Allan Quatermain And The Lost City Of Gold

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986... or 1987)

Runtime: 99 minutes

Directed by: Gary Nelson... and Newt Arnold

Starring: Richard Chamberlain, Sharon Stone, James Earl Jones, Henry Silva, Cassandra Peterson

From: Cannon

I know, I wasn't planning on seeing this so soon, but things changed and I'll explain why in a bit. The IMDb plot description then my Letterboxd review:

"Allan Quatermain once again teams up with Jesse Huston where the discovery of a mysterious old gold piece sends Quatermain looking for his long-lost brother, missing in the wilds of Africa after seeking a lost white race."

Remember when I said it'd be a long while before I'd see the sequel to King Solmon's Mines?

I lied.

Actually, I saw this last night as my plans to watch another movie fell through and I decided to go through the EPIX On Demand feature while I can still use it and saw that they had this movie; as it may be difficult for me to track this down in the future I had to bite the bullet and watch it, even if I thought it'd likely be bad... and oh it was.

This tale which has Allan looking for the title city and his missing brother has a number of problems, from the nonsensical story to an odious comic relief character that's never funny, appallingly bad special effects (I am pretty sure greenscreening if done right isn't supposed to give the actors a blue halo!) to an ending that just may be the most befuddling devoid of logic conclusion I've ever seen in a motion picture, no lie. You can read about it on Wikipedia if you wish but trust me, as seen it's even more inane and bewildering than it sounds.

However, there's James Earl Jones embarrassing himself by dressing up and playing an African warrior dude, Cassandra Peterson as a character that's not Elvira, and Henry Silva as the villain (come to think of it do I REALLY need to clarify that Silva's role in a movie is that of a bad guy?) who wears a purple & gold robe and a huge obviously fake wig; I just about howled with laughter when he first appeared, that's how goofy he looked.

Also, seeing it in a print that says it's HD (but still has a lot of print damage to it) isn't kind to the film; what helped make it have such a strange ending is that when you see some stunts being done, the wires are SO obvious; I mean, they're as clear as crystal and helped remind me that this was a troubled production where apparently there "were substantial reshoots". I say you shouldn't see either of these Cannon productions but if you must, King Solomon's Mines is the way to go.

I'll return tomorrow night.