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!
Godfrey Ho is an exploitation God! If you agree with that statement, you might want to get your head checked. Despite rumors to the contrary, Ho is a real person and he is one foolish filmmaker. He is perhaps best know for taking newly shot ridiculous ninja footage starring some of the world’s oddest gweilo actors (most notably Richard Harrison) and splicing it into older Asian films. They usually make little sense, yet we still love him for his cinematic cut-and-paste transgressions. The dude has even stolen music from RAIDERS for his ninja epics. Oddly enough, HANDS OF DEATH makes it into our RAIDERS rip-off retrospective not for the Ho lensed inserts or any illegal music sharing, but for the unknown film that makes up the bulk of it.
Okay, we’ve got two unrelated storylines working here that the dubbers somehow try to tie together so please forgive me if you get confused. The film opens with evil Baron (Mike Abbott, looking like a plush doll version of Robert Z’Dar) killing two guys and stealing their map to a hidden treasure inside Devil’s Cave. “It’s in Willy’s territory,” says the elated Baron since he and the equally evil Willy are partners. Smash cut to the other film as some women are trying to escape from Willy’s slave camp. One woman is shot and dies near the camp of an Army dude/ninja (Richard Harrison, whose name is never given so I’ll call him Harrison). She tells him about Baron and Willy’s operation, so Harrison decides to stick around in the forest to stop Baron. Meanwhile (we’ll get lots of those), Indiana Jones looking Chester saves his sister who is among the group (she mistakenly once refers to Chester as Robert).
Later, Baron and Willy “meet” (re: are edited talking together) to discuss the map. They decide that Willy will do the digging while Baron will do the protection (odd because the girl who died in Harrison’s camp in the opening already knew this before the agreement). Alright, now is where my head starts to hurt. Jenny, the girl who escaped with Chester’s sister, tries to convince him to go on a mission to find the treasure but he declines because of his sister’s condition. Jenny’s friend Jack then goes to persuade him and gets the same negative answer right as a guy runs into the room saying the doctor needs to see Chester. Seems his sister just died, so Chester says “now I can go on my treasure hunt.” So Jenny, Jack, Chester and a guy named David all head into the jungle. Meanwhile, Harrison is busy setting booby traps while his men Ronnie and Mickey (great ninja names) stalk Baron. They apparently suck at it as they are both killed.
Back to the main film, we get a nonsensical bit where some peeping toms spy on the bathing slave girls before they are scared off by a pistol shooting babe. Our heroes trek through the jungle and are all captured by Willy with the men taken off to be executed. They are thrown into a flaming pond (!?!) but are saved by a – hold onto your seats – a jungle girl named Jane. Everyone escapes, but before they get to Jenny she is raped in a hotel (???) and then sold to cannibals in the jungle (2x???). The group attack the cannibals (whose leader looks like Peter Lorre) and save all of the girls. Willy, who is now sporting a Jones-like fedora, and his team make it to the cave, but don’t know that Jane and her witch mother live in the cave too. Chester and his team make it to a different entrance, which is far more treacherous as they encounter a cheap rolling boulder and a bunch of snakes. It is a hilarious bit as everyone stands there all scared before bolting to the huge 10-ft wide pathway that is just a few feet to their right.
Eventually everyone converges outside the treasure’s location and clash in an explosion of kung fu fighting. Our heroes win and enter to grab the treasure, only to find the room is full of nothing but skeletons. “There’s no treasure here,” says one member who throws down the map. We follow it as it falls just a few feet down a cavern to expose a bunch of hidden gold. The group leaves without looking around AT ALL, so they get no fortune. Cut to the severely beaten up Willy crawling out and finding the gold. “I’m rich,” he exclaims before he dies on the spot. The film then wraps up with the requisite ninja vs. ninja fight as Baron and Harrison get in their best day-glo ninja duds and duke it out. As is always the case in a Ho movie, the good guy is victorious but quickly loses out to the world’s fastest “The End” title card.
Like all of these Ho ninja flicks, this is one schizophrenic movie. His slapped together movies (and those of fellow cut-and-pasters Tomas Tang and Joseph Lai) are always tough to follow in a narrative sense, but this one is doubly difficult. Godfrey Ho’s HANDS OF DEATH indeed! But I enjoyed it because of the goofy nature of the newly shot stuff. Seriously, it is hilarious seeing guys refer to Harrison as Colonel and he is decked out in fatigues but still sporting a ninja headband. Is this some new branch of the military? Also, the main feature is actually a pretty decent movie. It is really a shame that the main feature that Ho cannibalized doesn’t get any proper credit. They are obviously doing a RAIDERS rip off and, for the small budget, it is pretty entertaining. There are fights every few minutes and Dr. Jones surrogate Chester (yes, an Asian guy named Chester) gets plenty of action out of his shotgun.
After the success of Cannon’s adaptation-cum-rip-off KING SOLOMON’S MINES (1985) it took a surprising amount of time for Golan and Globus to get their act together and do what they do… well, maybe it wasn’t exactly what they did best, but sequels they did! They didn’t even need a reason! They were crazy, you couldn’t stop them! Though many of their awful sequels are getting lavished with praise for being the cinematic equivalent of a mullet, let’s be honest, a lot of ‘em really sucked. You can talk up the merits of Cannon’s exploitation efforts and I’m with ya until you start bringing up those roman numerals. No amount of alcohol can put THE EXTERMINATOR II (1984) anywhere near on par with the original. SUPERMAN IV (1987), I don’t think so, and this is coming from someone who finds SUPERMAN III (1983) to be a misunderstood classic. Don’t even get me started on the DELTA FORCE or MISSING IN ACTION sequels. I gots me some strong love for da Cannon, but a man’s gotta know their limitations.
Where KING SOLOMON’S MINES was a fun, fast-paced, and totally ridiculous puree of Indiana Jones and Allan Quatermain, ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD is a blue streak of insanity that gleefully plunges into the sun after discovering that you can’t make wings out of crap.
The huge deficits in the film’s fun factor start early on. We find a soft-focus shot Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) living a cloying life of an almost married couple with Jesse (Sharon Stone). Quatermain idles away the time by having African boys set up a see-saw that they jump on to launch fruit and vegetables into the air for Quatermain to shoot. Jesse is all excited about a package she just got via the train and is bubbling with excitement as it is a suit for Quatermain. They are to be married in the states and it just won’t do to have him dressed up in his safari gear. Is your enthusiasm starting to wilt yet? Not to worry, the “Little House in the Bush” thing ends soon. A white man, being pursued by black men in hoods with lots of gold jewelry (how do they go to the bathroom with all that stuff on?), collapses on Quatermain’s front porch. Quatermain runs after the attackers, fights them and comes back with an ornate kukri knife and a ruined suit. The man is an adventurer named Dumont who is a friend of Quatermain’s brother (when did Quatermain get a brother?!) with whom he went searching for the fabled city of gold that is supposedly home to the lost white African race. Ummm… What?
Quatermain embarks on his new adventure much to the dismay of Jesse who actually takes off to America without him, then half way to the train has a change of head, flips out and starts throwing off her travelling clothes in the back of the convertible and throwing them over a cliff. Quatermain, meanwhile follows up on some leads that Dumont gave him before being killed by the white hooded dudes who managed to sneak into Quatermain’s house, grapple with a screaming Dumont, strangle him to death and sneak out again without anyone being the wiser. On the way to following Dumont’s clues, Quatermain is hounded by a street peddler who insists that he has some silver shirts that will repel daggers, Quatermain finally buys some just to shut they guy up. You don’t think they’ll factor into the plot later, do you? This brings Quatermain in contact with his new travelling companions: Swarma (Robert Donner) a phony swami who claims to be the holiest of men but is actually a greedy coward, and yes, his character is the *ahem* comic relief, and Umslopogaas (James Earl Jones), an axe and platitude-wielding barbarian warrior who seems much more suited to be a character in a sequel to CONAN THE DESTROYER (1984). James, buddy, what was it? A new swimming pool? A pony for your daughter? What?
After some serious slogging Quatermain and company find The Walls of Jaupura (aren’t those in India?), which has a path leading right down the middle. The thunder peals through the sky and Umslopogaas gravely intones “it is the wrath of angry souls”. Or just the foley guys trying to distract you from the fact that they are on a tiny foam set. Of course it is a trap and Quatermain and Jesse come face to face with the rotting corpse of his brother’s travelling companion. The episodic nature of this film really kicks in at this point with an angry native tribe who refuse to accept a teapot instead of Jesse, an encounter with a super-scary (at least to Swarma) whirlpool, the Magic Mountain log ride done via a painfully unexciting blue-screen with a giant pillar of fire erupting from the whirlpool as rubber river monsters belch giant toothy worms. This is the part where I stared down the neck of an empty bottle of likker and muttered “what do they put in this stuff?”
As they paddle closer to… whatever… they start sweating from the heat.
Swarma: “You are entering the devil’s heart!”
Jesse: “Are we entering a volcano?”
Quatermain: “No, just the devil’s heart.”
Once out of the boat, screenwriter Gene Quintano suddenly seems to run out of crazy to throw at us and decides to turn a scene where the group must leap across a five-foot chasm into an epic affair. Seriously, it goes on for eeeever with the increasingly grating Swarma babbling in terror. Once across they are attacked by a lion who leaps into the scene, is promptly shot dead by Quatermain, exit stage left! Cue rubber bat attack! Or well, actually rubber bat fly-by. If it weren’t for all the not-terribly-special effects and the single animal wrangling, I’d say someone just made this stuff up on the day of shooting.
Quatermain finds the lost city! Yay! A lion attacks a small white child! Boo! Quartermain shoots! Lion dead... again. From here we discover that like keys on my piano the legendary “white race” are living here in harmony with the black race. They eat fruit and worship lions… Uh oh. What did Quatermain shoot dead twice? This can’t be good. Even if they are a bunch of fruit eatin’ hippies. The queen of the city is a passive hottie (Aileen Marson) that’s hooked up with Quatermain’s rather foppish looking brother, but the real ruler of the city is the high priest Agon (Henry Silva) who is running a slave mine and dipping his subjects into a pit of molten gold. Oh, and laughing maniacally. I’d accuse Henry Silva of chewing the scenery, but it’s more like he’s in a pissing contest with it. With a massive frizzy wig that makes him look like a taller version of Dio, Silva acts as if the colossal marble and gold sets are trying to horn in on his limelight and by christ he ain’t havin’ none of it!
As it turns out, the Queen isn’t really fond of Agon anyway and is getting tired of him dipping people in his giant pool of molten gold that lies at the bottom of his gold mine of doom. The queen gives the thumbs up for Quatermain and company to mount an epic battle against Agon’s army and kill them all by melting a giant gold statue with lightning bolts. Did I stutter? You heard me. Lightning bolts. Melting gold statue. Dead army.
Yes, H. Rider Haggard did write a sequel to “King Solomon’s Mines” titled “Allan Quatermain”. This movie could be considered an adaptation of it only for the fact that the names of some of the characters are actually in the film and that it takes place in Africa. Oh and Quatermain stumbles across a white tribe of extremely bloodthirsty warriors, except here the tribe has been changed to a lost city of crackers living in utopian peace and a nutty priest that dips people in molten gold. Yeah, I guess you could make the case that the first one didn’t exactly hold true to the book either, but this one just runs completely loony with the premise. Of course, if it didn’t, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to watch. The movie ends with Quatermain telling Jesse, “I’ve been thinking, it’s time for something else.” To which Jesse replies, “some other great adventure?” The mind boggles at what a third entry could hold. Maybe someday fellow Junkie Will (hoarder of a Variety of ads) will stumble across that trade ad. One can only hope.
Bruno Mattei is an exploitation God! If you agree with that statement (and you damn well better), you are more than welcome here at Video Junkie. Entering the Italian film industry in the 1950s as an apprentice editor, Mattei eventually began directing films in the 1970s. He succeeded in the Naziploitation genre in the 70s before really hitting his stride in the 1980s with his unique brand of exploitation cinema. The Italians were always doing imitations, but Mattei specialized in doing nearly carbon copies that were as off the wall as they were entertaining. During this prolific period, he copied tons of blockbusters including DAWN OF THE DEAD, EMANUELLE, RAMBO, ALIENS, TERMINATOR 2, JAWS, ROBOCOP and PREDATOR. He never met a movie he didn't like to rip off. In the land of Xerox cinema, Mattei was king and while he never did a full blown RAIDERS rip-off, he did manage to mimic the film twice in his own unique way.
Mattei’s first foray into Jonesploitation came through the oddest of vehicles. His earlier STRIKE COMMANDO (1987) starring Reb Brown was standard ‘Namsploitation and proved to be a big enough hit to warrant a sequel. So when Bruno decided to explore the further adventures of Mike Ransom in STRIKE COMMANDO 2 (1988), he opted to think outside the box. In this entry, Ransom (recast with Brent Huff) tries to locate his in trouble former superior, Vic Jenkins (Richard Harris…yes, THAT Richard Harris). Ransom finds him, only to discover he has led kidnappers to Jenkins’ hiding place. Strike Commando, you dumbass! As a U.S. Government agent informs Ransom, Jenkins was also a “frozen agent” and is now being held hostage in Burma by Huan To (Vic Diaz). Ransom is ordered to pay a ransom (ha!) of $10 million dollars in diamonds. The rendezvous point is a bar in the middle of nowhere called the Moulin Rouge, where Ransom finds owner Rosanna Boom (Mary Stavin) engaging in a drinking contest with a burly patron. Sound familiar? K.G.B. agent Kramet (Mel Davidson) arrives to pick up the diamonds and brings along some ninjas for good measure. Naturally, the place burns down and Ransom suddenly finds himself with a partner. Together he and Rosanna trek to Huan To’s base and quickly free Jenkins. But all isn’t as it appears to be as Jenkins is actually in on the whole thing and a double crossing agent. Strike Commando, you double dumbass!
Mattei is really getting his rip off groove on here, and the film should be called RAIDERS ROMANCING THE LOST STONE ARK: FIRST BLOOD pt. II. Obviously John Rambo gets the biggest rip-off percentage (nearly everything from the second Stallone sequel is in here), so the RAIDERS riffs are the delicious icing on this bootleg cake. The RAIDERS-esque drinking scene is hilarious with Mattei spicing up the rules as the “first to belch loses.” The ensuing fight is exactly the same, but Bruno had the foresight to throw in freakin’ ninjas. Kramet is a merging of Belloq and Tot. He is supposed to be Russian but talks with a German accent the whole time. The other big lift is the truck chase from RAIDERS. Mattei recreates it here, even going so far as to have the bit where the grill bars break on the guy hanging from the front. Oh, and freakin’ ninjas instead of Nazi soldiers crawling on the sides! On a completely unrelated to Indiana Jones note, it is a hoot seeing Richard Harris in this. We’re not talking some small cameo either. Dude is in a huge portion of the movie and shares the screen with Filipino exploitation legend Vic Diaz. He must have felt honored (Harris, not Diaz). Rumor has it the Philippines bars haven’t been the same since Typhoon Harris hit.
Mattei returned to the Indiana Jones well over 15 years later for THE TOMB (2004). The Italian film landscape had changed dramatically since Bruno began pumping out his knock offs, so much so that Mattei ended his career shooting on digital video. THE TOMB was one of his early forays into this medium and shows the man still had the mimicking mindset, even if he didn’t have the budget. The film opens with an Aztec ceremony where …well, I’ll let the narrator explain… “on the night of the 21rst day under the sign of the eagle, the stars aligned themselves and Tatamaki (Hugo Barret), disobeying the king's orders, began the sacrificial ceremony that would enable Cohacli (sp?) to arise from the dark world of the hereafter wither she had been exiled by the wraith of Kokokhan, the Supreme God.” Got all that? So he sacrifices some AVATAR looking blue folk before the locals show up to stop it. The priest is killed but his female assistant performs an embalming ritual on him that involves poking out his eyes so she can resurrect him in the future.
Cut the present as Professor Tom Langley (Robert Madison) arrives with a bunch of students in Mexico (actually the Philippines) for an archeological dig. The night before they are scheduled to go out their guide goes to a bar (totally cribbing the dance bit from FROM DUSK TILL DAWN) and is killed in a graveyard (Mattei boldly steals footage from Sam Raimi’s ARMY OF DARKNESS here). In need of a guide, the group settles on Bruha (Anna Marcello), a local witchdoctor who they meet mid-exorcism (not a good sign). Everyone traipses though the jungle before they find the ancient Aztec soundstage, er, temple from the film’s opening. What no one in the group knows is Bruha is the reincarnation of the evil priest’s assistant and that she plans to bring her mummified boss back. And, even better, group member Liz (Kasia Zurakowska) is the reincarnation of the final victim who never got sacrificed.
This one is pretty terrible, but I think trash fans will appreciate it. Mattei’s movies are like a guessing game where you try to figure out what he stole from. Here the main influence is Universal’s 1999 redux THE MUMMY. How do I know? Well, he cribs stuff scene for scene and even uses ACTUAL footage from that movie. But we’re talking Indiana Jones rip-offs here and I’ll inform you this does apply. Outside of the requisite spiders, snakes, booby trapped tunnels and jungle stuff, Mattei does one special thing to let you know he is ripping off RAIDERS. For two brief shots he actually STEALS footage from the film. How do you say “that takes balls” in Italian? During the exorcism scene, the evil spirit is released and Mattei superimposes the ghost girl/skeleton from ark opening from the end of RAIDERS. Genius! During the film’s finale, he uses a shot from the Well of Souls where the skeletons pop off the wall. Double genius! Don’t believe me? Check out the frame grabs below. While blatantly illegal, this is a true hero move. I’d love to think this is Bruno thumbing his nose at the entire film industry while saying, “Take your big budgets, studios, politics and shove ‘em!” Rest in peace, Mr. Mattei, ya copycat!
During the Lucasfilm and Disney partnership of the '80s, there were plans to build a massive Indiana Jones attraction taking up, and reconstructing most of Adventureland.
This sort of runs OT when it comes to Indiana Jones movie rip-offs, but hey, it's still some really interesting reading for Indy buffs and theme park freaks alike. Even better if you are both!
These two blogs do a great job covering the plans, concept art and why it was never built. Though that last part is an easy one... Money talks and Indy walks.
For those who are really obsessive about interesting info and trivia on the genesis of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), this is probably the ultimate in uber-nerd cool.
An overview of the marathon brainstorming meetings between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan who developed the film over a series of meetings. This overview also contains links to the actual transcripts of those meetings.
I’m sure there have been good films made in South Africa. I mean, it’s a law of averages thing. Science doesn’t lie, right?
After the international success of THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY (1980) and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) and subsequently Cannon’s KING SOLOMON’S MINES (1985), if you were a South African film mogul and were sitting around for three years waiting for the fluorescent bulb above your head to flicker to life, what would you come up with? Well it’s obvious, get the cast from THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY and put them in a ramshackle knock-off of KING SOLOMON’S MINES and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK! This forehead slapper was so ingenious that it could only be foiled by one thing: bad production and bad script. Ok, two things: bad production, bad script and lack of budget. Ok, three things! Bad production, bad script, lack of budget and horrible acting. Four things! Oh, never mind…
Set during an unspecified point during WWII, JEWEL OF THE GODS starts out with a bang, literally! A white guy in a safari getup clandestinely takes pictures of a native sacrifice (bizarrely set to cheery steel drum music) in which a witchdoctor perched atop a boulder wields a jerry-rigged bat-head crucifix with a purple gem set in the middle. The witchdoctor holds it up and a purple laserbeam shoots out of the gem and causes the sacrificial victim to explode! Dude, this totally has to rule, right?
The basic cruxt of the plot is the hunt for the fabled “Purple Diamonds” (yes, that’s the best name they could come up with) which are purported to be in the fabled Mines of King Solomon. The Nazis figure they would be invincible with an army wielding the gems, the British send their… ummm, not-so best, agent out to foil the German ambition and then there’s our Aussie Indy-wannabe, Snowy Grinder (Marius Weyers). Yes, someone thought that was a good heroic name.
Snowy has written a book on the subject and apparently this has led to several disappearances, this time of one Dr. Jim Hartwell. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking where’s the comic sidekick, man? Not to worry, we have one in the form of Archie (Taylor Negron’s long lost twin Joseph Ribeiro), a Calcutta-born, Texas-bred mechanical engineer who squeals like a girl while in danger and has moments of implied homosexuality. And wears an '80s foam baseball cap with a silk-screened picture of Texas... in the '40s. One character, three groups offended and time period anachronisms be dammed! That’s got to be a record. Anyway, Archie finds Snowy attempting to mine gold in a desert and when Snowy asks if he’s looking to get his copy of Snowy’s book autographed, Archie says “I don’t give a cow’s fuck for your autograph!” and explains that he wants Snowy’s help to find the lost Dr. Jim and shows him a purple diamond to prove that they exist. Of course Snowy is on this info like ugly on an ape.
Meanwhile, the Nazis discover Snowy’s book and hear tell that Archie knows someone who has a map to the fabled mines and it doesn’t take them too long to figure the pair can lead them to the purple diamonds. The running joke here is that Nazis bump their heads on things and commit painfully unfunny mixed-metaphors, such as “ze rolling stone catches ze early worm!” Oh, make it stop!
One Mr. Crow (Richard Cox) of special branch is also set out to find Snowy with the advice “chin up, don’t drink too much and don’t rape anyone important”. Yikes! Just like the warnings “do not drink” on windex bottles, if you have to say it, that means someone has done it. Moments like these pop-up every now and then and seem rather jarring against what is obviously trying to be an amiable, family-friendly adventure romp with bumbling Nazi stereotypes pulled straight out of “Hogan’s Heroes”. Matter of fact the movie is loaded with condescending stereotypes such as brothel owner Abdul (who looks like Roger E. Mosley in a fez) who is mad when the Nazis open fire on his boat because “this is costing me money!” Not to mention the fact that all the black characters are either loin-cloth clad spear-chuckers or are pigeon-English talking, wide-eyed, common clay of South Africa… you know… morons. In one scene where Snowy is at the Red Cross camp, he asks a patient where Dr. Hartwell’s room is. The patient looks confused so Snowy translates into coherent gibberish, “great white med’cine man, where he do dreaming?”, and is promptly pointed in the right direction.
As it turns out Mr. Crow is a mercenary and a black market dealer who wants to get the purple diamonds so he can sell them to the Nazis. He may wear a white suit, but Belloque he ain’t. He does however provide a rather uninteresting villain to chase around Snowy and Archie for a while, giving more opportunity for Archie to do his bug-eyed girly-screaming thing some more. By the time this is over you will be ready to club Archie like a baby seal, and that is long before the “hilarious” scenes where he falls asleep in a tree and dreams that the snake that is crawling on his arm is his lover’s caress only to awaken, screaming his head off to fall out of the tree into a pit filled with tarantulas… which he is scared of too, leading to more screaming. Seriously? Someone thought this would be funny? I wonder what the screenwriter was thinking when hammering out the script?
Snowy meets up with Dr. Hartwell only to find out that the doctor is *gasp* Ally Hartwell (Sandra Prinsloo)… a woman! What is the world coming to? Sheesh! They now let women play “doctor” with real people! God forbid we let them drive automobiles! Ally lets Snowy spend the night in her house, on the sofa, and clearly she has been in the bush too long as her attempt to seduce him consists of pretending to sleepwalk into the living room where she opens a book and the map to the mines falls out. Naturally Snowy, buying into Ally’s cheesy sleepwalking routine, ignores her silky negligee, jumps on the map and heads out to the mines in the morning with Archie and Ally in tow. Of course this is not before Ally gets gussied up in a gown to keep the commandant “busy” while Snowy sneaks around to get the lay of the land, so to speak (ummm... why didn't she try the evening gown and champagne trick on Snowy?). The Nazis now have the witchdoctor and his purple diamond crucifix and demonstrate its powers on an insolent Afrikaner (whose acting is so stunning that he is either a random farmer or a member of the crew). At this point our group decides to perform the raid at night as the purple diamonds are powerless in the dark as their lasers are created by sunlight!
As it turns out the “mine” is actually a high-tech, trap-laden installation ala OPERATION CONDOR (1991) and there is some musings that it might be of alien origin, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s simply the old favorite of cheap producers everywhere: an abandoned refinery. In an attempt to work in more “King Solomon’s Mines” plot devices, the witchdoctor gets in a slow, poorly choreographed fight with the presumed lost Dr. Jim causing the whole place to start exploding with purple lasers shooting everywhere. Wait, I thought the diamonds needed sunlight? Wtf? The group make their escape from the mine in a scene where they clearly wanted to do the mine car sequence from INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984), except that their mine car is freakin’ tiny, made of wood and you could easily catch up with it by simply walking. What follows is a scene in which some Nazis in a motorcycle and sidecar chase the truck containing our heroes at breakneck speeds of up to 10 miles an hour! Seriously, I really don’t like seeing chase sequences undercranked, but this is pretty embarrassing. The film ends with a direct rip-off of the train sequence from Cannon’s KING SOLOMON’S MINES right down to the dialogue “The train will stop”, “it’s not stopping”, “it has to stop!” Of course once on the train, the mimicry ends as presumably they didn’t have the funds to stage another action sequence.
There are a couple of interesting things about the film, not the least of which is the name of the gaffer, Fuzzy Skinner. One is that the cast is well versed stage actors. Sandra Prinsloo has the distinction of causing a political uproar in 1985 during a stageplay titled “Miss Julie” in which she caused the audience to walk-out on the production because she kissed a black man (yes, I said 1985 not 1895). Joseph Ribeiro is a Fulbright scholar who has won awards for his stagework in Northern California where he teaches theater. Marius Weyers has been in everything from GHANDI (1982) to DEEP STAR SIX (1989) and while he’s no Harrison Ford, he is plenty competent when given something slightly better conceived to do. Also, there are a few moments in the film that make you wonder if Lucasburg saw it. The truck/motorcycle-sidecar chase from INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) is extremely reminiscent of the one found here, except here they shoot a purple laser at the sidecar and it detaches from the motorcycle and slides across the ground into a river where the irate Nazi is humorously deluged with water. Also, they mention that the artifact that they are after could be of alien origin and what was the last idea Lucasburg had for Indy? Yeah, that last sequel was so bad that I could totally believe that they stole the idea for it from this bastard child of a movie.
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.
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