Les amazones du temple d'or

Wow, this movies unbelievable. First of all the plot is insane. This girls family is killed by an Amazon tribe and when she grows up seeks revenge on the tribe. Thats were sanity ends. Now its time for the insane. The female Amazon warriors are played by Scandinavian white women, whose chief is a fat old man, who don't live in the Amazon, their in Africa. Confused much, I was but I just decided to go with it.

The heroine of the story, Liana, meets many people on her travels. An African witch doctor who seemed to be Italian. The only true Africans were only seen in passing.

The "Golden Temple" looked so cheap, the walls looked as if they taped gold tin-foil to them. The chiefs chambers were obviously filmed in some ones house. Even though the temple is made out of stone and rock the chamber floors look like marble and the ceiling has a lavish design on them.

The greatest part of the movie were all the BOOBIES!! Oh glorious boobies. Every scene seemed to be filled with nothing but boobies, you couldn't hide from them. 82 minutes of BOOBIES!! So to wrap things up, everyone makes the statement "so bad it was good" and this movie definitely fits the mold. If your poison is weird "C" level movies that don't make a bit of sense, then this movies for you.

Oh, did I mention all the glorious Boobies!!

It says so, so much about this film that it was originally a production helmed by infamous Spanish schlock maestro Jesús Franco. How much of the finished work reflects Franco's original vision, such as it may have been, and how much reflects adaptation by Georges Friedland and completion by Alain Payet, is an interesting question, and one to which I don't have the answer. It also doesn't matter, however, because I'm sure the end result would not have meaningfully differed. From the very first minutes we're treated to very tiresome and very gratuitous nudity, awful acting, terrible direction, excruciating dialogue, sometimes questionable cinematography, bland and repetitive music, recycled shots, racist tropes, hideous editing, scene and narrative writing that would be laughable if they weren't so wretchedly bad, and costume design, hair, and makeup that are just plain dubious. From the very first minutes this is weak, thin, flimsy, unconvincing, exhausting, aggravating, and in all other ways rotten, and I've barely scraped the surface of all the necessary criticism. Please, please take a word of advice from someone who will watch anything, who approached this out of a sense of curiosity, and who deeply regrets her decision: 'Les amazones du temple d'or,' or 'Golden Temple Amazons,' is completely without value, and no one should watch it.

Franco wasn't exactly known as a master filmmaker, but at least some of his pictures ranged from good to earnestly enjoyable. Was this a misfire from the time he first conceived of it? Were his other works a lucky mistake? Was Payet an astoundingly poor filmmaker himself, or was he just following Franco's lead to the letter? I think these are all very reasonable things to ponder, but in this instance we readily have at least part of an answer. One quick glance at other titles credited to Payet show that he mostly made his living off of pornography of one level or another. This isn't to say that filmmakers in the adult entertainment sector can't possess real skill, but it's safe to say that quality varies wildly, and there's also a world of difference between XXX videos and the production of full-length features. Or at least, there usually is; one way or another, given all the nudity that the camera lingers upon here - not to mention consistent dashes of misogyny, and the otherwise meager, floundering nature of the project - it's fairly evident that Payet approached this 1986 dumpster fire as little more than another one of his skin flicks. If one was feeling generous perhaps one could posit that the man just wasn't taking this seriously in any measure.

Is there anything of worth here? Anything at all? Certainly not the characters, bearing no intelligence as they are written and being unlikable from one to the next. Certainly not the notes of patriarchy, redefining the Amazonian mythology. I guess the filming locations are nice, and some aspects of the sets are half okay. Excessive as it is, the footage of animals is a welcome, brief, irregular diversion. And if nothing else about 'Les amazones du temple d'or' is true, we viewers will revel in the fact of the short runtime of less than ninety minutes. I'll even grant that in fairness, there are faint shades throughout of what might have been good ideas, thoughts that might have been shaped into a more appreciable B-movie in someone else's hands. Yet the unwavering truth is that this film, as we see it, is absolute, unremitting rubbish from top to bottom. Incredibly, I have actually seen titles that were even worse, but let's be perfectly honest, at this level the distinction is totally meaningless. Once more, I beg of you: however it is you came across this picture, whatever it is you think you'll get out of it, it's garbage that deserves to be forgotten. Anything else is far more worth your time, and will offer whatever it is you thought you'd find here and won't. You've been warned.

A missionary named Simpson (Jean-Rene Gossart) becomes hungry for gold, and he and his wife pay the price when targeted by tough-as-nails, topless Amazonian babes. Their daughter is raised in the jungle, away from civilization, and grows up to be a "Sheena" type named Liana (Analia Ivars), albeit one with an impressive perm. As an adult, Liana decides that the time is ripe for revenge, and accompanied by characters like an archaeologist, his hot-to-trot wife, a witch doctor, and a jungle guide, she treks into the land of the "blue mountain" where a golden temple does indeed await.

Officially directed by Alain Payet, with uncredited work by "presenter" Jess Franco (who also wrote the screenplay), this is no great example of the jungle adventure genre popularized by the Italians. There's not much gore, no cannibalism, and other than the nudity, there's nothing that would be highly objectionable to a mainstream audience. Overall, the movie delivers *some* entertainment, at least for the viewer who can't get enough of this sort of thing. All the acting, dubbing, and set design tend towards the utterly cheesy; much of the dialogue is rather unintelligible, although that's probably no real loss. The electronic music score by Norbert Verrone is overbearing.

Despite the title, this clearly takes place in Africa, and there are admittedly some very cute scenes near the beginning of Liana interacting with the wildlife - chatting with a giraffe, hitching a ride on an elephant, etc. (The animal sequences are actually pretty good.) And there is also a fairly well trained chimp who the human characters call "Rocky". Of the main cast members, Eva Leon appears to be having the most fun, playing the evil, sadistic, eyepatch-wearing Rena. Co-starring are familiar faces such as William Berger, Antonio Mayans, and Olivier Mathot. Francos' wife Lina Romay has an uncredited bit as a temple guard.

If you're looking for an 85-minute cheese fest that won't get too unpleasant and won't tax your brain, "Golden Temple Amazons" kills time in a passable way.

Five out of 10.

I am now the proud owner of 26 Jess Franco movies, and after buying this one (as part of the Shriek Show "Jungle Girls" set), I think it may be time to admit I have a problem and seek out the proper 12-step group.

A young girls is orphaned after her missionary parents are murdered by the titular (or should that be tit-ular?) Amazons. She decides to seek revenge (but not of course until she has matured into a sexy teenage Analia Ivers with large, succulent,and perpetually exposed breasts). With her pet monkey, a cartoonish African witch doctor, and some greedy explorers she sets off to find the Golden Temple of the Amazons. Although this is supposedly set in Africa and everyone else is black, the Amazons are all Nordic blonde girls for some reason. And in what is not exactly a blow for feminism, the legendary tribe of females has a male leader--a fat, middle-aged white guy who does little more than stage half-naked catfights and then rape the winner.

Franco fans are, of course, used to this kind of inanity--but even they are not used to this level of incompetent film-making. Frankly, this looks someone's home movies shot at the zoo after Dad has had a few too many beers (albeit with Mom and Big Sis taking their tops off a lot). It's also surprisingly tame--producer Daniel Lesseur even claims that it was supposed to be a family film! While I would never expose MY children to this kind of rampant nudity, bad taste, and incompetent film-making, he's right in that this certainly doesn't make it as an adult movie in any sense of the word. There is a hilarious scene where the older female explorer (let's call her "Mom")goes skinny-dipping and discovers a cave which she proceeds to explores without, you know, actually putting her clothes back on. Mostly though it's more smutty than erotic, such as the scene where the male explorer, played by a gray-bearded Anthony Mayans, is straddling the barely dressed, barely legal heroine as they ride an elephant and lasciviously tells her that he really isn't interested in being her father. Yep, fun for the whole family alright.

Remember the first step is to admit that we are powerless over Franco and that his films have become unwatchable.

A curious and almost unknown adventure movie.

Directed jointly by the French director Alain Payet and the Spanish Jesús Franco, this French production can be defined as a simple B-series adventure film with the greatest incentive of seeing the aforementioned semi-nude Amazonas in the middle of a script whose simplicity and lack of depth does not prevent him from being entertained.

The story, basically, an adaptation of Tarzan in female, that of a young girl whose parents were killed by a savage tribe of Amazons, led by a mysterious leader whom they follow and worship as a god. The girl grows in the middle of a wild environment, raised by the family steward and with a monkey as best friend and that after running into a missionary, who will confess the truth about their parents will decide to go in search of revenge.

However, along the way you will run into a shaman from an African tribe with magic tricks and a couple of archaeologists who will accompany you in your journey through the jungle to the Golden Temple of the Amazons.

The film, mostly of scenes, is accompanied by a series of melodies set perhaps to disguise the lack of dialogue, giving the film a clearly dreamlike tone.

The lack of budget is more than evident, but they all supplement with wonderful natural settings, and a temple that is not badly made, the story simple, but clear, the girl the Spanish actress Analía Ivars is beautiful, and together, her Good photography and good rhythm make it an entertaining and pleasant product to see without a doubt.