If you only had one hour left to live, you’d probably want to spend it reading our Indiana Jones knock off reviews because they have lasted an eternity! Here we are finally winding down our coverage this weekend with a look at the rarest of Indiana imitations – the female ones! Yes, producers left no stone unturned when it came to squeezing any juice from the LucasFilm franchise.
Director Matt Cimber (born Matteo Ottaviano) started his directorial career in the 1960s with sexploitation titles. He moved deftly to blaxploitation in the 1970s with titles like THE BLACK SIX (1973) and THE CANDY TANGERINE MAN (1975), alongside perhaps his best known film THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA (1976). With such exploitation prowess, you just knew he would be hitting the big titles in the 1980s. He started off with HUNDRA (1983), a female CONAN THE BARBARIAN rip-off starring Laurene Landon in the title role. The following year he reunited with Landon for deliciously Jones-ian titled YELLOW HAIR AND THE FORTRESS OF GOLD, an odd combination of western and Indiana Jones.
Hitting you over the head with the serial influence, YELLOW HAIR opens with some rowdy kids in a theater watching the opening of the film. We are introduced to all of the main characters as onscreen titles give you their history. The heroes are Yellow Hair (Landon), the Apache woman warrior, and her pal the Pecos Kid (exec producer Ken Roberson). Cue cheers from the kids. Then there are evil mute Flores (Aldo Sambrell) and the main villain Col. Torres (Luis Lorenzo), who is described as “ruthless…greedy…and…” insert Torres doing a prissy stance to suggest he is gay. Cue laughter from the kids. Yep, it is going to be one of those kinds of movies.
The film jumps right into the action as Flores leads a team to the fortress of gold guarded by the Tulpan tribe. They arrive using a deer horn with a map on it taken from the captive Pecos Kid, but are at a loss as to where the temple is once they arrive at the designated point. In the mountains they see some of the Tulpan, who have quite possibly the worst supernatural power of all-time as they can turn into statues. They attack the prospectors with some foam rocks before capturing all but Flores, who gets away with a solid gold arrow in his leg. Proof there is gold in them thar hills. Then, in a bizarre choice for a kiddie flick, the Tulpan torture their prisoners, going so far as to cut one man’s eyelids off and dip another in a vat of gold and then lop of his head.
Time to intro our heroine Yellow Hair by having her beat the snot out of one of her fellow Apache tribesmen in apparently a courting ceremony. It shows her toughness and gives Landon an excuse to show off her wrestling moves from ALL THE MARBLES (1981). Rape apparently “is the Apache way” says her adoptive mom Grey Cloud. Yellow then mentions how Pecos had been by recently and mom checks her gold stash to find out a piece is missing along with the horn map. So mom tells Yellow she must bust out Pecos and get the items back so she can pass successfully to the otherworld when she dies. Wait, how does she even know he is locked up? Like I said, it is one of those kinds of movies. Yellow heads into town to break Pecos out, which is a long process that involves Pecos yelling “Yella!” a lot (he sounds like he was dubbed by Earl Owensby) and Col. Torres getting grabbed in the crotch even more. Yup, nothing finer than some "grab the crotch = high pitch voice" humor.
Following the escape, Flores manages to somehow beat them to Yellow’s camp and kill her mother, who left a note for Yellow and Pecos to speak to the “Man Who Knows.” Thanks for the vague hint, ma! Apparently they know who he is because they meet him and he looks like Randy “Macho Man” Savage circa 2009. Apparently his name should be the “Man Who Knows Exposition” as he lays out the story of a Tulpan princess who fell in love with his old partner, a Texan with yellow hair. Hey, I think Yella just found out who her real parents were. Our duo heads to bar to retrieve the gold from floozy Rainbow and this allows Pecos to display the worst poker face ever. Seriously, he is dealt four 8s and a 9 and immediately stiffens up in his seat, grinning wildly. Of course, it won’t matter as you know a brawl will break out after Yellow gets the gold nugget back from the Jurgen Prochnow looking bar owner.
Our duo then head off to Mexico, with Flores again beating them to a location and knowing exactly where they will stop. This leads to a big stagecoach chase, which mirrors the truck bit from RAIDERS. It is some full circle imitation since Lucas and Spielberg patterned their famous sequence after the stagecoach chases from westerns. The pursuit abruptly ends when – I kid you not – the bad guys stop to check on a fallen comrade trampled by the horses. That’s a first. Pecos and Yellow make it fortress of gold and she opts to live here with her people. Of course, we know we can’t trust them and, after Pecos leaves with some gold, the tribe tries to cut out Yellow’s heart as a sacrifice. Pecos knew something was up though, so he pops back in and opens fire with his rifle, the sound of which causes the cave to collapse (look closely to see the Styrofoam in the sets as they fall apart). Our heroes then make it to a nearby town where they are confronted again by Col. Torres. Then, in one of the most baffling choices ever, the film ends with the duo trapped by enemy fire and then offers “scenes from the next exciting episode.” So, yes, the film has no ending. At least Cimber was optimistic about the film being successful (it wasn’t).
A first time viewing for me, this is certainly one unusual flick. On the plus side, the film benefits from some gorgeous locations in Spain and has some nice photography (sadly, the Rhino DVD I viewed improperly displays the widescreen photography at 1.78:1). Landon is decent in her lead role and there is plenty of action. On the downside, the film is just full of too many dumb plot holes, which is pretty terrifying when you know how simplistic the plot is. I actually wish they had gone a bit more into the RAIDERS rip-off territory as the last half is where the film shines the best. And they are totally trying to be like RAIDERS. In fact, Cimber even gives Yellow some whip cracking bits during the stagecoach chase and the trailer on the disc has the narrator boldly claim “she’s the female Indiana Jones says the Film Journal.” I wouldn’t go that far. She’s more like the female Allan Quatermain. Wait a sec…
Wrapping up the modern adaptations has been fraught with peril more perilous than any of the perils Pauline ever had to face. You’d think in this age of fast-paced, action oriented, mega-budgeted action vehicles that it would be a no-brainer to throw a fedora on a well-groomed head and retread the steps Cannon took to re-invent the turn of the century adventure piece via Indiana Jones. Not so easy as it turns out.
In 1986, the Australian Burbank Film Company decided that the world was crying out for an animated adaptation of “King Solomon’s Mines” suitable for the whole family. The BFC made a career of sorts from ’82 to ‘88 cranking out a slew of literary adaptations of Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and many others. To be fair, the idea of doing an animated adaptation of such things as Homer’s “The Odyssey” and Alexandre Dumas’ “The Man in the Iron Mask” is not really inherently bad. What is bad is the fact that BFC decided that nobody would want to see an animated adaptation of a literary classic unless it was done with the sensibility of a poverty-stricken Hanna-Barbera, except without the sense of irony or drug-culture hipness.
Combining the two glorious achievements of complete bastardization and skid-row animation, BFC gave us a version of “King Solomon’s Mines” complete with a Germanic villain (see how far Cannon’s influence spread?) in lederhosen and a rather disturbing flashback to the Biblical era. In this flashback King Solomon is shown hoarding away his vast wealth in a labyrinthine cave so that no one else could touch it. Because he feels she is too greedy, he decides to entomb his wife in with the gold as she screams and begs for her life. We aren’t told which wife this was, but since most accounts indicate that he had a plethora (seven hundred, according to the western bible), it’s obviously not a big deal. The main cruxt of the story has Quatermain, Good and Curtis searching for Good’s brother as in Haggard’s novel, but adds comic attacks via hot air-balloon and other slapstick sequences (such as one villain being bonked on the head with coconuts) that would make a four-year old cringe. The only thing more amazing than the fact that they were able to pawn off this paste bauble is the fact that they did it with 37 different films in a mere six years!
In 2004, HBO films decided to take a crack at Rider’s epic with a three hour adaptation titled KING SOLOMON’S MINES. With Patrick Swayze in the lead role and the deep pockets of HBO, you’d think now is the time to get our adventure on! Never mind that the story was keeping the re-tooled formula of the 1950 adaptation with a woman in the wild, this is gonna be great! Hell, the woman in question is Allison Doody, who as we all know had her brush with the progeny of this literary classic in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989)!
You want action? Adventure? Hemmingway-esque machismo? Forget it! You get what HBO gives you bitch, and you’ll like it! This tedious chore of a film starts out on a bad note with the first title card reading “Hallmark Entertainment”. Brace yourself! This is gonna hurt.
Since the entire concept of the safari is distastefully un-PC, we need to make sure that we establish Quatermain as a sensitive ‘90s male… even though it’s not the ‘90s anymore. While taking out a boorish, fat, loud jackass on an elephant hunt, issues arise. The fat man wants to shoot anything that moves and is particularly keen on shooting at the herd of female elephants. As anyone who’s never been laid knows, females are sacred temples of life that should be worshipped and protected with as much chest-thumping as possible. Here Quatermain declares with a righteous fervor that females are off limits and they will continue to track and hunt a male as per the contract.
After being cold-cocked by his own partner (because they are being paid a lot of money), the hunter takes some wild shots into the female elephants and their floppy-eared toddlers while giggling maniacally. We haven’t even reached the punchline for this pre-credit sequence and you can already see that the next three hours are going to be about as much fun as a prostate infection. When Quatermain comes to, back at the camp, he gives a huge stirring speech about how there is nothing in the world more dangerous than a wounded female elephant. They are mothers and their instinct is to protect their offspring and if they are wounded they know who did it and they will hunt that person down... and will not stop until you are dead! Ok, so I added that last part but still, it’s a hell of a moment. After making the big speech our douchebag hunter chuckles at the silly man with a lump on his head and walks into the bush to drain the main vein. Suddenly he notices something hiding, peeking at him through the foliage. It’s the mother elephant just waiting to pounce! Really. Seriously, I am not making that up. The elephant snuck up on the camp like some sort of four and half ton ninja and hid in the freakin’ bushes! The elephant goes on a rampage through the camp and stops short when faced by Quatermain whose sad eyes look into her sad eyes, the strings swell and the elephant slowly lays down and dies. The strings swell even more as Quatermain tears up and says “sorry girl”. Are we done now? Can I go home?
Ok, so now that we have that shit out of the way, we’ve set the stage for Quatermain to be the sensitive big-game hunter, so now we can get on with some awesome action, right? Right? Ha! What were you thinking? Now it’s time for a dramatic scene in which Quatermain decides to leave Africa and return to England to see his estranged son. After much sensative man-love between Quatermain and his native buddies, not to mention swelling strings... Now it’s time for some action! Oh, wait, no. No, now it’s time for some heavy drama between separated father and son with lots of hugging, eye-watering and disapproving grandparents. Ok, now it’s time for some – oh fuck it, never mind! As if the never-ending sappy-ass drama wasn’t bad enough, Quatermain is now a wine connoisseur (complete with swirling and bouquet sniffage) and his quest to the mines is made because he, the cultured white man, must stop the local political factions, the ignorant natives, from using it’s treasure to finance their military regimes! Ok, that tears it. Sorry, I refuse to sit through the rest of this crap. “But you are like some totally anal, completist movie nerd of doom” I hear you say. Yeah, ok, so I did fast-forward to see if I missed anything remotely action oriented, but, sit through this for the sake of posterity? Hell no. The line has to be drawn somewhere and this is it. I’d rather sit through some damn Asylum crap than this wannabe Lifetime Network special.
In 2004 TNT debuted their first film in a trilogy of successful Indiana Jones knock-offs, THE LIBRARIAN: QUEST FOR THE SPEAR. Inspired by the popularity of the 2004 uber-RAIDERS plagerist NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS (not reviewed here simply because of who it stars), the TV movie was mostly Indiana Jones with liberal doses of HELLBOY (2004) and, erm, NIGHT AT THE MEUSEUM (2006) which it predates. In 2006, the sequel, THE LIBRARIAN II: RETURN TO KING SOLOMON’S MINES, saw the affable, not entirely macho Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle) return as the archaeologist who is working for a secret organization who keeps magical antiquities out of the hands of bad guys in a secret basement in the New York library.
In the opening sequence Carsen and his ummmm… “native” guide are trying to grab the mythical Crystal Skull from the hands of black leather trenchcoat wearing ruffians in the Utah dessert. Clearly these guys aren’t the sharpest spades in the dirt as it is a desert… and they are wearing black leather coats. However it does provide for a rather well shot chase sequence with our heroes on horseback and the villains throwing dynamite at them from their motorcycles and dune buggy. Oh, and yes, that is the same mythical Crystal Skull that another more well pedigreed archeologist went looking for in Peru in 2008. Jesus, how un-freakin'-original was that wretched sequel anyway?
Anyway, in spite of the Native American sidekick being about as subtle as Eddie Anderson’s Rochester routine, there’s plenty of action, big camera shots and a good, solid sense of adventure. Doubly so when the setting switches to Cairo where machine-gun toting mercenaries chase a professor who is carrying the location to the secret mines of King Solomon. Directed by veteran TV director Jonathan Frakes, best known for his role as Riker on the relentlessly melodramatic “Star Trek: Next Generation”, there are actually a lot of things to like about this movie. The cast is for the most part good for a TV movie, with Bob Newhart being the stand-out as Carsen’s boss. Sure Bob is doing the same shtick that has served him well for decades, but it’s still entertaining, particularly when the alternative is the comedy involving the fact that the relics that Carson retrieves all develop a life of their own when ensconced in the Library. Yeah, the comedy is goofy TV stuff and the CG effects are pretty low-rent and over-used, but believe me, I have seen worse.
If you are looking for fast-paced, light-weight Indiana Jones-esque adventure, this will certainly fit the bill. While this is definitely the Bud Light of the subgenre, as opposed to the Guinness that is RAIDERS, at least it’s not the American hefeweizen (served with orange slice and Virgina Slims) that was the Swayze version. Proceed at your own peril.
You hear that sound? That is us scrapping the bottom of the barrel as we wind up our Indiana Jones knock off spectacular. You know things are getting rough when we tackle Canadian Indiana Jones rip-offs! Ha, I kid our loveable friends to the North as they make exploitation movies as good as the rest of us. And while they jumped on the Jones bandwagon rather quickly, this is, sadly, not one of their good exploitation flicks. This made-for-pay TV feature started life as FALCON’S GOLD but then got the decidedly more RAIDERS-ian title of ROBBERS OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN.
The film opens in Mexico in 1931 with some monks guarding a sacred treasure. Some banditos arrive to steal it, but the crafty monks get away and hide the plate-size gold medallions in a volcano. Brother Juan is the only one who survives the journey and he is saved by some Indians. Cut to 50 years later as archeologist Christopher Falcon (John Marley) is contacted by a friend to verify an unusual piece. Seems some random dude has one of these ten precious ornaments and – in the mother of all exposition speeches – Falcon explains how the center of the discs is made from pieces of a meteorite that can shoot freakin’ laser beams. Naturally, this is a hot commodity amongst local villains as Falcon soon finds out when assassins attack him and the treasure holder at a museum. The unlucky owner is stabbed to death, while Falcon is sliced in the calf with an axe (but not before Marley gets some licks in; a true sight to behold). Falcon is saved by British reporter Archibald “Hank” Richards (Simon MacCorkindale), who has been incessantly hounding Falcon for an interview. Archibald? Yeah, he might be a Brit.
Obviously indebted to Richards, Falcon asks him to pick up his granddaughter Tracy (Louise Vallance) at the airport in exchange for an interview. Wait a sec, you saved his life and now he is asking for more favors? Richards picks up the school girl outfit clad Tracy, but the duo is quickly kidnapped via the old “gassing in the back of the limo” trick. The orchestrator of this abduction is a Mexican super villain with the Hispanic challenged name of Ivar Murdoch (George Touliatos). He visits Falcon in the hospital and demands an expedition to find the remaining treasures in exchange for the release of his granddaughter. Of course, Murdoch doesn’t count on the cheeky Archibald, er, Hank escaping via clever use of a gas line and Tracy’s skirt. Later, in a completely incongruous bit, we find out why Murdoch wants these gold plates as he displays a high tech laser beam for various heads of countries. He blows up a satellite, which effectively shuts down all the power in the city. How exactly a satellite can cause cars to die in traffic is beyond me.
Falcon can’t let a super villain with an odd name find the remaining discs so he organizes an expedition into the jungles of Mexico. Since Falcon is incapacitated, Richards offers to go and the team hires guide B.G. (Blanca Guerra) and troublesome Tracy sneaks onto the team disguised as a Mexican chef (in a disguise that makes her look like the Frito Bandito). So we are off onto (as the VHS box claims) “a thrilling jungle adventure for mysterious treasure.” Naturally, B.G. is double teaming the group and working for Ivar, but Richards turns a blind eye since she is always getting it on with him. The group makes it to the monastery from the opening, but the monks have no idea where the treasure is. Cue Tracy finding a mysterious key and a crazy old guy who will tell the story of what happened to Brother Juan. So Richards, B.G. and Tracy decide to head down river to find the Indians but they are captured by Murdoch’s men. But suddenly they are saved by some of the Indians we keep hearing about. What stand up dudes! The Indians then force Richards to square off in a loin cloth against one of Murdoch’s men in a fight over a pit of flames. Not so cool dudes.
Naturally the guy named Archibald prevails when it comes to a tough man contest. Ha, just kidding, he is saved when Falcon arrives via helicopter. Damn, dude, I thought you said you couldn’t travel? In the village our team finds a spot where Tracy’s acquired key fits and, wouldn’t you know it, it forms a map to the location of the volcano where the remaining treasure is hidden. Our group heads to the mountain and proves to be the luckiest treasure hunters ever as the volcano is erupting and said the resulting shaking reveals the location of the hidden gold plates. They get away, but soon find Murdoch waiting for them. Gee, I wonder if the good guys will win this one.
The face of viewers while watching this:
Sorry if that review is a bit long on scene description, but there is really not much to say about this routine flick. Director Bob Schulz was a technical director on '70s sitcoms like GOOD TIMES and THREE’S COMPANY and this is the only feature he ever directed. It is obvious why as this is pretty flat all around. There is just nothing in the way of thrills here. You know you are in trouble when the film’s highlight is a dummy falling from a helicopter during the climax (see pic to the left). The IMDb lists this as being based on a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but the film itself does not. I can’t find any corresponding story in his bibliography, so I suspect it is an error. The cast is fine but MacCorkindale is an odd choice for the Indiana Jones-esque role. He is verrry British, so much so that I could see Michael York (who MacCorkindale slightly resembles) meeting him and saying, “That is one smarmy sounding bastard.” Guerra, who you might recognize from SANTA SANGRE, delivers the film’s nudity, which is unusual for a TV production (gotta love the open minded countries). Marley is good in his role and it is a hoot seeing him jump into a boxing stance and throw some punches during one of the early fights (see pic below). His stunt double that looks like Alex Trebek circa 1986 then gets some work in. If you haunted video store aisles in the 80s, ROBBERS OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN is one of those titles you probably saw all the time and passed up. You’ve survived this long without seeing it, so no need to see it now.
Nearly 20 years after the last cinematic adventure of Mr. Quatermain, the time was right to bring him back to the silver screen. 1965 had seen Hammer Films release an adaptation of H. Rider Haggard’s most popular book SHE with international success, in no small part due to the casting of Ursula Andress as the tit-ular character (oh, stop groaning!).
Low-rent, high-concept uber-producer Harry Allan Towers apparently decided not only was the time right to exploit Haggard's work, but all three of Haggard’s great novels in one fell swoop! I’m not sure what Towers was planning to do for a sequel, not leaving himself much to work with if the need arose, but I suspect he figured that he’d burn that bridge when he got to it. Apparently he was not the only one high on the idea, as Towers managed to assemble a reasonably impressive cast of not-quite A-list English actors and signed on Canadian-born, British TV director Alvin Rakoff. Uh oh, did I say “TV director”? That can only mean one thing... this well-trod ground might be a bit more parched than usual.
The story is told in flashback by the senior member (Wilfred Hyde White) of an English gentleman’s club in a scene that looks as if it was completely lifted by Ngai Kai Lam for the opening of THE SEVENTH CURSE (1986). Allan Quatermain (John Colicos) is shown hunting a taxidermied leopard that is poking it’s head up and down behind some rocks. Quatermain moves in for the kill and… hey, it is a dude in a dead leopard skin! Quatermain shoots him, grabs his spiffy medallion and heads back to jolly old England. Sir Henry Curtis (David McCallum) examines the medallion back at the gentleman’s club and declares it to be Phoenician. He decides that an expedition is in order to find the origins of said medallion and that all the chums should jolly-well do it. John Good (Patrick Macnee) wants nothing to do with another one of Quatermain’s hare-brained adventures but is roped in after losing a game of billiards. Supposedly Good is along for the ride as the navigator, but clearly seems to do little more than use the group as guinea pigs for his experiments in French cookery. This is the ‘70s after all and French cooking was a hot pop-culture topic… ten years ago.
Once in Africa, after being attacked by Good’s recipe for Hungarian goulash with “a trifle too much pepper”, the party is attacked by natives! Before you can say “poor man’s ZULU”, servants are being stabbed by spears, white men are ducking and a covered wagon careens over a rock and explodes in a ball of flame! Ummmm… I guess that was the dynamite cart. Right Alvin? Showing up out of nowhere is Quartermain’s old friend, the axe-wielding Umslopogaas (the ever reliable Ken Gampu) to hack the crap out of the bad natives with his army of good natives. In one “wtf” moment, two natives are shown rolling around on the ground with one biting the other one on the thighs and ass. For a minute there I was wondering if I had gotten the right film in the mail!
For some reason the persistent thought kept nagging me, “why wasn’t this in 3D?” Man, it would have been perfect and a great way to fix the damn walking scenes! Granted in one of the scenes they discuss wine pairings to keep you riveted to the screen and throw in more yuks such as a monkey stealing a priceless bottle, chugging it and belching. Phew! Comic relief, you are a cruel mistress. Admit it, a wine chugging monkey would be much more entertaining in 3D. Plus, cheesy monsters, I think, demand 3D. When the party get their boats stuck, by chance they also happen upon a surprisingly lumpy brontosaur. After a stroke of brilliance, they decide to tie ropes to their boats and to the bronto’s tail and then scare it into moving. A feat which is only achieved by whistling with a blade of grass. It seems a shame that if you are going to do a claymation dinosaur scene, they couldn’t think of something just a bit more interesting to do. C’mon, I’m not expecting Harryhausen here, but honestly, if Scott Speigel and Sam Raimi can make it happen on Super 8, I'll be turning a deaf ear to Towers’ excuses.
As if to make up for that rather dull dino scene, the party are attacked by a hoard of giant crabs with glowing eyes! One snaps a claw around Curtis’ leg. Umslopogaas hacks the entire claw off and Quatermain throws it away! What the hell dude? Man, you have a French chef and a giant crab claw. Do the freakin' math! You and Curtis have been bitching about the food the entire trip. What are you thinking? Eh, maybe they were out of butter.
I’d guess that centuries of inbreeding and isolation has left her a couple asps short of a moat, as the queen decides to make Curtis to choose between her undying loveor a cryptic map to the hiding place of Solomon’s infamous stash. Curtis doesn't hesitate for a second to leap at this once in a life-time opportunity to get filthy rich! Suddenly the priest decides to stage a coup with his squad of plumed leopard dudes, just as the volcano over the city begins to erupt. Man, did they steal my 6th grade science project? Baking soda, red food coloring and vinegar, right? This is easily the highlight of the film as the city falls apart and citizens run directly under falling masonry while our chums idly try to decipher the clues to the location of the gold. Interestingly the location of the treasure is revealed by the sun hitting a crystal which focuses a beam of light on the correct obelisk which is covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ok, so it ain’t exactly the Tanis Map Room, but damn the similarity is pretty damn eye-brow raising.
This is certainly not the best adaptation out there, but it managed to hold my attention, mostly due to the cast and rampant silliness. At the same time, the ridiculous amount of padding and general uneventfulness of major portions of the film really make this something I can’t really rave about. I think the most disappointing thing about the film is the casting of John Colicos as Quatermain. He doesn’t need to be a pretty-boy like Stewart Granger, but damn, he looks more like a cranky plumber than a rugged adventurer. Even so, that would be fine if he had some decent acting chops or some screen charisma, of which he has neither and is constantly outshone by every one else in the cast. Brother, if you are the lead and David McCallum is stealing your scenes, there’s something seriously wrong. Clearly these video companies felt the same way:
Video archeologist Dr. Wilson and his native guide Simmonstipo are trying to divvy up the films for their upcoming coverage of Indiana Jones rip-offs. The conversation goes something like this.
Dr. Wilson: Give me the Italian ones! Sueyrestipo: Throw me the Cannon ones! No time to argue, you throw me the Cannon ones, I throw you the Italian ones. Dr. Wilson: But who will cover The Asylum rip-off? Sueyrestipo: Adiós señor!
Okay, that might not be exactly how it went down, but that is how I felt after watching The Asylum’s wannabe flick – betrayed, seriously let down and knowing my death might be impending.
The Asylum is a low-budget studio that got their start with horror and action flicks in the 1990s. They rose to prominence in 2005 when they released their own $1 million dollar version of WAR OF THE WOLDS starring C. Thomas Howell on DVD literally one day before Spielberg’s $100 million dollar plus “Tom Cruise saves the world” remake hit theaters. Lawsuits flew, alongside audience confusion no doubt. It was a bold move that would make Roger Corman proud. Amazingly, The Asylum won out in the end and the era of the “mockbuster” was born as they produced cheapjack knockoffs to anticipated big budget flicks. The already stupid SNAKES ON A PLANE begat SNAKES ON A TRAIN; KING KONG brought KING OF THE LOST WORLD; TRANSFORMERS was greeted with TRANSMORPHERS; and I AM LEGEND brought out I AM OMEGA. Unfortunately, unlike the variations Corman used to produce, their movies suck. Suck hard. So when news broke that Lucas and Spielberg were finally dusting off the fedora for a fourth Indiana Jones adventure, the fine folks at The Asylum jumped on public domain Allan Quatermain to birth their imitation. Hey, it worked for like a charm for Cannon, right?
This opens with two prospectors finding a map to King Solomon’s Mines (which I’m pretty certain the filmmakers got off the KSM Wikipedia entry) and splitting it 50-50 by tearing it in half. Huh? Obviously that makes no sense to one of these guys so he clocks his partner and takes off with both pieces. After his horse laughably jumps a cavern, our double-crosser is killed by a spear chucked by a local native. Cut to Allan Quatermain (Sean Cameron Michael) reading a letter that he needs £10,000 for his son’s boarding school tuition. He opts to sell half of the map (we’re never told how he got it) to evil Anisley (Christopher Adamson) for that amount. Heading to the bar meeting point, Quatermain meets Lady Anna (Natalie Stone) and Sir Henry Curtis (Daniel Bonjour), who are searching for her missing brother Neville (Nick Everhart).
"Talk to the hand!"
Things predictably fall through with Anisley and Quatermain escapes up with Anna on the world’s slowest train. The young bluebloods reveal they have the second half of the map and request his services to take them to the location and hopefully find Neville. Quatermain agrees for the sum of £40,000, with £20,000 of it upfront. Back at his house, Quatermain stuffs the money in two envelopes – one to mail to the school and one for his son if he dies – and gives it to housekeeper Umbopa (Wittly Jourdan). Yes, he is sending £10,000 cash through the mail in a thin envelope. And, yes, they made Umbopa a chick and a housekeeper. But plans get mucked up when some of Anisley’s men show up. So their journey starts sooner than expected as our four characters head into the treacherous South African landscape with Anisley in not-so-hot pursuit. Along the way they encounter CGI locusts, ankle sprains, and an African tribe (where, of course, Umbopa is the true queen) that likes to rip people’s skulls out with a CGI hand claw thingy.
Words can’t describe how bad this flick is. Seriously, look at these randomly selected Netflix reviews and try to fathom that the film is actually worse than this:
That's right, The Asylum even angered the fans of "Indiana Johns" with this movie! Michael, who looks a bit like Russell Crowe, has the look and is a decent actor, but director Mark Atkins can’t be bothered to capitalize on it. The script offers him absolutely nothing along the lines of clever lines and the occasional bits that might offer some energy (the train chase; a shootout while Anna is in the tub) are so bungled by Atkins.
"Yo, we hitting the mall after this?"
Don’t even get me started on the continuity of this film. Okay, I’ll start. The opening credits claim it is based on King Solomon’s Mines, so that would put the period setting around 1880. So that gives absolutely no excuse for the villain to mention the Nazi party! What? But, for the sake of argument and filmmaker leniency, let’s say it is set in the 1930s. That couldn’t excuse the embarrassing fact that the filmmakers have members of Anisley’s gang decked out in modern clothing (see pic). Why would you spend money giving Anna period clothing, but then not be bright enough to go, “Hey, that guy in the jeans and GAP shirt might not match the period setting.” Believe it or not, that isn’t even the most embarrassing gaffe! Incredibly, the filmmakers briefly capture Coca-Cola and Smirnoff Vodka logos on film. No doubt their excuse will be, “Hey, we checked Wikipedia and both those products were around then.” But I’ll like to bet they weren’t using their modern logos and – silly me – hadn’t penetrated the South African market at that point. Don’t believe me? Here you go:
How does this happen? These guys went all the way to South Africa to film, but are boneheaded enough not to think, “Hey, maybe we should move that Coke machine or at least shoot from a different angle.” Of course what do you expect from filmmakers who accidentally film a blinking security alarm inside a turn of the century house in Africa? Christ!
As with their entire mockbuster product, The Asylum went out of their way to ape the object of their “inspiration” and even boldly claim the film is “from the story that inspired Indiana Jones.” But Quatermain never uses a whip once in this flick. Hell, nothing on the cover is in this flick! Thai looking temple? Nope. Three bi-planes? Negative. Lion? Nada. Gold coins? No way. Decent movie? Aw, hellllll nah! They do get a Zulu looking tribe in there, but is composed of about five guys and they don’t have any bones through their noses. So much fail pretty much encapsulates the product of The Asylum – tons of promises that never arrive and potential flying away faster than a swarm of CGI locusts. It is the worst case scenario as the inmates running The Asylum aren’t crazy, just lazy (didn’t think I would get my “inmates” and “asylum” line in, did ya?).
In the interest of being excessively anal, we bring you a bird’s-eye view of what happened after the Golden Age of KING SOLOMON'S MINES. To be clear, obviously we love our '60s and ‘70s cinema, but even we just don’t have enough time to cover everything in one month. Hell, we started out with the plan of just doing "weeks" and you can see how that went!
After the success of MGM’s Academy Award winning KING SOLOMON’S MINES (1950) there were plenty of safari epics, but no one really went to plunder Solomon’s riches directly until 1959 when MGM decided to craft a sequel-slash-reboot titled WATUSI (aka THE QUEST FOR KING SOLOMON’S MINES) based on a screenplay by James Clavell. This time out it is Quatermain’s son Harry (George Montgomery) who is trying to retrace his father’s steps back to the fabled mines. Essentially a rehash of the original right down to trying to create that same sexual tension with a female in the wild but this time in a triangle. Of course stumbling across Umbopa’s tribe of tri-hawk/pompadour ‘fro sportin’ freaks, the witch and the mine are included as well. Notoriously padded with stock footage and churned out fast and dirty, this film has become increasingly rare. I'll give you one guess as to which '80s film prompted it's release on VHS. Man, how many suckers do you think they reeled in with that cover? Surprisingly they never got my three bucks, or if they did I successfully perfected my "Memoreez" serum that deletes memories that are too painful to relive. I’m not sure which.
In 1964 Piero Regnoli took a turn directing an entry in the staggeringly popular series of Italian sword n’ sandal films based on the legends of Maciste (aka Samson or Hercules) made from 1961-1965. Regnoli’s entry, MACISTE IN THE MINES OF KING SOLOMON (1964), had the conceit of having Maciste (Reg Park) captured and forced to work in a slave mine owned by the titular biblical king. The link to H. Rider Haggard is a little tenuous maybe, but Maciste interacts with native African tribes and saves everyone from the Mines of Doom. The movie showcases the usual male-bondage themes, so if you are into that sorta thing, this one’s for you.
Finally in 1977, the notorious Harry Allan Towers produced a mish-mash of both of Haggard’s Quatermain books titled KING SOLOMON’S TREASURE, directed by Alvin Rakoff (the man also responsible for the 1980 cult crapfest DEATH SHIP). A full review is forthcoming, but just to whet the appetite, here’s the ad that they ran in Variety. Looks amazing doesn’t it? Oooooooh, yes it does.
Pardon the 3 day interruption in VJ service, but even junkies get burned out every once and a while. We’re nearing the end of our month long “week” of Indiana Jones knock offs and things are getting rough. Let’s just say Patrick Swayze and The Asylum are not our favorite people right now (you’ll understand why over the next week).
As we’ve shown time and time again, after RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) became a worldwide hit, everyone with a camera and a fedora was doing an imitation. Not to be left out was the burgeoning Hong Kong film industry. And while we never got a straight up scene for scene rip-off, those crazy Chinese made sure to work some archeological adventure into their films.
Jackie Chan delivered the earliest and perhaps best known of the Hong Kong Jones inspired film with ARMOR OF GOD (1987). Following the stunning PROJECT A (1983) and the brilliant POLICE STORY (1985), Chan brought his archeologist style adventure on as Jackie (what a stretch) aka Asian Hawk, a former pop singer turned adventurer (!). He is called into service to help friend Alan (Alan Tam, another stretch) after their friend Laura (Rosamund Kwan) is kidnapped by some evil monks that want the other pieces of the treasure of the title. Opening with Jackie taking on an African tribe, this is totally the Asian Indiana Jones bolstered by some insane stunts that Lucas and Spielberg would never attempt. In fact, Jackie came closest to death while filming the opening and falling from a tree. He cracked his skull on a rock and it left a big hole in his head. No doubt this is how we can explain later decisions like the RUSH HOUR series, THE TUXEDO and THE KARATE KID remake.
The film proved to be Jackie’s biggest hit at the time and he returned with the big budget sequel ARMOR OF GOD II: OPERATION CONDOR (1991). This time around Jackie is given the task of tracking down some stolen Nazi gold. That’s a slim plot that offers nothing more than an excuse for Jackie to kick some butt. At the time this was the highest budgeted HK movie ever (roughly $15 million) and Jackie did everything bigger and better. He shot all over the globe (Spain, Morocco, Hong Kong) and really delivered some amazing set pieces. The last half hour inside the underground Nazi base is one of the highlights of the man’s astonishing career. Naturally the film came out and was even more popular at the HK box office. In fact, it was the biggest HK film of Jackie’s career until DRUNKEN MASTER II (1993) beat it (quick trivia: Chan’s biggest film ever at the HK box office was quasi-POLICE STORY sequel FIRST STRIKE [1996]; odd, ain’t it?). Ever since the film came out Jackie has been talking about a third part. Lately he’s been getting real serious about it, promising ARMOR OF GOD III: CHINESE ZODIAC will start shooting in 2011 and that it will be he last epic action movie. We’ll see, but we’re smart enough to know now that Jackie ain’t Jackie no more. This new guy is Stepford Jackie.
While Jackie was gobbling up finances and shooting for years, the opposite end of the budget spectrum in Hong Kong was also adding some Indiana Jones flavor. One such film is Wong Jing’s MAGIC CRYSTAL (1986), an action-adventure about an extraterrestrial jade rock. Andy Lau stars as Andy Lo (so versatile!) aka Hunting Eagle (what’s with the nicknames?), a master thief who gets wrapped up in international intrigue after his archeologist friend Shen Kun (Phillip Ko) unearths the titular object in Greece. Russian baddie Karov (Richard Norton) wants the object but Shen slips it into the luggage of Lo’s nephew Pin-Pin. Back in Hong Kong the glowing rock befriends the little kid (shades of E.T.) and muuuuuch bad comedy ensues before the rock tells Pin-Pin to head back to Greece. Naturally the annoying tyke is kidnapped and Lo, along with some Interpol agents (including Cynthia Rothrock), try to stop the bad guys.
Honestly this only gets into our breakdown thanks to the last 20 minutes that are set in a booby trapped cavern under some ancient Greek ruins. The filmmakers directly lift the treacherous arrow spewing hallway from the opening of RAIDERS. Of course, they make sure to have a guy get snuffed out by hundreds of them. The final battle takes place in a large throne room where the calcified remains of an alien remain inside a UFO control booth (amazingly, it has left a recorded message for visitors in a modern language). Everyone throws down in the brawl until Russian badguy Karov gets sucked into another dimension. Wait a sec…aliens, magic crystals, spaceships and a Russian getting zapped into a vortex? This is INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL! Seriously, did LucasFilm screen this one? If they did, they thankfully left out all the bad comedy (well, maybe). Like all flicks by Wong Jing (who also co-stars as a “funny” sidekick), this is filled with awwwwful comedy for the first hour. How bad? The comedic “highlight” is the crystal switching the hands and feet of a doofus.
It is a shame because there are some pretty damn good fights in this. I’m surprised at how much fighting Andy Lau did on his own and 80s Norton and Rothrock were in their absolute prime here. One could make an edit that removes all the comedy and you would have a pretty kickass 40 minute short film.
Thankfully lame comedy doesn’t permeate THE SEVENTH CURSE (1986), one of the wildest and wackiest HK action flick to imitate Indiana. The film opens with Dr. Yuan Chen (Chin Siu Ho) and friend Wisely (Chow Yun Fat) telling a bevy of Asian babes about their craziest past adventure (thanks, Mr. Director, for letting us know they survive). Chen, it seems, had contracted a blood sickness while doing some anthropological work in Thailand. He was saved by native Betsy, but her cure only lasted for a year. Twelve months later, Chen is visited by villager Heh Lung, who warns him of the curse and says he must return to Thailand to cure himself. The disease quickly manifests in the form of loud popping blood blisters while Chen is getting it on with a white chick (major bummer!). He consults with Wisely, who advises him to return to Thailand to cure himself. Uh, didn’t Heh Lung just tell you that? Anyway, the whole group heads there and prepares to battle with the Worm Tribe and their High Priest who likes to feed little children into a crusher so he can use their blood to resurrect their ancient King.
If I had to recommend one Asian flick that delivers the Indiana Jones level of thrills, this would be it. Not only does it carry over the adventure elements (the sacrificing of children is like TEMPLE OF DOOM), but it excessively goes overboard on them. How over-the-top is this movie? There is a throw away gag where a helper is caught in a booby trap between two bamboo trees and graphically ripped in half. Later, there is a bit at the end where a guard unnecessarily gets shot with an arrow and blasted by a shotgun at the same time. You have to love that level of ridiculousness. It is also worth noting that the supporting character of Wisely is a popular Asian adventurer character started in novels in the 1960s. Like MAGIC CRYSTAL, the last 20 minutes are really where the Indiana Jones replication lies with a fight on a giant Buddha statue. The head even falls off it and we get a variation of the giant boulder scene from RAIDERS. Director Ngai Kai Lam – who later made the equally crazy cult flicks THE STORY OF RICKY (1991) and THE CAT (1992) – leaves no exploitation stone unturned. You can count on a fight or something crazy happening every five minutes. And that is why we love this flick!
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