie. When taken on its own terms as two combined TV episodes, Treachery and Greed on the Planet of the Apes delivers solid Apes entertainment.

Treachery and Greed on the Planet of the Apes is the third TV movie made from combining episodes of the 'Planet of the Apes' TV series together. In this case it is the instalments 'The Horse Race' and 'The Tyrant'. A human finds himself up for execution for riding a horse, which is contrary to ape law; this results in a rigged horse race where the stakes are the man's life. Next, an aggressive tyrannical gorilla becomes the prefect of a village, our heroes work up a scheme to have him removed from his position of power.

I should start by saying that I am not in the least bit a fan of these TV Planet of the Apes films. The problem is that they never escape from their origins and always seem like what they are, i.e. two episodes joined together awkwardly. For what it's worth, I actually think that this is the best of a bad bunch. The first half involving the race was fairly exciting in places, while the second had at least some potential, even if it didn't ultimately amount to much. A good example of the latter was when the evil gorilla suspects Galen of impersonating the dignitary (which he is); the tension is racked up as our hero returns later unawares into a dangerous situation. The suspense is racked up further when the bad guys act in ways that suggest they now know Galen is not who he pretends, only for them to then say something to the effect of 'actually we checked you out and you seem to be who you claim you are'! Talk about a missed opportunity to bring in a little welcome tension. It indicates that the original TV series wasn't exactly written very well and this sort of compromises all of these TV movies. Nevertheless, this instalment was better paced and more fun that the other four TV movies, so if you really want to sample just one of them I guess this would be the one I would recommend.

Another poor cut-and-paste TV movie amalgamated from a couple of episodes of the 1970s PLANET OF THE APES TV series. This one is even more obviously stitched together than the others, seeing as how the episodes aren't even remotely connected. The first half of the film is centred around a horse race between a human and an ape; the second half is about a tyrannous ape whom the humans must seek to depose.

The episodes are fairly low rent by modern standards, enlivened only by the classic ape costumes and a handful of fight scenes. The human cast members are invariably wooden and much less interesting than their simian counterparts. The best part of the TV movie is the horse race, which is handled well with some exciting moments to enjoy; the second half by comparison is rather stodgy and poorly handled. Thankfully, I've seen all of these TV movie compendiums now, so I don't have to - nor wish to - watch any of them ever again!