THE FORGOTTEN CITY OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (1981)
Article 2317 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-30-2007
Posting Date: 12-16-2007
Directed by Don McDougall and Bernard McEveety
Featuring Ron Harper, James Naughton, Roddy McDowall

Virdon, Burke and Galen encounter an ape city where the prefect has the humans fight as gladiators in an arena. They they visit an abandoned city, where Urko captures one of the fugitives, and an attempt is made to get him to reveal the whereabouts of his companions.

Two more episodes from the “Planet of the Apes” TV-series get the TV-movie conversion done on them, in this case, the second and the fifth episodes, “The Gladiators” and “The Legacy”. In the first, a valuable lesson is taught to a decent but misguided ape prefect. In the second, valuable lessons are taught to a young kid given to stealing and mistrust. The first one is slightly better, partially due to the presence of John Hoyt as the prefect. Still, neither one is very good, and after a while the leaden pace, uninspired direction, and lack of incidental music at key points of the story really drags it down. At least with the TV series you can watch one episode at a time.

It’s been three days in a row of bogus TV-movies edited from other sources, and I’m ready to watch a real movie now.