Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
And I'm Joe McCormick. In today's film is going to be the nineteen eighty three adventure movie Treasure of the Four Crowns, a film that ever since I saw the trailer, and I would say the movie itself mostly delivers on this. The concept to me has seemed to be Italian disco Indiana Jones.
Yes, I mean it doesn't. It maybe doesn't deliver on the Italian disco so much as in great music.
But I don't mean in terms of music. I mean in terms of the look.
Oh yeah, and the look absolutely. I guess the thing is that judgment of it being Italian disco Indiana Jones. It doesn't bear a lot of close scrutiny, nor does the movie itself, but that's one of its great charms.
So I should mention at the top that this movie is actually a listener suggestion. It was sent to us by Megan from Montreal, who wrote an email. This was actually after our episode on Clash of the Titans. Meghan says, I just listened to your weird House cinema episode on Clash of the Titans, a film my family rented many times for my sister and I when we were kids. We loved it. It was fun to hear the Weird
House breakdown on this nostalgic classic. It brought to mind another film my family watched when I was young and that we have long held is the worst movie we ever rented. But I just rewatched it and realized it would be perfect for Weird House, called Treasure of the Four Crowns. It is an Italian American Spanish co production originally made as a three D film, and boy, oh boy, does it make the most of that. I won't spoil any thing else about it, but I would love to
hear your take on this, Hammy Jim and family legend. Meghan. Well, Meghan, thank you for the suggestion. It was a real When I went to watch the trailer for this, I just knew we had to do it. So this movie is a lot of things. As Meghan says, it is an international collaboration, a joint production with American, Spanish, and Italian elements.
It's also an occult archaeological adventure movie. Another way of saying, as many critics alleged, probably somewhat fairly, that it is strongly derivative of Raiders of the Lost Arc, but at the same time it's also an ensemble heist caper like an episode of Mission Impossible or the A Team had a lot of strong A Team vibes.
Oh yeah, definitely.
But on top of that, it's also a Canon Films distribution. You can really tell if you look up the poster. It has that classic Canon Films poster look where there's like there's a machine gun it's blasting you know, the car tuny visages of the heroes are coming right at you,
and in fact come and right at you. I would call that the best way to describe the cinematic style of this movie, because more than anything else, I would say Treasure of the Four Crowns is three D. If this makes any sense, It's not just a three D movie, it's the most three D movie I have ever seen. The jabbing of objects, both deadly and mundane into the camera lens is relentless.
Absolutely, it's like not just one arrow coming at you, it's multiple arrows in a row. And then also maybe a flaming eyeball from a skull and maybe a spear, maybe a snake, maybe somebody's butt. While they're repelling from
the ceiling. You never know what is going to be thrown at the camera, but you get the impression that if too much time passes in the film without something coming directly at the camera, a lot of anxiety breaks out at the filmmakers and they realize they've got to get something up there.
Allow me to read from Roger Ebert's review at the time this movie was released. Ebert said, it's fun to find a three D movie that doesn't beat around the bush. Within sixty seconds after Treasure of the Four Crowns begins, the movie is throwing things at the audience. This is, of course, in the great tradition of three D movies that began in nineteen fifty three with Bwana Devil, a horrible movie that made a lot of money by throwing stones, spears,
and elephants at the audience. You want to get your money's worth. Here is my rough checklist of things thrown
at the audience in Treasure of the Four Crowns. Knives, spears, darts, bones, jeweled daggers, balls of fire, laser beams, boulders, ropes, attack, dogs, bats, shards of stained glass, a set of dishes, a large kettle, a stove, a corpse, a python, snake, an empty glove, birds, both real and artificial, arrows, unidentifiable glowing objects shot from guns, keys, letter openers, several human heads, skeletons, large sections of an exploding castle, and one bottle of booze, and assorted spoons.
Two and a half stars by the way.
By the way, there are definitely a few things I caught that Ebert did not manage to mention. There the stuff never stops coming at you. There's also like, there's one great part where just like an antenna extends toward the camera, there's another one where a broom handle pokes in your face.
Yeah, a little technological hacking tool or something like. Any and everything that can be jabbed at the camera will be jabbed at the camera.
And because this is the most three D movie I have ever seen, it really invited me to think a bit about the nature of three D films, especially in their afterlife, as after they have left the theater on their initial run, when they are relics on home video where very few people who watch them will see them with the proper equipment to experience the three D effects intact.
So I was trying to think of an analogy, and this isn't perfect, but it's sort of like going on a haunted house ride at an amusement park where all of the animatronics have been turned off, so the car might be moving, like you go through the same course, and you're traveling through the same plot, but something is fundamentally wrong with the experience, like the core appeal of it has been removed.
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, because three D films are spectacle, and we've been looking at a lot of them, you know, I've certainly been looking at a huge list of them, because part of the whole gimmick here is we're not just doing one three D film. We have committed to doing three three D films in a row, so we have to pick two more after this that are enjoyable. And there are a lot out there that don't really invite viewing in the t in the two D format, you know.
I think this is one of them.
Actually, Well, this one at least is stupendous enough that it's a lot of fun. I think just a lot of them are very very uninviting, and they're they're it's very obvious that they were rushed to market with three D at the forefront of anybody's intentions. And again that's pretty much the case with this film as well. But I think a lot of the things that make the Treasure of the Four Crown so much fun is that yet it stars three D. It's all about three D.
Three D is the reason for this film. But then everything else behind that seems to have been very earnestly constructed as well. Not well constructed, but at least played seriously. Like this is not a film that's self aware. It doesn't know that its hero looks dopey, or at least it's not willing to admit that on screen or to realize that on screen.
No, it's got the heart of Homer Simpson trying to make the kids love Pouci. Yeah, And in that spirit also, it's very much like three D is the main character of this movie. And I think the intention was when three D is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking where's three D. It's true, so this was not the only early eighties movie in three D. You know, three D kind of comes in waves. There was there was one in the fifties with like you know,
a House of Wax and all those things. I think there was another craze in the sixties and then you know, they come and it kind of bursts over the course of a few years. It seems that around nineteen eighty one to eighty three or so, there were a bunch of three D movies, including Friday the Thirteenth Part three three D that was nineteen eighty two. That one actually does have great disco music in it. You get Jaws three D in nineteen eighty three, Amityville three D in
nineteen eighty three. All of these are horror movies. By the way, this one kind of distinguishes itself by being like a PG rated, moderately family friendly, Indiana Jones style adventure. I don't know there. I guess there is some kind of gory melting right at the end, but.
Otherwise nobody, nobody's behind this melting right. But oh.
Another one is a movie we've covered on the show before, the nineteen eighty three film Metal Storm, the Destruction of Jared Sin.
And I remember when we were watching that one, there were there were numerous shots where it's like, whoa, look at this tree branch, you know, obvious three D effects, and we had some fun commenting on that. But Metal Storm it shows so much restraint compared to Treasure of Four Crowns.
Well, yeah, and so, as I said, this is the most three D movie I've ever seen, and so the three D effects make up. Oh, I don't know, if I timed it out, I would guess at least fifty percent of the runtime is like three D effects shots, and in most other movies it feels a little more tacked on, you know, maybe like twenty percent of the runtime or ten even is three D gags where you know, it's mostly a normal movie and they've just fit a few of them in Treasure of the Four Crowns is
built entirely around the gags. They are why the movie is here.
Worth noting that, there, of course different ways of creating three D effects in some of these different boom periods, And then of course so many films have different patented names for their three D effects. For instance, this film is filmed in supervision three D.
It sounds like it's like you need adult supervision to play with this toy.
Yeah, you also have films that came out at different times, where maybe not everything was shot in three D. They maybe have just certain scenes that are in three D. And then it's amazing just how many genres ended up being covered, like horror, science fiction, action makes sense, but a lot of comedies were shot in three D. You also have different erotic pictures that were shot in three D. I think am Manuel four is a three D picture, it's just And then of course even like educational fair
especially when you get into like the Imax era, they're a number of those. Oh and then to say nothing of like pure you talked about these being like amusement park rides. You get into stuff like what is it? T two three D? Which was like a basically a three D ride film that came out after T two? The What's the Michael Jackson video that Francis Ford Coppola directed that Lucas was involved in that.
Was smooth criminal.
No, it was well, I just looked it up.
Is it Captain EO?
That's it? Yes, I only have.
The vaguest awareness of this in memory. I'm not sure. Is this a ride like a ride at the theme park?
I believe so. I think it was at Disney and I never saw it. I've never seen it. I think you can watch it at streaming now on some of the platforms. But it's like seventeen minutes long, which in a way is more honest, Like, let's just get right to it. Let's treat this like what it is. This is just about three D spectacle for twenty minutes or less.
I'd agree with that. Yeah, I think there is some confusion about how genres were doing feature length films that rely this much on three D gags. I'm trying to think of an analogy. It's almost like releasing like a long novel length pop up book if you knew that after the first month or so, the pop ups wouldn't pop up anymore.
Now we mentioned Ebert's critique on the three D in this film, it's worth noting well. First of all, of course, though Roder Ebert died before he could see some of the later three D pictures. But when Ridley Scott's Prometheus came out in twenty twelve, Ebert gave it a very glowing review, gave it four stars, and said that it was the best use of three D that he'd ever seen.
I didn't even remember Prometheus was in.
Three D, and I think that's key because I'm not sure. I don't think I saw it in three D because I at some point I realized that three D pictures tend to give me a headache and I would prefer not to watch them in that format. But from what I understand, the three D elements and Prometheus are kind of kind of relegated to like, you know, sci fi displays that are being utilized star maps and stuff like that. So it's not it's I don't think there's any creature
jumps in your face sort of stuff. It's more subtle. And anyway, Ebert praised it for going going at three D in that fashion.
Well, whatever you have to say positive or negative about that movie, it clearly was not defined entirely by the presence of the three D gags like that's that was just sort of a little flourish on it. Not the not the reason for the season.
By the way, missed opportunity that we're not doing this podcast in three D sound that has been that has been pushed in the past.
That's the thing in the Yeah, okay, are we ready for the elevator? Pitch on Treasure hit us four magical crowns containing magical gold balls containing magical gems, at least one of which contains a magical scroll, were created by the Visigoths. An evil cult leader named Brother Jonas has possession of approximately two of the four crowns. This is
bad for some reason. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to dangle around on ropes for about forty five minutes in the room where these crowns are stored and hopefully steal them. In the process, this table self destruct in five seconds.
Well, I think that is an excellent cell, but perhaps we should allow the wizards at Canon Films to give us a cell on this picture as well. Let's listen to the audio from the trailer.
You've seen Raiders, Star Wars, Aliens, and Close Encounters, but you are about to experience a totally new dimension in entertainment, forged from the wealth of kings, source of the magical powers of good and evil, unleashed in the hands of a madman. Now five daring heroes dead by the odds in a deadly question to capture the greatest prize of them all.
You'll form some treasure of the war Crowns.
Share the ultimate modern adventure treasure of the Poor Crows in Supervision three D and coming soon from Kennon releasing to blesk you out of your seats.
The signature move of a Golden Globus film is massive over promising. It's like, you know, you've seen Indiana Jones, you've seen Star Wars trash compared to this so much better. The posters over promise the trailers. They like they this Canon Films was the king of writing checks the movie could not cash.
Yeah, I mean and on some level too, they're like, they're like, look, if you don't believe your movie is the greatest film ever made. If you don't say it, who else is going to say it. So you've got to say it. Go ahead and put it in the trailer. Let the people think that, and then once they're in the theater, you know they're not going to get their money back.
Now. One thing we should be fair about is that, as I said, we, like most people who watch three D movies on home video, we're watching it without the three D glasses that you need in order to have the real experience. I think there are at least some re releases of this on disc that provide the glasses for you, so you can have some version of the three D experience. I don't know if it'd be quite the same as it was in the theater.
Yeah, and I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't at least try this, But yeah, if you want to try it out there, listeners, I recommend it. I mean, this film is about the spectacle of three D, so you might as well embrace it to whatever extent you can. You can find this movie in some DVD packs. You can find it on VHS tapes, but there's also a three D special edition Blu Ray from Keno Labris Studio Classics.
It has some really cool extras, including both BD three D polarized and anaglyphic red cy M three D versions. It comes with one pair of anaglyphic three D glasses as well, in case you don't have any like kicking around the house to put on. So, I mean, really, you might as well embrace three D and try and watch it in that format, though I'm not sure what else you need to watch a three D picture these days on the Blu Ray, if you know special screens and whatnot. It's just not my area of expertise.
Yeah, I've never gotten into the home three D thing. As again, I think most people have not. It seems like there was a time a while back where they were trying to promote that, like the whole like three D TVs at home and all that, and I never really understood it seemed like a trend that did not pick up.
I think it's just the curse of three D. It's gonna always be this thing that pops up and it becomes really popular for a while, and then people get tired of it, and then it comes back again, and then it goes away, but it'll never completely go away, all right. Well, before we get back to the plot of this film and start talking about all the things that fly out your face, let's talk about the people
who made it, starting with the director. It was directed by Ferdinando Baldi, who lived nineteen seventeen through two thousand and seven, an Italian director mostly known for action films and thrillers, and to the extent that I think he maybe only directed one horror film Ajallo titled nine Guests for a Crime from nineteen seventy seven. Everything else is a lot more action and western e He's mostly known for such action films as nineteen sixty eight's Django Prepare Coffin,
which has George Eastman in it. Oh, Yep, yep, nineteen sixty six Texas Audios that one has Frank Nero in it, though he's not in the other, not in the Django film that he directed, nineteen seventy one's blind Man co starring Ringo star What Yeah, and This is Key. The nineteen eighty one three D picture Coming at youa a three D spaghetti western that seems to largely be considered the picture that kickstarted the eighties resurgence of three D cinema.
I love how the title that it might as well have just been called three D the movie Coming at You. It's like coming out of the screen.
Yeah, and with a name like that, and also the posters kind of lean into this, it looks like Coming Atcha is going to be kind of a wacky affair. But I've read that it's basically just a straightforward, if not kind of dark, spaghetti western. But moron coming at you here in a bit, because multiple people involved in this picture were involved in that. This is very much
the spiritual sequel to Coming at You. Baldy also directed nineteen sixty eight's Hate Thy Neighbor with George Eastman in it, and then also the Ultimate Mission, an outrageous nineteen eighty eight action film with Mark Gregory in it.
Was George Eastman ever in a three D movie, because that would be worth getting the glasses for to see George Eastman's face coming out of the screen.
That's I think one of the things about this movie. There are so many great genre actors that were active during this time period in Italy and Spain, and why are they not in this film? Why do we have I mean not to shame the entire cast, but why do we have the cast that we have here when you had guys like George Eastman around?
Yeah? I don't want to be mean, but this is one of the dullest casts of any movie we've ever covered, to the point where it almost comes full circle and becomes like entertaining in its dullness.
Yes, I agree, all right. The writing credits several individuals credited here. One is Lloyd Battista born nineteen thirty seven, American actor who wrote for an acted in various Tony Anthony pictures. Tony Anthony is also the star of this movie and coming at you more on him in just a bit. But Lloyd Battista does not act in this particular film, but he did a lot of American TV as an actor in the late sixties and early seventies and stayed active as an actor up until I think
two thousand and seven. We also have a writing credit for someone named Jim Brice no additional information on this person, but then starring in this playing JT. Striker, a soldier of fortune. Also a producer. Also has a story credit is Tony Anthony.
Now would you be shocked to learn that Tony Anthony is not his real name? He was not born Anthony Anthony.
That's right. He's an American actor born Tony Roger Petito, So he was a born nineteen thirty seven, still alive as of this recording, A writer and producer who made fourteen films between nineteen sixty one and nineteen eighty three, with this being his final acting role, though he did continue to produce until I think nineteen ninety eight. So basically, he and his collaborators experienced early success with a couple of American pictures, then managed to jump in on the
spaghetti western craze right when it was kicking off. And then with cumin Atcha and this picture he managed to not only jump start the nineteen eighties three D boom but also get in a second helping of the success with this picture Treasurer of the Four Crowns, after which credit where credits due. I like to think maybe he watched his performance in this film and said, you know,
I think I'm good. I think I'm good. I think maybe this is the last film I've acted that beings said, I've seen plenty of films with less express actors than Tony Anthony. Tony Anthony, he pulls a lot of interesting faces in this film, and there's a lot of fun to be had trying to figure out his approach to this character. So he's certainly not boring.
No, but also I think not quite what the filmmakers were hoping for.
Right, And he is one of the filmmakers, so you know, he bears some of the responsibility. But one way I was thinking about it is that he carries himself in this movie like he thinks he's John Saxon, whereas really he has his actual screen presence is maybe a little more in the direction of Richard Lynch, but without the actual acting chops of either.
Actor Richard Lynch, but without the creepiness or menace just yeah, yeah, it just more Richard Lynch with a strong disgust reflex.
Yeah. But then again, it's kind of the pitfalls of the leading man role because you could also imagine a world in which Tony Anthony plays more villains or plays supporting characters and maybe excels in that department. So I don't know, there's a lot of ins and outs to trying to figure out how all this works. But at any rate, still Tony Anthony fun in this picture worth watching. We're gonna come back to his performance, Yeah, all right.
On the poster, the Tony Anthony character has a woman in his arms that he's like swinging through the air with, so obviously we have to have some sort of It turns out she's not really a damsel in distress. She's a member of the heist crew, and this is the character Liz played back Anna Obergone.
The poster also makes it look like they are like in love, but I don't recall any kind of love plot at all. Is there anything like that?
I don't think so, which I kept expecting them to maybe decide they needed to have that and just sort of tack it on, which is certainly something you see in plenty of movies. So to their credit, they didn't even try and make that happen in this film.
Yeah, so she's just a member of the impossible mission force. I think the skill she brings is trapeze acrobatics.
Yeah, which normally you might not think that's very important, but for this mission, as you teased out earlier, very important.
This is a dangling heavy mission.
Yes, so. Obergon born nineteen fifty five is a Spanish actor who apparently has like long standing celebrity status in Spain and you know, gets covered in celebrity publications a lot.
Probably is more known, more well known internationally in international audiences for her roles in nineteen eighty four's Ballero and nineteen eighty one's Mystery on Monster Island, a Jewles Vern adaptation that had Terrence Stamp and Peter Cushing in it, well as well as a co starring Spanish genre mainstays Paul Nashi, Frank Brona and Lewis Barbou.
Whoa Whoa whoa whoa Whoa a Jewles Vern adaptation where the title contains the frame Monster Island that has General z Odd, Grandmov Tarkin, Paul Nashi, Frank Barana, and Louis Barbu. Did did I get that right?
Yes?
Oh, okay, well this has got we got to cover this.
Yeah. I don't know much about it, but just just on paper, the cast is very interesting. So Obergon also did some Spanish, other Spanish films, some Spanish action films I think mostly, And she pops up on American television appearing on Days of Our Lives, the actual A team and Who's the Boss?
Okay, so direct a team crossover.
Now, yes, all right. The next person to talk about this is also a member of the heist team. This is the character Edmund, played by Gene Quintano. Quintano also has a story credit and guess what was one of the producers. Just kind of a mustachioed guy. I can't even remember if he's bald or not, but.
Yeah, I see he's bald on top.
Yeah, yeah, very much. Seems like he has the presence of someone who should do nothing more than be in the Q roll of the of the heist. That he should be like, he should just say here's the plan, here's the materials, But no, he comes on the heist and he's there for the whole.
Thing baffling decision. He's introduced as Okay, this is the dweeb who is the professor's assistant, you know, the professor's professor exposition shows up to give some more you know, about thirty minutes into the movie, and this guy's operating the slide projector for him. And then it turns out, oh yeah, okay, he's going to be along for the whole ride. He's going to be there the whole darn time. Okay.
So Jeane here was. He was born in nineteen forty six. He was a producer on both three D Tony Anthony movies and acted in both of them and acted in nothing else, So it's mostly a writer with some directing credits. Some of the standout films from his filmography include nineteen eighty five's King Solomon's Minds. He was a writer on that. That was another canon film. Nineteen eighty six is Alan Quatermain in the City of the Lost of Gold, another
canon film. He was a writer on Police Academies three, four, and five.
Oh, those are the best ones.
He was. He was the writer and director of nineteen ninety three's Loaded Weapon One. I seen it, okay, and then he is He was a writer and I think has a directing credit alongside another gentleman on two thousand and four's Funky Monkey. This is a chimpanzee movie in which I believe the chimpanzee actor allegedly bit Matthew Modine on the hand. Matthew Modine essentially stars in it, but you also have Gilbert Godfried, Fred Ward and Jeffrey Tambour
in it. Wow. Wow, can safely say I will never watch this movie your net?
No?
Well, guess what I'm picking for next week?
It's not in three D. I'm safe. I'm safe Funky Monkey for at least two weeks, all right. Also, we have a character named refresh my memory is Rick, the.
Climber, mountain climber, the drinking guy, the guy who's his he drinks any knows things well.
Rick is played by Jerry Lazarus. And guess what. He was also a writer on this picture. Born nineteen forty seven, another member of the crew, but he did a little more acting. He acted in nineteen eighty six is The Delta Force and nineteen eighty eight's Police Academy five for example. Now there are also some more distinguished actors in this picture. Believe it or not, we have a character by the name of Socrates. Socrates is, of course the strong man.
That's right. Yes, well, there's probably a lot to unpack about Socrates as we get into the picture. But Socrates is played by Francisco Rabal, who was a prolific Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter of both stage and screen live nineteen twenty six to two thousand and one. He had a pretty robust career going back to the early nineteen forties, spanning multiple genres and involving quite a few notable international actors of the day.
You know, I think this guy does have a bit more screen charisma, but it's like his role is underwritten and he's not given enough to do other than kind of have heart problems and die.
Yeah that is about all that he does. But you can he's more believable in his scenes, his few scenes where he gets to do more than just sort of hang upside down and so forth. So I kept wondering, like, well, maybe this is the actor who really should have played the villain. Maybe he could have made the villain role more interesting. I'm not sure. Internationally, he's probably more recognizable to audiences for his roles in nineteen seventy seven Sorcerer.
This is, of course the remake of Wages of Fear that has the amazing Tangerine Dream score. He's also in two thousand and one's Day Gone, a Stuart directed Spanish production that's an adaptation of lovecraft shadow over in Smith.
Oh who is he in that?
He's the old man who gets tortured by fish people.
Oh, he's the one guy in the village who's not a fish person. Yeah, yeah, okay, I remember him. He Oh, he divulges the lore. He's like, here's he divulges the lore.
And then I think he gets his face torn off or something. That's right, But he's definitely in it. His other big credits, though, include nineteen eighty nine's Tie Me Up, Timey Down. This is a film that of course had Antonio Banderas in it, nineteen eighty four is The Holy Innocence. In nineteen ninety nine's Goya and Bordeaux, he had the
title role in that. He'll also find him in various European hearth and thrillers, including Umberto Lindsay's Nightmare City from nineteen eighty, nineteen seventy eight's Hotel Fear, and he co starred with John Saxon in nineteen seventy five's Fight to the Death.
Okay, I've watched some other movies with Francisco rebal He as I said, he's an underwhelming presence in this movie. But I don't think that's his fault. I think it's it's the writing of his character. He brings a really tough, you know, kind of sandbag heavy Robert Dovey energy.
Yeah, he has. It's notable that later in his career, certainly the period in which we find this film, he has some pretty extensive, extensive facial scarring. Apparently he was in a couple of really bad car crashes, I think in sixty three and nineteen eighty according to his oh bit. But if you go back, like in this film, he's kind of he has, you know, kind of he's a little heavier, balding on top, you know, the very rugged face.
You look at him in his prime though, and man, he was quite the leading man, rather different kind of screen presence. So again, very well regarded actor during the decades during which he was active.
Okay, so in your dream casting, you were saying, maybe we would have had Francisco Reball as the villain, but instead as the villa, and we've got Emilio Redondo, who. Yeah, I don't know, what would you scale of one to ten? How well would you rate his pleas for worship?
Yeah, he's not. His whole cult leader thing is basically to wear a bunch of bells in a hooded robe, which is fine, that's a solid choice. But then there's just kind of a lot of yelling and threatening of hell, which again not out of the you know, not beyond the realm of possibility for a cult leader. But I don't know, there's just nothing charismatic about him. You know, there's nothing where it's like I want to hear what this guy has to say.
They don't really show how he wins converts. He's always just screaming at people to worship him. And you know, I am your God, believe it me.
Yeah. I mean, you think of some of the great roles played by perhaps better actors and definitely better screenplays, and they all get you get that scene where you get to sort of taste the the cult leader charisma. You know, you think of like Conan the Barbarian in those scenes where you get to see see Thulsa Doom just really you know, chew up the scenery and share some of his theology and also just captivate the audience. And we just don't get any kind of moments like
that from brother Jonas. No, there is no what is the answer to the riddle of steel? He's just demanding everyone love him. Yeah. So Redondo lived nineteen thirty seven through twenty fourteen Spanish actor. He was also in Timey Up, Timey Down. His other credits include seventy twos Anthony and Cleopatra. This was the one that starred and was directed by Charlton Heston. He was in nineteen seventy four's The Dead, the Devil and the Flesh. He was in seventy six
is The People Who Own the Dark. That one has a bit part by Paul Nashey. By the way. He was in nineteen eighty two's Morte in Vodicano. So I guess like Death in the Vatican, I think it's a thriller, Okay. He was in nineteen eighty t three's Black Venus that had hell Galline in it, who's a factored into I think a couple of films we've watched German actor and he was also a nineteen eighty eight Fist Fighter starring Jorge Rivero and Matthias Who's This is a poster that
I've come across a few times. I had to share it with you here, Joe, because I think it has the most abs per movie poster ever, regardless of genre.
Yes, all of the abs looked like the plates on the exoskeleton of like a deep ocean isopod or insect.
Yeah, they each seem to have like a ten pack, And I would suspect that this was some sort of AI generated image if I didn't know for certain that this is the authentic poster from a previous decade.
Right, Like you can't get the number of fingers or teeth, right, it's giving people fourteen abs.
All right. One other thing of note about this film on the surface anyway, not so much notable once you actually get into the film, But this is an a Neo Morricone score. So this light the humanoid that we watched in another episode from nineteen seventy nine has a score by one of the most famous composers of really the twentieth century. And beyond a little bit, but certainly of the twentieth century.
I will say, first of all, this is not his best work that I've heard, but it is better than standard B movie score. A problem, though, is mismatch between the score and what's happening on screen, Like there will be scenes where suddenly a kind of a kind of glorious romantic theme is playing well, like a skeleton that's got rotten bits of flesh all over. It is like emerging from the fog. It just doesn't the drama and the soundtrack seem off.
Yeah, yeah, so I would agree not Morcone's best work, but among his best scores, the good, the Bad, and the Ugly from sixty six, the mission from eighty John Carpenter is the thing from eighty two. So you know, lots of great scores from this man. But he wrote over four hundred scores for the big screen and the small screens, so you know they can't all be zingers.
This was the David Pumpkins of Morconey scores.
Yeah, but uh yeah, again, it's it's kind of surprising who's not in this film, like Frank Bronna, for example, being the main one. I was thinking that that guy would have been perfect for this film, just to be one of the cult members standing in the background. But he's not in it. Sad.
So I looked what was he busy with in nineteen eighty two eighty three. Apparently he was making pod People and Hundra Hondra the uh this looks like a Lady Conan basically.
Oh wow, it does look look potentially interesting, but hey, pod People, I wouldn't take that away from him. I wouldn't want pod People to be threatened just to just to make Treasure of the Four Crowns a little interesting.
On the cast side, though, I am surprised there's not some cast overlap with pod People. It seems like seems like it should be.
Yeah, Pod People have like a thousand people in it, so there's plenty of people to go around.
All right, You ready to talk about the plot.
Yes, let's let's get into the plot.
How do you think this movie should open? Should Should it have a Star Wars style text crawl?
Oh?
Absolutely, yeah, So I don't know why it chooses to do. There's not like background we need, so it's not like, you know, it is a ton It is a dark time for the rebel alliance or whatever. It's just it's just sort of telling us the themes stuff that will be reiterated anyway. It says in the universe, there are things man cannot hope to understand. Powers he cannot hope to possess, forces he cannot hope to control. The Four Crowns are such things. Yet the search has begun. A
soldier of fortune takes the first step. He seeks a key that will unlock the power of the Four Crowns and unleash a world where good and evil collide.
I love all of this because, I mean, there's a lot of hope squashing, like things you can't hope to understand, you can't hope to visit, possitz, you can't hope to control. But then this whole thing about prepared to end real world where good and evil collide. I was thinking, isn't a world where good and evil collide? Isn't that just the mundane world? Isn't that just every day that's already the world? Yeah, maybe they'll collide more than ever before.
So the very opening of this movie is a temple raid, obviously modeled on the prologue of Raiders of the Lost Dark, where our hero must plunge into the bowels of a forgotten catacomb full of deadly booby traps to retrieve a sacred artifact. Yeah, it is very much like the temple rate at the beginning of Raiders, except yeah, I guess, like everything else in the films, it doesn't actually copy anything that made that sequence so amazing.
Right, you know? Yeah? Yeah, So instead of an ancient temple in the Peruvian rainforest, the setting is a big, blocky castle in Spain with no trees anywhere in sight. Somehow doesn't have quite the same charm. Also, instead of a whip cracking Harrison Ford in a leather jacket and a fedora, we've got Tony Anthony and he's he's in a candy apple red leather jacket instead of you know, your classic brown leather jacket. He's got perpetual ick face,
you know what I mean. Yeah, and he's smoking a cigarette. When we first seen he's just added like a field, smoking a cigarette and he's looking at the castle like a god, I don't want to do this.
Yeah, and that watching the opening of this film, as he's approaching, I really experienced strong vibes of this can't possibly be our hero. Right, I'd seen like a still of Tony Anthony before, but I wasn't sure. I wasn't one hundred percent sure this was Tony Anthony. I was like, this is a guy that dies in the first ten minutes, right, we were not really up to the Tony Anthony scenes. But no, this is Tony Anthony. This is your hero for the duration of the picture.
It's a hard pill to swallow, but yeah, and we will later find out the name of our hero. This is JT. Striker, a soldier of Fortune, solid solid so Disco, Indiana. Jones smokes a cigarette and then begins his descent into the tomb and he you know, there are of course traps awaiting him. The first twenty minutes of this movie is an unbelievably drawn out, just series of traps during the raid on the castle. And again, to reiterate, this is the most three D movie I have ever seen,
and that was evident after the first several minutes. In the three D gags in the opening are non stop, and their logical relationship to the progression of the plot here is often questionable.
Yeah, there's in Raiders. You you have a strong sense of cause and effect with booby traps. There's no such feeling in this picture. These are not traps that even seem to have some unbelievable mechanical operation behind them, but just sort of random, supernatural what have you.
That's right. So in Raiders, yeah, you've got like you step on the floor tile the dart comes out, or you you move into the light, the spikes shoot. This time, I don't know, it's just you know, he's going through and then there's like, oh, here are some spikes poking out, and then a bunch of birds attack, and there's but except it's three birds and one pterodactyl. It's a pterodactyl.
It's like a cute little puppetterodactyl.
Why is there a pterodactyl? And also, if this is an ancient tomb, have there been living birds in there for hundreds of years?
Yeah, it makes no sense. And and again it's not like the traps in Raiders make a lot of sense if you analyze him too much, Like that whole light trap, How on earth was that supposed to work? Yeah?
Yeah, I mean it doesn't.
Hold up to close scrutiny. But this film, like tops the insanity that raiders brings like by two or three scoops.
So it goes bird trap, no spike trap, bird trap, tterodact featuring pterodactyl, and then snake trap. Just like a snake attacks, well, it doesn't attack him, actually, a snake just kind of slithers over him harmlessly and he freaks out.
Yeah, and I love the like the puky face that he makes during contact with the snake, like it just kind of like who kind of a face like he's about to wretch. And I just couldn't help but imagine what if Indiana Jones had made this face around the snakes that he hated. You know what would that have done to the picture?
Yeah, so instead of yelling about how he hates snakes, he just like barfs or looks like he's gonna barf. Yeah, so uh okay, So there's bird, there's spikes, then birds, pterodactyl, snake, and then dogs dogs attack and just dogs chasing him around while he runs up and down on ramps and
stuff trying to get away from him. He eventually gets away from the dogs by falling through a hole in the floor and then we see it like a three D shot of him falling toward the camera, plunging down the hole, and the hole is like a tunnel in a spaceship full of the all these differently colored lights. It doesn't look like it matches the setting at all.
Yeah, it looks like some sort of contraption that a sixties Batman villain would have busted out on the Cape Crusader.
Yeah. But finally he gets to the treasure room, where there are a bunch of skeletons and creepy suits of armor, and every time he turns his back, they're kind of like creeping around, like pointing swords at him, and I think it's sort of played for comedy, like he'll turn and look and then they stop moving. He eventually lays down some explosives and blows up a coffin to get inside, and then there's this majestic music from the more Coney score as a withered corpse king is revealed.
And the corpse king looks pretty good. There's this kind of what color is this like a.
Powder blue fog behind him.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's cool. It's prominently featured in some of the promotional images for the picture, and I think is in the trailer as well.
Then he gets some artifact off of the king. He pulls like a scepter with a mechanism that somehow releases a key, and so he's got this key. I think that's what he's there for. But then ensues an excruciatingly long battle with floating crossbows and ghost weapons, spiritual axes that fly around, rolling spike wheel traps, and it just goes on and on and on.
It does manage to reach that point where, like we've discussed this before, where something is interesting and then it becoes on so long it becomes tedious, but then circles back around and becomes amazing again because you they're still doing it, like Tony Anthony is still dodging spears and arrows sometimes matrix style.
It's yes, it's like the melting at the end of The Devil's Rain. It goes on so long that it becomes kind of awe inspiring. And this is the scene that infamously, for people who were accusing this movie of ripping offeraidors, the thing they pointed out most often is that the hero has to run from a boulder, just like Indiana Jones, except they up the ante. They make him flee a flaming boulder.
Yeah, and all of this is played again. It's played very seriously and played very very cool, and that's one of the reasons that these sequences are so delightful.
Agreed. But eventually Tony Tony escapes. He runs away from the castle as the castle explodes behind him.
Strong vibes of tim they enchanter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail with these explosions exactly.
Yeah, these little like point sources of explosions set against the castle to try to make it look like the whole thing's blowing up. But really it's just these like I don't know, fireballs coming off of the stones.
I should have looked up to see who their pyro guy on this film was, because whoever it was, assuming nobody was injured, and I don't think I didn't read anything about anybody being injured. There's a lot of fire in this movie. They really bring the fire.
Okay, So he's got the key and now we're going to go back to civilization. So back in the city, we see Tony Tony walking around. He walks past like a big fountain, and you know, it feels like we're in for some exposition, and what do you know, my instincts were right.
I also love how in this sequence, and there's one you included us still for this in our notes where he's walking underneath this fountain and this pretty cool little shot here that I don't even think has any three D in it, at least until he throws his cigarette at the camera, and then that's the three D gag that they couldn't go, you know, two minutes without having.
But in this sequence he's all coolness and jacket and smoking, and it's almost you almost want to call him on his bs and be like, we just saw you freaking out for like twenty straight dialogue free minutes and pulling all sorts of kooky faces. So don't pull this swab hero stuff now, buddy.
That's right, you are not too cool for school. You barf when you see a snake. So Tony eventually meets up with his people and he gets into a car with his handler Edmund Here or Ed. This was apparently the guy who sent him on the mission to the castle. Here is where we learned that Tony Tony's name is JT. Striker. JT is unhappy because Ed apparently did not warn him that the castle was going to be full of dogs and killer birds and pterodactyls and snakes and spikes and
ghost weapons and flaming boulders. Oh, and I will say screenshot here earlier I think I said Ed Ed was bald on top. He's not. I just remembered that wrong. Here we go, we get to see it. His hair is longer in back than it is on top.
Yes, yeah, otherwise, yeah, we have to withdraw that statement. Full head of glorious hair on Edmund So Tony.
Tony says, you almost got me killed, and Ed says, hey, I told you. I told you there was a legend surrounding the existence of the key. But no, no, you didn't want to listen. You said you didn't believe in ghosts and that legends were cow excrement. So we got a hero who thinks legends are cow excrement. But JT. Striker is over it. He just wants his money so he can say goodbye to these guys and be on
his way. But Ed takes JT to meet his boss, the Professor, who is hanging out in what looks like like a big government building where it's full of suits of armor. And Striker gives the professor the key, and we are taken to this box on a table where I guess he owes. The professor opens up the box and then a crown like a gold jewel, encrusted crown with a golden ball on top, extends toward the camera slowly, so it's coming into our facial region, and the professor narrates.
He says, this is one of the four golden crowns created by the Visigoths in the sixth century, sometime after the conquest of Spain. Legend dictates the gold balls on top of three of the four crowns contained secrets to unleashing incredible powers of good and evil. After centuries, they passed into the fabric of myth and legend when an archaeologist discovered them in the mountains outside Toledo. But when the Arabs invaded Spain, three of the four crowns disappeared.
I'm already confused on the timeline here.
It seems to be.
Going backward and forward in the past in a way that doesn't make any sense, but anyway, to continue, he says, the fourth fell into the Arab's hands attempting to unlock its secrets without using the key. I think this is the key Striker just brought. They destroyed the Golden Ball three years ago I learned the location of the key, there was no sense in recovering it because the crowns were still missing until this crown, purportedly the one containing
the scroll, surfaced. I discovered it in the possession of a Sherpa mountain climber in Nepal and convinced him to sell it to me. But now we shall see.
Wow, there's so much, so much in all of that, and some just total dead ends too, like why is it just not the legend of the three crowns? Then if the fourth crown, I guess they had to establish that you cannot even attempt to open one of these without the special key, otherwise you destroyed the content. That's right.
I thought the same thing. According to this exposition, by the time the film begins, Treasure of the Four Crowns is about three crowns that remain in existence.
Yeah, I mean you almost wonder if maybe there was a supposed to be a whole additional sequence or something and they just didn't film it or it had to be cut. I don't know, but yeah, it's very confusing all of this. But what we're looking then at three crowns. This is one of them, and they have a key to unlock the ball on the crown.
The ball on the crown, which this one contains a scroll, But I think the other two contain the secrets of unimaginable power.
So how they end up with the least interesting crown then.
I don't know. Very good question. Oh, by the way, during this whole exposition, just like tweezers and magnifying glasses and other objects are being inserted into our facial space. Yeah, but anyway, Professor, he gets the scroll out, you know, he unlocks the box, gets the scroll out, and he is ecstatic. He says, the very existence of this scroll supports the legend.
Okay, okay, fair enough.
I don't remember do they ever read what the scroll says? Maybe if they do, I don't recall that part.
I don't recall it either. I think I was very distracted by this part because I was kept thinking, like, didn't well, couldn't they have done an X ray and just figured out what was in there? Like it wasn't there some sort of technique they could have used, or maybe even just taken a crowbar to the thing. But I guess not.
No, you need the key. Well you learn that because they tried to open the key open it without the key before and it led to untold destruction. That's right, okay, But anyway, so JT. Striker, I don't know, maybe he's sort of interested. He says, where are the other crowns? And ed the professor's assistant, remember, he says, we know. And then for some reason, they have a slide show introduction prepared and waiting to teach us about the villain
of today's film. So, almost as if by magic, like all these things start automatically happening, like the lights go down, and these curtains on the wall drawback, revealing a projector screen, and the slide projector clicks on and somehow quite hilariously, audio starts playing. So it shows a picture of this guy in a like a hooded robe, like a red robe with a cloak, and all these bells attached to him, and we hear I want you to taste what I taste. I want you to hear what I hear. I want
you to see what I see. Do you get the theme? I want you to feel what I feel. I want you to be what I am and if you won't, then go to hell. And then a crowd starts chanting Jonas, Jonas, Jonas, and we get various shots. They're like portraits of Jonas here, just looking menacing and quite crazed, with his arms outstretched, making angry faces, anguished faces, clutching at his bells. He seems like a guy who's maybe up to no good.
Yeah, and again already it's very difficult to see what his apparently thousands upon thousands of international followers see in him. What they're taking away from this message, How this message gives them some level of hope or improves their perceived status in the world. We don't know. They just like what's he's dishing out?
Oh, I meant to look up what is the relationship of this film to the legend of Zelda the very first game? Because he's got a tri force painted on his forehead.
No, I don't know.
This is before the first tri force in Zelda. Maybe that's I've never researched the.
Symbol to see how far back it goes the inverse triangle within a larger triangle.
Just glancing at Wikipedia quickly it looks like it's saying that maybe this was used as a symbol in like some Japanese publishing before, before the legend of Zelda. But definitely the first video game didn't come until eighty six.
Okay, so this is not Jonas Dorf or Gannon Jonas or anything.
No, but so evil brother Zelda. Here we learn about him. Ed narrates the slideshow. Ed says Neil Green born in Brooklyn, New York, served seven years a sing sing for armed robbery, where he claims to have experienced a religious vision. When he got out, he borrowed a hundred bucks and became one of those male order ministers. Huh what was that?
I don't know. I guess it's like nowadays it would be like you went to a website and became an ordained minister.
I guess. So then he ordained himself, brother Jonas. When his small storefront cult following began to grow, he complained of political harassment, the government, claimed tax fraud. He's got the crowns, and then ed Ed starts to kind of so that's the main speech, and then he starts to editorialize, this guy's an animal. He's got to be stopped. He's not just some nut. He wants power.
And he's got the crowns. I love how they did, like in describing this guy's origin story really skipped a lot into how he has essentially, you know, acquires the power on the level of the Ark of the Covenant.
Yeah. Yeah, so they do explain he's got a fortress. He's got a fortress where he attracts. He has his followers go out and round up the sick, the desperate, and the lonely and bring them to his private mountain fortress for the ninety day indoctrination period.
We later get to see some of these folks and they just look they look like tourists. They look, yeah, like people going to a theater. They don't look particularly sick or desperate or lonely. But I don't know.
They're just sitting there while he yells at them to believe in him. And there's another you know, there are all these slides in the slideshow of the bad Guy's lair, so it's another castle on a hilltop for all I know, the same one that blew up at the beginning, and then armed guards, German shepherds. They say there are cells for cult members who try to escape or who disobey Brother Jonas, and then some audio of Brother Jonas plays again. He says, welcome my children to the City of Love
and Unity. I have prayed for the day when I would see your face before me. And then Ed he goes on to say, you know, he fills them up with all this. Here you are loved, here, you are needed. Bull this is his indoctrination squad. And they show these guys who are also dressed in red robes but wearing pig masks. Okay, that's starting to be kind of creepy. But then as funny as the second time, Ed brings
up the issue of taxes. He says, Brother Jonas has thousands of disciples and hundreds of millions of dollars quote tax free.
Well, I mean, I mean, it is a new religious movement. Shouldn't it be up for some sort of tax exemption? I don't know, I don't know.
So the professor says, you know, he must be stopped, mister Striker. For Brother Jonas, those crowns are weapons of power and fear. But I want to preserve that power for the future of mankind. It's an incredible legacy. I must have them, and for some reason, Strikers response to this is to ask why do all those people have Halloween masks on? And Ed explains that everybody in the cult has to wear a mask because the individual's identity doesn't matter. Only Brother Jonas is important.
Okay, so they're like the band Ghost, Oh do they have a Brother Jonas or well, there's the lead singer of Ghost and then everyone else is just a nameless ghoul that wears a mask.
Nice, Okay, it's the Brother Jonas principle. Okay, yeah, anyway, Striker wants out. You know, you can tell this guy he's just a workaday soldier of fortune. He's not interested in getting involved in Brother Jonas Shenanigan, so he just wants to get his money and be on his way. But then Ed implores him. He says, do something good for once in your life. Help us get the crowns, and Striker gives him a very just unimpressed face and
he tries to walk out. He says, you guys sitting in this big room, you're just believing in fair fairy tales, and Ed says, we've got plans, equipment, diagrams. All we need is a few good people, and then there's a transition I didn't get it all. Maybe you caught something I didn't. The Striker walks out and it looks like he's fully refusing the call and we're gonna have to go to another scene where he's becomes convinced somehow to participate.
But instead, in the next scene, Ed and Striker are just suddenly together on a snowy mountaintop, proceeding with the mission. So what happened? Why did he come back and do it?
Yeah? I feel like we needed some sort of scene or in there where he observes something or has some sort of breakthrough where he realizes, no, I really should help steal these crowns from this cult leader. But now it's just like, oh, yeah, I'm doing it. I know I said I wasn't doing it, but I'm actually doing it.
So the middle portion of the movie is the getting the team together montage that well, not quite a montage. It's a series of scenes.
Yes, recruiting the least convincing heist crew imaginable to carry out this heist.
Yeah, so the team, I guess in order is JT. Striker. We know his deal. Then there's Ed Actually, as we said, he turns out to be a member of the team. You might be wondering what does he actually bring to the table in terms of being like on the ground for a heist. Seems like he's a tech guy. He unlocks electronic doors and disarms bombs and traps and stuff.
All Right, I mean, if this is an Unders and Dragons crew, then this is your rogue. This is the guy that's gonna pick those locks and disarm those traps. Fair enough, He's not very rogueish, He's not. He does not have any stealth attacks up his sleeve, that's for sure.
Also, I would say he has the most unroguelike alignment because I would say ed is lawful neutral.
Yeah.
But okay, so those two are on the mission. The first guy they're going to recruit is Rick. This is I think he's supposed to be a mountain climber. They find him at a secluded mountain cabin on a snowy peak where where he reveals that he has a drinking problem. I think what they meet like a lady at a bar and they were like, where's Rick, And they're like, Oh, he's staggered off to his cabin and ed just keeps going staggered. You want to get a guy who staggers?
Yeah, this character has one of those cinematic drinking problems where it's at once it's played with a wink, but it's also firmly established as being completely debilitated and life wrecking. You know, like this is a guy who whose life is all but destroyed by his drinking. But he ends up saying, Okay, I'll come along, I'll stop drinking for the highst but then he's actually drinking from a flask on the heist Antony. Anthony just kind of laughs it off, like it's kind of like, oh Rick.
Yeah, oh haha, that yeah, that's silly guy. Yeah. There's so in the scene where he's trying to recruit him, he's like, you know, I got a mission for you. I just need you to sober up for three weeks and we can do it. And Rick says, do I have to spell it out for you? If it doesn't come in a bottle, I'm not interested. But I think Rick becomes convinced because of a bizarre battle with a flying magic key in his cabin.
Oh yeah, they do some trump. He does magic things in his cabin. For a little bit, and he's like, all right, I need to sober up a little bit. Clearly, I'm on board.
Do you remember why does the key start doing magic things here? I guess Striker gets it out. He's like, here's a key. We need to I don't know, get some crowns from brother Jonas because he shouldn't have them. And then the key floats up in the air and starts flying around, and then there's just like like bananas poltergeist activity for several minutes while they're chasing the key around trying to catch it.
Yeah, and there's like he's trying to sort of channel the energy of the key but failing, and it's yeah, it's it's a mess, and you think it's going to be more important later on, and to a certain agree it is. But it's also not as much of a plot point as I thought it would be.
Yeah, all right, so Rick's on board. Next, we got to recruit our strong man, who we meet in the form of a blue hulk. This is Socrates.
Yeah, he's doing some sort of a circus show with his skin painted blue, and it's very alarming. But I did like the scene where he comes backstage and there's this skinny clown, a guy in clown makeup standing in the background, and then Socrates is wiping his blue paint off and Tony Anthony's like a striker's like, hey, how you doing. He's like, how does it look like I'm doing? And I thought that was pretty good?
Yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, he's your strong man for the heightst is going to be this old guy with heart problems, but it's also still somehow a legit strong man who can and should be going on dangerous missions into enemy cult territory.
Yeah, there's a little bit confusing there, but also okay, so what is the relationship between him and the trapeze artist? Liz was his daughter? Is that right?
Unknown daughter lover coworker. I mean, it's so underdeveloped, it could be anything I could.
They may have said, but I didn't catch it. For some reason. He was like, I'll do it for Liz. You know, It's like he would go on this mission because I think if.
The bluestone man Socrates, Yes, sorry what I thought you meant? What's his relationship to too? What's what's Liz's relationship to Tony Anthony? But you know what Liz's relationship to Socrates is Socrates? Is she his daughter? No idea, I think she will, so.
Like she he goes on the mission because he's like, uh, if I get the money from this mission, even if I die, Liz will get the money. And I'm doing it all for Liz. And then we meet Liz and she's doing a trapeze act in three D. And then they're standing there together and it's like, okay, we're in I think she's his daughter. Okay, that's all, yeah.
Yeah, fair enough. There's a once they get the crew together, there is that great scene where they go through the planning and they have an epic model prepared of the castle and the inside of the castle and the room. I don't know if you want to get into that yet, but that's a pretty amazing sequence it is.
It's a long scene explaining the plant, like Ed and the Professor explained the heist plan. Basically, we learned that the room in which brother Jonah stores the crowns is Scrooge McDuck's vault, complete with like nine different kinds of security systems. They got lasers, they got touched sensitive floor. It's very much the from De Palma's mission Impossible movie, The First Mission Impossible movie with Tom Cruise. You remember the scene with the air gap CIA terminal where they
have to go in on the wires. So they're doing something like that here. But somehow in this scene while they're doing the plan it devolves into psychedelic visions from the key, like the keys flying around again, and there's wind and fire and lightning, and everybody's like seeing mods and like goat heads with snakes and stuff and uh. And then Liz after it's all over, goes what happened? And JT. Striker says it was nothing unless you believe in ghosts.
Yeah, says the man who began the picture being tormented by ghosts and wild animals for like twenty minutes.
Yeah.
There's also a scene in the planning sequence where they're like, how are we going to get in with the you know, the electric gate and the floor and so forth, And then Tony Anthony strolls up and he like throws some sort of toys been messing around with on the table and he says we'll fly in, And I was thinking, oh, maybe he means they're going to use that weird key that was making stuff fly over all over the place and they're going to use that. No, he's just talking about using trapeze equipment.
Oh yeah, yeah, uh so. Oh man, So let's get into the heist. They sneak into the castle. The action part of the heist is after some general sneaking and like a lock disarming and stuff, the action part of the heist is I thought interminable, just infinite rope dangling.
Yeah, they start setting this up and they spare you none of it. You want to see each character get into their harness, you know, and secure their harness around their crotch. Then that's exactly what we're gonna watch. We get to what we watch so much of that, and then we start hoisting everyone up one by one to the ceiling of this large you know, sort of basketball arena size or you know, cathedral size space, and start
hoisting everyone across the ceiling. And there are lots They managed to fit in some three D shots there as well. There are people that, you know, the rope slips and they plummet a little bit towards the camera, or they're just repelling their crotch towards the camera a bit. There's a lot of that during the sequence. It feels like the the longest climbing sequence ever committed to cinema, even though it's only a portion of the film and not like it's not a mountain climbing movie.
And there's there's comedy moments where Ed is supposed to like zip down a rope line and he's like, no, but I'm a nerd, and you know, he gets to the end and he's.
Like, oh wow, yeah, he winds up upside down.
Yeah. Meanwhile, oh, brother Jonas is doing a whole ritual, like he's invited all these people to the fortress for the ninety days indoctrination. I guess they just wanted to try it out, try it out for ninety days free of indoctrination. And so, you know, he's doing these weird things where he has all his cultists in their red robes walking around in this cathedral room while people in regular clothes are seated on the floor in the middle
and he's preaching at them. And then at one point he has all his goons cut locks of hair from the women who are visiting there, and then he places all the hair in like a baptismal font and then lights the hair on fire and the hair explodes.
Yeah, yeah, solid at least it's involving everybody, Okay.
Uh huh. And he at one point he does staged healing. There's a woman who's we learned, pretending to be diseased, and he leans over her, holds a gleaming, heated knife to her face, and all the cultists are like rattling these strange objects. I don't know exactly what they're, like tubes with sticks in them or something, and they're rattling them. And brother Jonas places the hot knife on the sick woman's forehead and it leaves an X and he says,
heal this girl, take away her pain. Meanwhile, aggressive tambourine men charge into the congregation, like jabbing bells and jingle jangles in everybody's faces.
Yeah, and then the sequence goes nowhere because we get the wink and the nod that it's a fake exorcism or a fake healing whatever at the end, which seems like a missed opportunity because isn't again, the whole situation supposed to be that this cult leader has access to super powerful artifacts that make him a danger to the world, Like shouldn't he be doing something a little more elaborate to pull in the believers.
Yeah, you would think so. You would think that the crowns would be giving him real magic power and he would be using that. Yeah, okay, But meanwhile, back in the crown room, so that the getting across the room on the ropes takes forever. But when you finally get to the end where they're getting up to the statue that's holding the crown, so like the crowns are settled on top of this large statue at the at the end of the hall. I would describe it as a
seated crusader goro with two heads. One of the goro because it's got four arms, it's wearing kind of I don't know, medieval clothes. One of the heads is a hornet goat and the other is also a horned goat, and snakes shoot out from behind the goatthead. Goro thrown in the shape of a star, and each goat head has one of the crowns.
I love this two headed, four armed goat idol. I think it's probably my favorite actor in the film. I think this basic design would look great on any heavy metal metal album cover or T shirt out there.
I agree it looks cool, but there's still just a lot of hanging from straps and doodling around while they're getting up to it. Eventually they do approach the crowns. JT lands on the statue pedestal. This trigger This is where things go go really wrong. This triggers a spike trap that shoots spikes out of the floor. One of them hits Rick and kills Rick. Then JT gets shot in the face by steam and then the alarm goes off and Brother Jonas in the middle of the indoctrination ceremony,
he cries out the crowns. The crowns and all occultists rushed to the room.
Now, did Socrates dive a heart attack? Yet? That also happens?
Oh, that does have I don't know if that happened before this or after. Maybe before Yeah, I think he falls down. He's like dangling from a rope and then he's like ah, and Liz is very sad.
So we're down to just Striker and Liz. Really at this point, I know there's still Ed oh, Ed still on the game, that's right. But then Ed goes down to the statue I think to help Striker maybe, but he gets killed by a deadly snake hug Like the snake things jutting out from behind the statue curl around and grab him, and then one of them bites him.
Oh yeah, yeah, this this thing is loaded with all sorts of crazy illogical traps and triggers that of course are gonna cause sharp things and poiny things and tooth things to come flying at the camera.
But here's where things start going really unbelievably weird. So Striker gets back up to he like opens up the two crowns and the gyms are exposed from the golden balls, and he grabs the two gems at the same time, and at first it looks like he's gonna barf, but instead his head starts spinning fully, spinning around about fifty times.
Yeah, like a bad Exorcist ripoff gag, but done just yeah, multiple times. We don't just see it once, we get to watch it. Oh we're over again. Just take it all in.
And he turns around. So the cultists are like running into the room. They're there to, I guess, kill him and Liz for invading their compound. And then JT turns around and he's two face now, like half of his face is monsterfied.
I guess the idea is that he's supposed to be half good and half evil. Now, so one side his monster one side's not. Reminds me a little bit of the half female, half male asymmetry in the Bathomet statue. You know, the goat creature that we've talked about on the show before.
Hmm, okay, well, whatever it is. He's growning like igor in the monster mash, and then he gets flamethrower hands. Apparently that's what the Gems do, is they give you flamethrower hands, and he's just like squirting jets of flame at the cultists and Brother Jonas. All of their guns explode, flaming boulders fly out of nowhere, and Brother Jonas is he melting? Yes, that's right, he is melting.
Yeah. It's definitely one of those moments where you really respect the melting scenes and Raiders and Devil's Rain because they make it look easy. This film really shows you how hard it is to make it at all believable, because yeah, it's this obvious Brother Jonas sculpture that's like not even fully melting. We just kind of like slowly crumbling, and you get the feeling there might be somebody jabbing a stick up in there to make things fall apart.
Yeah, there are chunks falling out of him, the paint's peeling a little bit, and he's got lasers coming out of his face or maybe going into his face. That wasn't clear to me.
Yeah, Like they couldn't decide on what method of destruction made sense, so they just went with all of them.
But so I think the cultists are defeated, and then there's fire everywhere and triumphant music. But then there's like, uh, oh, so Liz is still there, hanging from the ropes, and it's like, is JT. Striker now going to turn his flamethrower hands on Liz? And it looks for a second like he is, But no he, I guess, like the good part of him wins and he resists and he grabs the two balls from the crowns and collapses screaming.
I couldn't help but think a lot about Raiders again, and all of this because, of course, in the climax of Raiders of the Lost Dark, Indiana Jones and Oh what'sh what's your name? Marion are are captive. They're held captive by the Nazis. The Nazis then make a big show of opening up the Arc on this island, and then the Wrath of God destroys all of the Nazis.
This film is kind of like they're like, well, what if Indiana Jones had opened had beat the Nazis to it and opened the arc and then like the power of the Arc turned Indiana Jones into a flamethrower monster that then destroyed all the Nazis.
What if he becomes the flamethrower Angel of Death?
Yeah, yeah, which would have been a terrible choice, don't I don't even think Spielberg and Lucas could have made that work. They made the absolute perfect choice in Raiders of the Lost Ark. They go in a different direction in this film.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but he's not, like, so he's not flamethrower hands forever. He stops doing that, and he like wakes up and he is now d two faced. He's back to normal, and Striker and Liz hug and they're like, oh, we made it, We're all right. Of course, Liz mourns the Socrates, I guess her father. She mourns him, and then they ate the radio's beeping and they call the chopper,
they're ready for extraction. And then this genuinely made me laugh out loud, this gentle kind of music that lets you know the conflict is over the kind that we be playing, and you know, as the heroes like right off into the sunset and in slow motion instead it's over a three D shot that's a close up of like the gun barrel for a grappling line. Yeah, so they go up to the roof and it's like, did you get the crowns? And can you imagine the magic,
the power, the potential benefit to mankind. But then I think Striker, like what does he to see? Like throw the gems and back in the fire.
It's like there's the flaming bones of Brother Jonas and he just kind of like throws them next to the fire, Like he kind of throws them into the fire, but not in a very convincing way like like oh like not in like we must destroy these so nobody can use their power. He's just kind of like, so I don't want these, and then yeah, tosses them over there.
So they get to the choppa. But then we zoom in on the Brother Jonah's skeleton and it's still smoking and then we hear a heartbeat and then there is the most out of nowhere stinger. Could you make sense of this ending to me? So there's like we're somewhere else now there's this throbbing wad coming up out of the water in a swamp, and then it's got pharyngeal jaws that jab out at the camera and then that's the end.
Yeah, it's like as best I could piece it together, like suddenly in a swamp somewhere else, brother Jonas is resurrected as some sort of like a rotten dea or a swamp thing due to the I guess, to the treasures. I don't know. It's like they're setting up I love it when they set up a sequel that never comes to fruition with just kind of a you know, a wacky tease like this, but I'm not even quite sure what to make of it all. It gives us one last zoom at the camera three D jump scare, I.
Guess meanwhile in klid.
Yeah, but it's a great note to end this film on because you get this insane ending anyway, and then just this extra little scoop of the of the weird right on the end, just to leave you, send you out into the world, out into the daylight, with just one more thing to try and figure out about the plot.
Do you think they were trying to set up a sequel?
Sort of maybe, But also I think as simple as just like we need one more thing, isn't there something else we could do to jab the audience in the eye one more time to send them home happy?
What if we showed a pot of popcorn popping and the popcorn was popping up into the camera lens. Oh, that reminds me one last thing. I don't know if you noticed the same thing I did. I have never seen a movie where there was so much crud stuck to the camera lens. While yeah, nearly every scene, there
is something that is consistent across shots, like stuck. You can telt stuck to the lens, And I think, I don't know, this must have been because they were constantly throwing stuff at the camera for these three D shots. I don't know.
I will drive home again that we did not have access to the Blu Ray, so I don't know if this is the case on that new Blu Ray edition that's out there. But I don't know. I mean I like a little bit of grime on the camera, camera lens, or some you know, some decay on the footage and so forth sometimes, So it didn't really bother me, but it was noticeable.
This movie belongs in a museum.
Or put into a crate and sent into a big giant space with a bunch of other big warehouse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of the two. But it's a lot of fun. Like like I said, this film is a real head scratcher. So if you're if you're into the B cinema and uh, you know, quote unquote so bad it's good films or just sort of cannon excess, then I think the Treasure of the Four Crowns is up your alley.
Yeah, fortune and glory.
All right. So that's the the first of three three D pictures we're gonna be doing. What are we What are we going to do next time? Will it? Will it be Prometheus? Will it be Emmanuel four? I don't know. You're just gonna have to have to wait around and find out or or you know, we'll probably make up our mind and have a hint about it on our profile on our list at letterboxed. Uh, let's U L E. T. T E R B O x D dot com. We
have a profile there. We have a list of all the films that we've covered on Weird House Cinema, and sometimes we'll have a peak ahead what we're going to cover next. I also block about these movies at simmutomusic dot com. Reminder that we're primarily a science podcast, with episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays core episodes, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.
Huge thanks to our audio producer Jjposway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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