L'or des amazones

Wannabe explorer Luis Escobar (Richard Romanus) joins adventurer Tom Jensen (Bo Svenson) on a trip to South America in search of the fabled seven cities of El Dorado, a journey that leads to encounters with a tribe of Amazonian women and savage headhunters. Also searching for the legendary golden cities is wicked drug baron Clarence Blasko (Donald Pleasance), who will do anything to claim his prize.

If this film had been made by Umberto Lenzi, Jess Franco or Sergio Martino, it would have been chock full of the nudity and violence that guaranteed such films notoriety during the video era. Unfortunately, this isn't a trashy Euro flick, but rather a cheesy US made-for-TV movie, and as such only offers tepid thrills for fans of the jungle adventure genre. Director Mark L. Lester is capable of turning out an entertaining film when given the chance (Class of 1984, Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo), but constrained by the limitations of a TV budget and broadcasting regulations, he is unable to deliver the goods, his film a lacklustre romp that wastes a fairly decent cast, which also includes Anita Ekberg (Fellini's La Dolce Vita) as Amazonian queen Na-Eela.

Silliest moments include a rubber snake leaping out of Tom's suitcase, a supposedly funny scene in which a chief offers his fat wife to the adventurer, and Tom and Luis being kept in man-cage and forced to have sex with the Amazonians in true 'Carry On Up The Jungle' style.

Its too bad this script relies on bo svenson to carry the day and donald pleasance is his usual goofy self...naked amazon women please to save us all from dead brain disease...it took me 5 hours watching time with pauses to get to the meat...and then there was none...click, its gone done and over

The root of all evil in 60s and 70s films was donald plesance ... he was without peer ...most memorable was as the mule skinner in will penney ... often wondered why eastwood didn't use him in the outlaw josie wales ...

The excellent reference book "DVD Delirium" suggests hard liquor before an attempt to watch the 1979 TV movie "Gold of the Amazon Women," but somehow, I made it through without. In this amusing cheese(cake) fest, Swedish actor Bo Svenson--38 here and in mid-career--searches the Amazon basin with his thrill-seeking sidekick for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold. They are ultimately captured by a group of white-skinned Amazons, led by the Swedish actress Anita Ekberg--48 here and at the end of her career. The picture actually feels like two separate films, with a fairly serious first half dealing with jungle exploration and some murder attempts on our heroes perpetrated by drug dealer Donald Pleasence (has any modern-day actor appeared in more dubious projects?), but once the girls appear, the film becomes mere male-fantasy camp, with men in cages being forced to sexually please some truly dynamite-looking women. And these guys want to escape?!?! It must be said that Ekberg looks fairly blowsy and out of shape here, unlike her lithe and athletic-looking underlings; she's a looooong way from her Miss Sweden 1951 win, not to mention here "La Dolce Vita" (1960) breakthrough. The film itself also features a helicopter attack, poison ants and snakes, crocodiles, a battle between the Amazons and blowgun-wielding natives, fistfights, smack-addicted Amazons, and the discovery of the Lost City. My advice is to put your brain on hold and enjoy this lighthearted, cheesy fun for what it is. Alright, maybe drink a few beers first...

Only ever watched this film once in the early 80's. At the time when video hiring was becoming main stream. My friends and I used to hire several films at the weekend and watch them after a night out. Gradually, we would exhaust all the better known films and would venture into unknown territory - like this film.

Because we had never heard of various films, we would often go off the cover...and who was in it. The cover looked great - exciting with scantily clad women and, of course, it had Donald Pleasance in it - so it couldn't be that bad!

There are two elements of the film that remain with me...

1. In one scene, Donald Pleasance had a revolver...which fired 15 bullets!

2. Bear in mind we were all the 'worse for wear', a friend, Mark Stott, saw that one of the characters entered a club called 'The Disco Lovers Club'. Unfortunately, due to the power of video and the ability to rewind, we saw that the sign actually read 'The Discoveries Club'. Such a pity the sign didn't read what we first thought!