Das Geheimnis der vier Kronjuwelen

My review was written in January 1983 after a screening on Manhattan's UES.

"Treasure of the Four Crowns" is topliner-producer Tony Anthony's failed attempt to emulate the adventure and fantasy of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 3-D format. Public interest in depth pictures (spurred by Anthony's previous "Comin' at Ya!" film) should assure good openings, but eye-taxing visuals and weak story values spell trouble in building a wider audience.

Sharing "Comin' at Ya!"'s problem in over-emphasizing gimmickry, "Treasure" often resembles a Silent Era trick film, stringing together 3-D gags art the expense of continuity and narrative. After the obligatory "Star Wars" serial-styled intro crawl, credits sequence presents the wording on a different plane from the action, creating focusing problems for the viewer. First 20 minute of the picture are sans dialog, as adventurer Stiker (Tony Anthony) undergoes an incoherent series of perils in a Spanish castle in order to fetch a magic key.

Delayed exposition establishes a quest byh Prof. Montgomery (Francisco Villena) to recover two ancient crowns containing golden balls that hold the powers of good and evil, fashioned by the visigoths. Striker organizes a "Mission: Impossible"crew to retrieve them from European relligious cult leader (hailing from Brooklyn) Brother Jonas (Emiliano Redondo): the prof's assistant Edmond (Gene Quintano), a drunken mountain climber Rick (Jerry Lazarus), circus strongman (now clown) Socrates (Francisco Rabal) and his trapeze artist daughter Liz (Ana Obregon).

Final 40 minutes of the picture detail the team's assault on Jonas's fortress, executed with fine physical action scenes, pyrotechnics and stunt work.

Problem is that the filmmakers include too frequent an array of negative parallax shots, that is, objects photographed to appear rapidly moving off the screen into theatre space. Combination of fast cutting and rapid movement of objects does not allow one's eyes to easily adjust to the changes in stereo convergence. Result is strain, fatigue and another setback in the effort to make 3-D a viable, standard filmmaking tool.

On the plus side, "Treasure" has effective sets and many pleasing depth shots amidst the flashy ones. Aerialists performing in a circus look good in 3-D, as do exploding miniatures and other fireworks. Hampered by inadequate dubbing the cast performs well physically, with no discernible doubles during the exciting hanging-from-the-ceiling caper to steal the crowns.

Special effects are hokey, with Anthony's spinning head and subsequent good/evil makeup when he gets the crowns' power proving to be laughable. Action is carried by solid sound effects and an alternately driving or romantic Ennio Morricone score.

Numerous raid on "Raiders" include Obregon's sassy intro to Anthony, which echoes Karen Allen's greeting to Harrison Ford, large flaming balls rolling after Anthony; a mist-filled trunk instead of ark holding the key and a silly finale with flamethrowers emanating from Anthoy's hands at the baddies. Instead of getting mad at this imitation, hopefully George Lucas and/or Steven Spielberg will make their own 3-D adventures and thereby validate the process.

I could see the producers showing this to investors and saying "this is the future of movies". It's kind of overdone, like showing the most extreme examples of the 3D effect really getting in people's faces. That, seemingly, is the only reason for it's existence. It was part of a short revival of the 3D process, and i remember seeing it in a theater and thinking at the time how cool it was.

What's the plot? Well, a guy in a red windbreaker walks around and does some "treasure hnting" stuff, while things pop up at him (and us) in a vaguely surprising way. There really isn't any other plot than that. It could be argued that it was based on the popularity of "raiders of the lost ark", but you could actually argue just as convincingly that it's based on "the ghost and mr. Chicken". Recommended just for the flat out gimmicky-ness of it.

I remember this movie coming on numerous times on HBO and Cinemax when I was a kid and I watched it every chance I could. I know now that it was a cheesy movie and if I watched it again it would probably be not as good as I remembered, but I did like it when I was a kid. Sure most 3-d movies do the hokey sticking stuff in your face routine, and this movie is no different, but I still enjoyed it. Even though during one scene of the movie you can see the string on the "flying" key. The parts I enjoyed most are the first and last parts of the movie. The lead guy in the first part has to get through various traps to retrieve this key thing. I always love boobey traps. The middle just consists of him recruiting people to help retrieve the two crowns. Then it is like a spy movie as they break into some cults palace that has numerous traps. And yes there were only three crowns, one only had paper, the other two had gems, the forth one supposedly was broken by someone who tried to open it without the key. I don't think this was in the original foriegn version. I think it was mentioned only because Treasure of the Three Crowns just doesn't have the same type of ring to it. In the end many of the characters die, and perhaps they get the stones or not...I would say but I don't want to spoil the really dumb ending.

J.T. Striker (Tony Anthony) is an adventurer / fortune hunter hired by his associates Edmond (Gene Quintano) and Professor Montgomery (Francisco Villena) to get his hands on the legendary Four Crowns, which when obtained can make a person all powerful. This he has to do because diabolical religious cult leader Brother Jonas (Emiliano Redondo) is using them to control his mindless flock. To accomplish his task, J.T. gathers together a bunch of his old friends: the weary old Socrates (Francisco Rabal), the drunken Rick (Jerry Lazarus), and the super sexy Liz (Ana Obregon).

You know you're in trouble when the opening "Star Wars" style crawl is sorely lacking in any sort of punctuation. This basically amiable movie, rushed into production in order to cash in on the success of the previous Cannon Group 3-D feature, "Comin' at Ya!", is entertaining in spurts. Its extreme crudeness and cheesiness (one can clearly see the strings that are manipulating objects) could have been forgiven if only the movie had more energy. It moves along much too slowly, and there's overkill in terms of exposition. The acting from most of the cast is pretty bland. The filmmakers thrust as many objects into the camera as they can.

Helping to uplift "Treasure of the Four Crowns" (starting with that title, it's all too obvious which hit movie was a big influence on this one) to a degree are its WTF moments, its admittedly amusing opening set piece that goes on for over 20 minutes without dialogue, its absolutely priceless climax, and a wonderful, stirring Ennio Morricone music score that truly deserved a better movie.

This just isn't as much fun as this viewer would have liked.

Five out of 10.

When I was a kid, I saw this movie and I loved it. I thought it was one of the best movies I'd ever seen. Ten years later, I picked it up at the video store to take another look.

Ouch.

OUCH!

This is a bad movie! Really bad! Cheesy, badly dubbed, almost everything is done badly. Love those wires on the "floating" key! The climax is hilarious!

One good thing about the movie: Ever reliable Ennio Morricone gives the movie a good score.