El tesoro de las cuatro coronas

I remember seeing this movie when I was 11 with my brother, 14. That was in 1982 and we still make fun of it and use it to make jokes. I remember only two crowns and no real purpose to the

3-D. This was just a bad movie. Not even good for a " bad movie night." Just stay away from it. Save that time in your life for something important, like cleaning lint form your bellybutton.

Treasure of the Four Crown in 3-D is the heartwarming story of a man suffering from impotency (Tony Anthony) who races through Southern California with the government closing in. A hypnotist (Ana Obregon) reluctantly helps in the daring plot. Gene Quintano disturbs in the role of fetishist "Edmond". While the performances are rather uneven overall, you won't forget Kate Levan in her breakout role as "Possessed Woman".

The film though cannot be fully appreciated unless viewed in 3-D. Only then do the strings attached to the "floating key" and the fact that there's only two crowns shown in the movie (though a third is briefly mentioned) truly jump out a come alive for the viewer.

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.

Watching this movie in the theater as a teenager with my friends was great fun - we howled and made fun of the film all of the way through, which was okay because everyone in the room was doing the same thing. That should tell you just how bad this movie is: so bad it's good. The thing is, I think the people responsible for this trainwreck meant for it to be a serious action film. Well, they didn't succeed. Instead what we got was really fake-looking special effects, bad acting and a story that barely held together. Other than the fact that the film is laughable the only reason to watch it would be to see Anna Obregon, the Spanish beauty.