King Solomon's Treasure

While hunting for game in Africa, a man by the name of "Allan Quatermain" (John Colicos) kills a man in self-defense who is clad in leopard skins and wearing a strange medallion around his neck. Puzzled by the strange inscriptions on it, he then consults with a colleague of his named "Sir Henry Curtis" (David McCallum) and, together with a former Royal Navy officer by the name of "Captain John Good" (Patrick MacNee), the three set off to find a treasure hidden in an unchartered part of Africa by the famous King Solomon. Now, having seen two similar movies under the title of "King Solomon's Mines" produced in 1937 and then again in 1950, I must say that this low-budget film pales in comparison to both of them. Not only was the script in need of serious improvement but the acting of David McCallum was particularly bad as well. That being said, if a person is looking for an adventure movie of this sort, I strongly recommend either of the two previously mentioned films as this one isn't really worth one's time.

First I want to point out that I'm a really big fan of David McCallum and I like Patrick MacNee very much. But why did those Sixties-TV-Series-Idols do this movie? Couldn't have been the money (obvious if you consider tricks and settings). I hardly find words to describe this mess of a film. Every "Godzilla"- or "Harryhausen"-movie looks more real than this. It's O.K. for a black & white movie from the 50s, but this one is from 77 (and in colour)!!! The story is always the same. Treasure-hunt, lost civilization, a lovely princess and the unavoidable catastrophe in the end (volcano in this case). If you like bad movies (I mean real bad) please watch it. Otherwise forget about it. It is so bad you can't even laugh about it. Now I know why it is hard to get. I wonder why this isn't made by Alan Smithee...

This movie deserved a working over on Mystery Science Theater. Even though it has nothing whatever to do with King Solomon it's worth a watch because it is an unintentional laugh-riot. Really! It's worse than "Destroy All Monsters." Be sure to check out the following: the cheesy medallion (looks like the Shriners have been here), the obviously polyester Norfolk jacket on "Allan Quatermain," David MaCallum's badly done stutter (which does draw attention away from his even worse acting), the incredibly bad process work on all the "monsters," the monsters themselves - the hand puppet which menaces the little girl, the giant snake that menaces Macallum while he sinks in oatmeal, the red-lighted eyes on the motorized crabs, the amazingly hilarious boat (oh, brother!!) which appears to be made of plywood mounted on an old sand dredge and looks like a leftover from a Jr.Sr. prom ("Voyage into the Future with the class of '71"), the Phoenician city - where they wear Roman Imperial armor but which inexplicably has Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions -(the Phoenicians invented the alphabet-come on!),and worst of all, Macallum and Ekland (with her fright wig) playing smoochy-face -oh the horror! The best parts are that the intrepid explorers manage to lose the comic Frenchman ,and the African guy -Snuffleupagus or whatever - evidently chose to die heroically rather than be in any more scenes.

This movie is awful in every way. I can only infer that the Foley Artist was drunk because, although the lip synch is fine, the sound effects are inordinately out of time. But correcting this would merely have been stecoration of an already mammoth pile of fecal matter.

This won't be everybody's cup of tea, however it is a much better version than even the Richard Chamberlain versions are. Chamberlain did a fine Quatermain, MacNee does it very, very well though. As does Ken Gampu playing Umpslopogas as he did with Richard Chamberlain's version playing Umbopo.

From the beginning to the end, this is not a highly polished or high dollar production, but it is very well done for the era it was made in. As a bonus for the guys, somehow they even slipped in quite a few "native" girls jiggling their jigglers in a dance scene.

The plot was done with the standard formula of: Old gentleman telling the story of Lost Treasure, the travel to the Dark Continent, the river with alligators. Then jiggers jiggling, the bad guys (native priests in this case, again) haughty queen, lost treasure, and tragedy while the last three finally walk off into the setting sun.

Don't enter with high expectations of lavish sets and multitudes of extras being killed, used, or dying and this can be a good viewing.