Ah, the Cannon Group, aka the Golan/Globus boys. A barrel-scraping production team active in the ‘70s & ‘80s; always on the hunt for low-lying fruit or a commercial angle to hang a crappy film on. (When they tried for a quality product, things got even worse.) This one a followup to their KING SOLOMON MINES remake of the year before.* Lambasted as being a cheap ripoff of INDIANA JONES, a comparison that might go either way, no? What were the films George Lucas got his inspiration from? More problematic, where MINES had J. Lee Thompson directing and a score from Jerry Goldsmith, the sequel has journeyman tv & Disney house director Gary Nelson and Cannon house composer Michael Linn. Still, not really a bad production, cheap in a fun way . . . for a while. But when the stunt work and unmatched edits reach their nadir in a ludicrous leap over a cave chasm, everyone tosses in the towel. Richard Chamberlain is almost adequate as a Great White Adventurer hunting deepest darkest Africa for the eponymous lost city as well as a lost kid brother, amusingly cast with Chamberlain’s longtime real-life partner Martin Rabbett. Not so amusing is a pre-breakout Sharon Stone, aping Dyan Cannon as tagalong fiancée; and James Earl Jones as an African warrior auditioning for Marching Band drum major with an ax for a baton. Yikes! Credit the Golan/Globus boys when knowing when to quit. No more QUATERMAIN pics for a couple of decades.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Just about everyone in the film adds an ‘R’ to Allan Quatermain’s last name, pronouncing it Quartermain. Can this be right? Or did no one notice?
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Best and best known of the eight (?) KING SOLOMON’S MINES adaptations is M-G-M’s 1950 hit with Stewart Granger & Deborah Kerr. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/king-solomons-mines-1950.html
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