Andrew Sinclair. It was never filmed. "I freely admit I've done some pretty bad stuff," he said in 1968. "It's entirely my own fault. The trouble was I accepted some dismal scripts. I wasn't tough enough... Writing is the fundamental thing." Some have argued that Thompson's creative decline coincided with the end of his relationship with Henry. Apes Movies Back in the UK he directed Country Dance, also known as Brotherly Love (1970). Thompson's handling of a smaller scale film impressed producer Arthur Jacobs, with whom Thompson had made What a Way to Go; Thompson was the first director attached to the Jacobs production The Planet of the Apes and Thompson says he turned down the first two sequels. He was available to make the fourth and fifth movies in the series, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Writer Paul Dehn said Thompson had a reputation as someone with a drinking problem but that he had overcome it by the time of the Apes films. "They were cutting back on the budgets the whole time after the first one", said Thompson later. "It was a bad policy." Later career US Television Thompson began working more in US television, directing the television films A Great American Tragedy (1972), Huckleberry Finn (1974) starring Jeff East and Paul Winfield, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1974) and Widow (1976) as well as the pilot episode of The Blue Knight (1975). He returned to playwriting with Getting Away with Murder (1976). Charles Bronson In 1976, Thompson began a long collaboration with actor Charles Bronson on the Warner Bros. crime story St. Ives . John Crowther, who worked with both men, later said "Thompson was the total antithesis of Charlie and they got along famously. They really worked well together.” In 1977, Bronson and Thompson teamed again on an unconventional western film called The White Buffalo. Thompson directed two films starring Anthony Quinn, The Greek Tycoon and The Passage. Reviewing the latter The Guardian called Thompson a director who "should know better but often doesn't". The Globe and Mail argued Thompson was "possibly the worst experienced director working in the world today." Thompson directed the horror film, Happy Birthday to Me in 1980. In 1981 Thompson and Bronson made the film Caboblanco, which opened on Los Angeles on 24 April. Also that year he directed an episode