Skullduggery

I must have unknowingly been in the test audience for the original version of this film at a local drive-in theater in 1970. I recently saw the current version on TV again, and was shocked at the mutilation of the original plot. The movie I remember was longer and the missing scenes and dialogue comprised a biting satire of race relations that still resonates in my memory today. The present version of the film has sadly had the best scenes and lines excised out, in the name of avoiding controversy in 1970.

We have come a long way since then. This film was far more entertaining in it's original form, and deserves re-release in a Special Edition or Director's cut DVD!

The cinematography in Technicolor has always appealed to me and scenes such as the tribal women rowing their four (4) large canoes with the archaelogical safari team and their supplies down the New Guinea river(s) infested with killer native tribes, snakes, and crocodiles, injects the needed adventure and to stamp this movie as a bona fide thriller.

Burt Reynolds and Susan Clark are excellent choices as the two male and female leads who both have romantic inclinations but for very different reasons. The audience is asked to form their own opinion on what their discovery of the Tropi tribe means to the human race.

As with many of the world controversies regarding racism, evolution, slavery, and the industrial revolution, the film Skullduggery will leave you with some questions as to what is fair and what is right when a new discovery such as the Tropi tribe is uncovered.

Skullduggery (1970) starts off as a combination of adventure with some light humor and a romantic twist thrown in for good measure, but it was not how I expected the film to transpire as I had been impressed by Burt Reynolds performance in the later (1972) film Deliverance. Not to say I was disappointed in the film Skullduggery, as I was not. I really enjoy scenic pictures of far away corners of the world, and the directors Gordon Douglas and Richard Wilson captured the landscape of New Guinea with crisp and clean panoramic views of the green forests, huge mountains, and seedy crocodile infested waters.

I enjoyed Skullduggery and will most likely watch it again in a few years. This review is somewhat of a personal reminder to confirm a thumbs up review which I give a 6 out of 10 IMDb rating.

One of the most boring, silly, insipid, badly scripted and acted things ever to come out of the entertainment field. Even for Burt Reynolds, this was bad news. If you are home alone and bored to tears don't watch this drivel. Avoid at all costs.

The first half of the movie tastes like a remake of a jungle expedition in one of those old Tarzan classics starring Weissmuller, the second half tries to be something like a class in philosophy - what makes a human human etc. Sadly, despite a good cast and production both parts never really blend well together. The first part was entertaining to me, a simple but fun adventure movie, the second part was a rather boring affair to me - an attempt to make something significant but not really engaging, and in the context of the first half (adventure, romance) it just feels too much out of tune.

Once upon a time there was a science fiction author named H. Beam Piper who wrote a classic book named "Little Fuzzy" which was about a man discovering a race of adorable little fuzzy humanoids on another planet. Mr. Piper died in 1964, but Hollywood and many of today's authors starting looting his grave before his cadaver got cold. This is the book where they got the idea for Ewoks from.

Skullduggery is such a blatant ripoff of "Little Fuzzy" I can wonder why I'm the only who's ever noticed?

But don't take my word for it. Here's a link to Project Guntenberg where you can download a copy of "Little Fuzzy" for free: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137