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Treasure of the Four Crowns (1982)

Dir: Ferdinando Baldi

Come back with me to the days of the 3D revival, the days of International Co-productions, the days of 'Cannon Films'.
Yes folks it's time for that 80's cinematic colossus that had Stephen Spielberg worrying about the future of his career, it's time for...."TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS"!

In true Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" style (though with a tenth of the budget and even less skill) we are introduced to our less than dashing hero, J.T Stryker (Tony Anthony, or Tony Tony to his friends) who, in a fetching crimson padded anorak and with two facial expressions (confused and pursed of lip), goes through all manner of deadly traps to reach his goal.

"What traps"? And "What Goal"? I hear you cry in fascination. Well, hideous traps like...dogs, moth eaten Vultures, stuffed toy lizard birds on strings, rolling paper mache fire boulders, exploding rocks and tunnels, floating on a string crossbows and various other things on strings. Oh yes, there are a lot of strings on show in this flick.
And all this to reach a key. A key that unlocks.....

 

The golden balls on four 6th century Crowns (or three now, as one has already been destroyed by a foolish Arab who fiddled with his balls without the key) which contain secrets that can unleash incredible powers of good and evil.

One Crown is in the safe hands of the 'good guys' after being found cradled in the loving arms of a mountain Sherpa (hey, it could happen) but the remaining two are in the less than loving arms of a religious fruit cake (Emiliano Redondo, "Autopsy").

Said fruit cake was a small time criminal who found religion, grew a sinister beard, renamed himself Brother Jonas, borrowed $100, painted a white triangle on his forehead and set up a mail order religious cult (hey, it's the American Dream).
Taking all his followers money he moved into a conveniently empty Castle Fortress in the mountains. So now with armed guards, and brain washed followers he plans to do naughty things with the Crowns.
Crowns he rather foolishly hides in 'The Temple of the Crowns', just so anyone wanting to steal them knows where to look.

And stealing them from the booby-trapped Temple is what Anorak Man Stryker is persuaded to do.
So with help from a far from elite squad made up of an electronic expert called Edmund (Gene Quintano, future writer of those other cinematic legends "Police Academy 3 & 4"), an alcoholic climber named Rick (Jerry Lazarus), a Female trapeze artist named Liz (Ana Obregon) and her blue faced clown Father with a lethal heart condition named Socrates (the recently late Francisco Rabal from "Nightmare City") 'Stryker of the Confused Expression' sets out to grab those golden balls.

Oh dear. Filmed in that 80's 3D style that consists of many objects being thrust in a less than subtle manner into the camera, "Four Crowns" has dated badly. But it's no biggie as it was dated badly five seconds after filming wrapped in 1982. Arrows, and fireballs, snakes and ropes, legs and arms and the odd nose are all rammed into the viewers' face with gay abandon. Along with strings of course. Oh yes, as said, lots of strings.

That damned crazy key supplies the most deranged special effects set pieces though as it 'floats' (yep, that's right, say along with me..."on strings"!) through the air making high pitched whistling noises.
Alcoholic Rick is not keen on joining the mission until the key wobbles around his home, blowing up his bed sheets, breaking his plates, rattling his cupboards and shaking his stove. After that, he changes his mind. And who can blame him.

At one point in our gripping tale the key does rather distressing things to our heroes, reducing them to floor hugging, sweating, grimacing loons as the damn thing shrieks and wails for what seems like half an hour.
J.T says it was "nothing" though, "unless you believe in ghosts"! BOO!!

Next up in our plot is much silent sneaking around the Castle (though seeing as one gadget they use makes more bleeping sounds than the average arcade machine, you have to wonder how silent that sneaking really is) to get to the Temple.
Then there is much covert climbing as our intrepid thieves (and, the about to snuff it, Socrates who serves no purpose whatsoever in the mission) thrill the audience with edge of the seat rope and pulley, ceiling hanging action whilst bad beardy Jonas sets a bowl of hair on fire and heals the supposedly sick with much screaming and waving of hot knives. Sunday school was never like this.

Writer Tony Anthony (yep, Mr Wooden Anorak also wrote this epic) and Director Baldi do forget about the crucial, oh so sensitive, a feather can set them off, floor alarms at one point when one of our heroes drops his woolly hat but hey, we forgive the crazy guys as they are providing such damn fine entertainment.

And how wacked out that entertainment is! I won't even mention the hysterical 360 degree head turning effect, or the swinging fireballs on...er...strings, or the 'sure to scare the kiddies' falling to pieces face that was obviously put in as a doomed attempt top the melting Nazi's in "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

And let us not forget the moralistic ending that makes the whole thing ultimately pointless and leads to one of the most bizarre, wonderfully bad endings in trash cinema history. And anyone who's witnessed the end of "Pieces" will know that is no mean feat to pull that off.

Utter garbage from a bygone age where many of film goers tastes obviously left a lot to be desired, and I must say I enjoyed every 3Dtastic minute of it! So there!