Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1987) – DVD

*½/**** Image B+ Sound A
starring Richard Chamberlain, Sharon Stone, James Earl Jones, Henry Silva
screenplay by Gene Quintano and Lee Reynolds
directed by Gary Nelson

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Bad-film enthusiasts will surely remember King Solomon's Mines, the 1985 H. Rider Haggard adaptation (and Indiana Jones rip-off) starring Richard Chamberlain and a pre-fame Sharon Stone. A fetid mixture of ridiculous situations, papier-mâché production design, and hopeless dialogue that takes off for camp heaven within minutes of unspooling, it was a moderate-sized hit for the late lamented hack studio Cannon Pictures, meaning that two years later emerged Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. But though the sequel is just as shoddy as its predecessor, it lacks a certain visionary quality that blasted King Solomon's Mines into the stratosphere of corn. While the original had the purity of madness backing up its tacky sets and costumes, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold is merely tacky, seeming just as tired, in the end, as the strip of polyester leopard skin that's wound around Quatermain's signature fedora.

Picking up shortly after the first film's conclusion (sometime in the late 19^th century), we find Mr. Quatermain (Chamberlain) in a bit of a quandary: though he's supposed to be going to America to marry his bride, Jesse Huston (Stone), he's just gotten word that his brother is trapped in a lost African city strangely inhabited by white people. Familial duty carries the day, so he launches an expedition involving fearsome African-warrior-with-an-axe Umslopogaas (James Earl Jones) and greedy spiritualist Swarma (Robert Donner) in order to recover the brother and find the secret city. Of course, there are some obstacles, such as the Styrofoam underwater rapids that spit fire, and the floor that gives way to a gaping pit, but sure enough, they find the titular location–only to discover it's ruled by a cruel usurper (Henry Silva) who dips people in molten gold to make statues. Naturally, this will not do for our heroes.

The film is by turns inane and stupid in its forward march to an ignoble conclusion. Nothing about it convinces–not the artless set and costume design, not the arm-waving over-the-top acting (Jones excepted), not the lackadaisical plotting–and everything is topped off with outrageous racist stereotypes that will have you shaking your head in disbelief. Degradation is the order of the day: Jones is completely humiliated in his role as axe-man, even as he acts the rest of the cast under the table, and Stone is the classic hysterical-female-along-for-the-ride. Even the myriad black extras are instructed to bug their eyes out and be expendable in ways that would embarrass Stepin Fetchit–though the single most embarrassing part is Henry Silva's, which requires him to wear a ludicrous fright-wig and leer disgustingly at a hapless soul about to become a statue. Almost no aspect of Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold can be categorized as good on either an aesthetic or moral level, leaving us with one question: is there at least some half-decent camp?

No such luck. Where King Solomon's Mines was ready to do absolutely anything to get your attention, City of Gold goes through the motions without flourish or enthusiasm. Neither the ride down the underwater rapids nor a mutant snake gets much of a rise out of us: they happen, they're gone, and they sink into the haze in the back of your head. The problem is that the film's not flamboyantly bad–although it has a few cheapjack flourishes from the original, it doesn't play them up, opting to simply tick off its various set-pieces in a stumble towards the finish line. Where good bad filmmaking is wild and over the top, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold gives the impression that its makers were just marking time until the next job. This isn't the way to make a camp classic, and it sure as hell isn't the way to make a real movie, leaving us left in the lurch by the people who should be giving us a lift. You'll note that there was no second sequel.

THE DVD
MGM's Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold DVD does the job. On the plus side, the 2.35:1, 16×9-enhanced image is sharp and saturated during daylight shots, with greens coming through bright and lustrous and detail being extremely fine; alas, during night scenes, the transfer is beset by poor shadow detail and filled with visual noise in deep fields of black. Meanwhile, the 2.0 Dolby Surround mix is all you can ask for, complete with sharply defined elements and a full, round timbre that is most satisfactory. The only extra is the film's trailer.

100 minutes; PG; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English Dolby Surround, French DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; MGM