TREACHERY AND GREED ON THE PLANET OF THE APES (1981)
Article 2329 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-11-2007
Posting Date: 12-28-2007
Directed by Jack Starrett and Ralph Senensky
Featuring Ron Harper, James Naughton, Roddy McDowall

When a human saves Galen’s life from a scorpion sting by riding a horse to get the antidote, he finds himself up for execution because humans are not allowed to ride horses by ape law. Virdon and Burke try to save him. Then, when a tyrannical gorilla becomes the prefect of a small village, Galen, Virdon and Burke launch a plot to have him removed from his office by tricking him into making an assassination attempt on General Urko.

This is the fourth of the TV-Movies culled from the “Planet of the Apes” TV series, and the last I will cover for some time. This one is culled from episodes nine and eleven of the series, “The Horse Race” and “The Tyrant”. Most of the other movies I’ve seen in the series largely left the episodes intact; this one runs twenty minutes shorter than the others, and removes about ten minutes out of each of the two episodes. And, quite frankly, it helps; the stories move at a swift pace which makes them more interesting, even if some of the plot points get muddled or rushed into the story. The episodes seem better plotted and less preachy then some of the others I’ve seen, and that helps. I thought this one was the most enjoyable of the batch I’ve seen so far.