Review of King Solomon`s Mines

Introduction

I`ve never really had much experience with the works of H. Rider Haggard, and the only times I had heard the character of Allan Quatermain were last year`s League Of Extraordinary Gentleman movie, and something vaguely to do with Stewart Granger. At least that is what I thought, because when I happened to blow decades of dust off what remains of my VHS collection, I found the immaculately stencilled label of King Solomon`s Mines. The eighties signalled the renaissance of the adventure movie and tantalised by the Indiana Jones phenomenon, I saw the trailer for King Solomon`s Mines on ITV and come premiere day I followed that long forgotten ritual of being glued to the television, remote in hand carefully pausing out the adverts. Since that day, I remember watching that film a total of one further time. Need I say more?

Apparently I do. The Indiana Jones phenomenon certainly heralded a return of the matinee adventure, swashes were buckled once more as intrepid explorers set forth into unprecedented peril, rescuing damsels in distress the world over. Indiana Jones was the pinnacle of the genre, stories and spectacles never to be matched, but it wasn`t long before other studios decided to cash in on the excitement. Tom Selleck may not have gotten to wear the Fedora, but he got the chance to thrill and spill with the best of them in High Road To China. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner put a contemporary spin on the genre in Romancing The Stone and Jewel Of The Nile, and they were all admirable films. Then there were the inevitable cheap cash-ins, which is where King Solomon`s Mines comes in.

Allan Quatermain, intrepid explorer and professional beard-wearer extraordinaire leads blonde archaeology student Jessie Huston into the darkest depths of Africa to find her missing father. Her father though has discovered the path to the mythical mines of King Solomon, and is now a captive of the evil Turk Dogati, and the eviler German Colonel Bockner, who are trying to prise the secret from him. Quatermain and Jessie have to endure stunts and set pieces galore to rescue her father, and for a reason that I`m still trying to fathom, get to the mines before evil and eviler do. What they will do when they get there is never really explained…

Video

Surprisingly, King Solomon`s Mines gets exceptional treatment of its 2.35:1 anamorphic picture on this two-layer disc from MGM. It`s clear and colourful throughout, and try as I might I couldn`t see any signs of print damage or age. There is a hint of grain at times, and the picture does seem inordinately soft, though that may have been an intentional decision.

But the great transfer only serves to show up the films many flaws. The stunts are pretty tame compared to its peers, the film itself is badly edited making little or no pretence at continuity, and some of the action is sped up in a hilarious Benny Hill fashion. The effects are almost amateurish, with some particularly flimsy blue screen work where not only can you see the joins, but you also get the feeling that the wallpaper has peeled completely.

Audio

DD 2.0 English German, French and Spanish, present the sound in all its mundane glory.

Jerry Goldsmith`s theme is irritating though, and you get the feeling that you`ve heard it all before. I would characterise it as a heavy helping of Supergirl with just an added soupcon of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, basted at gas mark tedium for 90 minutes.

Features

A trailer and subs, though the trailer has a few hints at scenes not in the film.

Conclusion

This film is painfully bad, and I don`t know where to begin with its myriad of flaws. For one thing, it`s a shameless rip-off of Indiana Jones, down to specific scenes. Hero chasing after kidnapped girl bound in a carpet through a market place? Check. Spiked ceiling threatening to crush heroes? Check. The hero having to face a fistfight against muscle-bound bad guy? Check. Hero crawling under moving vehicle, grabbing hold at last minute and being dragged behind? Check. They even move Quatermain into WW1 to give him some evil German hordes to fight against. And the final straw, John Rhys-Davies appears as an evil Sallah, Dogati to provide a foe for Quatermain.

It`s hideously politically incorrect. Africans are either servants to the great white invaders, cannibals, or hanging upside down from trees (tribal thing, not punishment thing). King Solomon`s Mines was filmed in Zimbabwe in 1985. Today Zimbabwe is in the depths of political turmoil. I`m not linking the two, but if your nation was used to film a movie like this, and the end credits then endorse and thank your country then I`d guess you`d be a little peeved too.

Then there is the woeful miscasting of Richard Chamberlain as Allan Quatermain. The beard does not a rogue make. He is far too clean cut to play this character, and his every word, gesture and action looks out of place. Sharon Stone is great eye-candy and is quite good fun in this film, and John Rhys-Davies and Herbert Lom chew the scenery with the best of them, but when your leading man is as badly cast as this, the film is unsalvageable. It`s at times like watching school kids playing at Indiana Jones.

But there is something about this film that makes it hard to resist, and not just in a gruesome car crash sort of way. I think it`s the moment when Dogati and Quatermain first meet, and Dogati addresses him as "Inglis" in an obvious homage to Shogun, which also starred Chamberlain and Rhys-Davies. The supporting characters are also enjoyable, Shaike Ophir as Kassam, the snivelling shopkeeper is very Robin Williams-esque, Herbert Lom as Bockner and Rhys-Davies have a great chemistry as they put each other down and out-do each other in the pantomime villainy stakes. Taken as a serious adventure movie, King Solomon`s Mines is dire, but taken as a parody, it on occasion approaches the sublime. One scene where a fearful Sharon Stone flies a biplane against a German Ace in a game of aerial chicken, has the quintessential German parody, complete with comedy German accent commenting on the head to head, "Ah, Zo you zink you can best me!" Quatermain and Jessie find themselves being roasted in the largest papier-mâché pot you have ever seen in another scene. There are silly moments with dynamite that create the films only catchphrase "I`ve got it!" that taken at face value are naff, but if you have the right frame of mind, actually begin to entertain.

Perhaps it would have been better to rename this film National Lampoon`s Iowa Smith, but that would have been doing a disservice to National Lampoon. King Solomon`s Mines is a pointless collection of set pieces pretending to be a story, miscast, offensive, badly filmed, looking amateurish, but as a parody is a guilty pleasure. Every fibre in my being tells me to hate this film, but it`s hilariously bad, laugh out loud bad. Try before you buy, and don`t say I didn`t warn you.

You`d think this was it, but they actually filmed two of these back to back. You didn`t think they`d actually commission another one on the strength of the success of King Solomon`s Mines? Next on my to review list is Allan Quatermain and the City Of Gold. I don`t know whether to look forward to it or dread it.