Les aventuriers de l'enfer

My review was written in July 1986 after watching the film on MGM/UA video cassette.

Italian filmmaker Antonio Margheriti went to his favorite Indiana Jones clone well once too often and came up with "Jungle Raiders", a lowercase adventure pic filmed in the far east in fall 1984, with "Captain Yankee" as an alternate title. Cannon ultimately decided to send this pickup directly to the video cassette maret, as part of its deal with MGM/UA Home Video.

Film begins promisingly with a lengthy sequence directly aping the opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", as soldier of fortune Duke Howard (Christopher Connelly), a/k/a Captain Yankee, leads a dude through a rain forest to hunt in a boobytarpped cave for a golden idol, pursued all the while by natives shooting arrows. The dude even escape in a seaplane Indy might use, all before it's released that Duke and the natives have staged the whole incident to fleece another gullible tourist seeking high adventure.

Set per opening credit card in "Malaysia, 1938" (too bad the filmmakers didn't realized that the British colony called Malaya for decades to come), tongue-in-cheek story deals with Duke guiding a museum curator Yanez (Marina Costa) from Colombia on her quest for the fabled Ruby of Gloom. Repetitive incidents in caves containing lakes on fire and jousting with the local firebrand Borneo pirates pad out the dull running time until an obligatory cynical ending.

Although there is a requisite amount of chasing around, pyrotechnics and stunt work, "Jungle Raiders" is singularly unexciting and pointless. Even the expected supernatural content is absent, with the ruby turning out to be just a big stone suitable for chopping up in Amsterdam.

Cast is merely okay, with Connelly a colorless hero, Lee Van Cleef a minor guest star who dresses alternately in all-white or all-black outfits, Alan Collins the chummy sidekick for the nth time in a Margheriti film and Marina Costa simply along for the ride. Tech credits are acceptable., though the often jaunty musical score occasionally lapses into the same library music already used in Margheriti's earlier pic, "The Ark of the Sun God".

I saw this years ago, and was astonished when I first saw it. It is a bad film, with a hunt for some gem called The Ruby of Gloom. Why anyone would look for something with a name that dubious escapes me, but okay.

The outstanding thing in this film, the thing that stayed with me, was the pet of a boy who was a member of Captain Yankee's party. It was a hooded cobra. This snake was very bright: he could put Lassie to shame, even conducting a scouting mission for the boy. He was so bright, he spotted a lady snake and slithered out of the film before the action concluded.

Not bad. Just silly.

Antonio Margheriti will forever remain - at least as far as I am concerned - the undisputed king of Italian rip-off classics! During the late 70s and first half of the 80s, this wonderful man blatantly imitated the biggest contemporary blockbusters and made them crazier, sleazier, more violent, and more exploitative. His masterworks include "Killer Fish" (= "Piranha"), "The Last Hunter" (= The Deer Hunter), "Yor" (= "Conan the Barbarian"), "Tornado Joe" (= "Rambo"), "Hunters of the Golden Cobra", and "Ark of the Sun God" (= both "Raiders of the Lost Ark").

"Jungle Raiders" is also a knock-off of Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but by the time of its release, in 1985, Margheriti's energy and inspiration had clearly watered down a lot. This is undoubtedly Antonio's least entertaining rip-off effort, and a sorely disappointing jungle adventure/actioner altogether.

Still, Margheriti - or Anthony M. Dawson, like he always prefers to name himself internationally - effectively tricked me (and probably everyone) with the first 10 minutes of "Jungle Raiders". Three men are on a dangerous rainforest expedition to recover a tribal statue, but it surprisingly turns out to be a complete scam! Two of them, Duke "Captain Yankee" Howard and Gin Fizz, run a profitable business where they make rich wannabe-adventurers believe they are on actual jungle missions, but everything is fake; - including the primitive tribes' attacks and death traps! Well-played, Antonio!

Sadly, it's all downhill from here. Yankee and Gin Fizz are recruited for a real mission, and it rapidly becomes a familiar stew of cartoonish villains, erupting volcanos, exploding barrels, and jumping down waterfalls to escape. In fact, the only original gimmick is the local kid with his super-intelligent (and obedient) Cobra. Lee Van Cleef receives top billing, but he must have had a clause in his contract that stated he didn't want to get his clothes dirty, because he only appears in a few dull and talkative sequences.

I've got to say that the first 20 minutes of this film are admittedly excellent and show director Margheriti on top form. In a nut shell, Christopher Connelly plays the strangely named Captain Yankie who is running an amusing scam in the tropics for those with more money than sense. The good captain is leading mock expeditions into the jungle to recover 'lost artifacts' from 'savage natives' (in reality the friendly indigenous population who happen to be good friends with the captain) Accompanying our hero is also a worldly wise, jovial (and very drunken) Scottish guide (Margheriti regular Luciano Pigozzi) who is even 'killed' by the 'savages' early on in the shown scam for maximum effect!

News of these scams (or 'dreams' as our hero likes to call them) however gets out to an inspector (Lee Van Cleef) who, using them against our heroes, coerces i.e. blackmails them into undertaking a very real mission to retrieve a priceless artifact known as the Ruby Of Doom (a most unsettling name...) Needless to say, such a task proves to be anything but easy with our heroes having to fend off vicious Burmese pirates, avoiding various lethal traps and being betrayed from within their own ranks. Mix in some of Margheriti's always cool miniature work and a trademark explosive finale and you have on paper what should have been a great flick.

Unfortunately, after such a great introduction though, things go downhill with most of the action sequences being handled in a somewhat confused manner. Even the aforementioned finale whilst certainly pleasant to look at is handled with very little flair for Margheriti.

The good news is that the leads are tremendously fun to watch and the comedy present throughout is very welcome. One of the best bits is a scene in which the natives hear that Captain Yankie has arrived unexpectedly and thus perform a mad rush to hide all their westernised attire and accoutrement's to play the part of 'savages' as they have done previously for the captain so many times. They even put out some fake human skulls for good measure!!!

Overall: Not a bad film by any means but for fans of the genre I would recommend Margheriti's The Ark Of The Sun God as a much better watch.

I like this film, apart from being directed by the great Antonio Margheriti, it also features a great cast of B Movie stalwarts - Christopher Connelly, Lee Van Cleef, Luciano Pigozzi and Mike Monty - all with tongues firmly stuck in cheeks. The model effects may not be convincing, but I will take them over CGI any day. Margheriti directs with pure gutso and the cast look to be enjoying themselves. If I had to make a choice between Indiana Jones or Captain Yankee, Captain Yankee would win hands down.