Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘We are going to the lost city’
Based on a novel by Alistair Maclean, River of Death opens in Germany at the end of the war
with Robert Vaughn’s mad scientist.
‘Don’t call me mad.’
Experimenting on prisoners in a concentration camp, but not everyone approves.
‘These experiments must stop, this time you have gone too far.’
We’re bad but this is where I draw the line,
He is killed in front of his daughter.
Now Vaughn’s boss arrives.
Donald Pleasence, we’re safe hands.
He and Vaughn are old chums.
‘I shall have the girls and you shall conquer the world.’
But…
Here’s the thing, a movie’s opening can introduce the lead, establish stakes, set the tone.
So far they’ve tried to make a Concentration Camp Guard sympathetic and established a plot of one Nazi trying to get revenge on another.
'I’ll find you I shall be the devil on your back.’
I am not invested.
The introduction of our hero, 20 years later, better be amazing.
‘Taken all kinds of people into this jungle, most of them thrill seekers,’
Oh good grief.
It’s like someone put the voiceover from Apocalypse Now over Indiana Jones –
both good films, why wouldn’t they work together?
'The only thing real is the jungle.'
Despite being an adaptation this is an Indy rip-off.
'We start from here.'
John Hamilton is acting as guide for a doctor and his daughter, investigating a mysterious disease amongst South American natives.
One small problem.
‘Maybe I should have told the Doc I’ve never been up this way before’
Yeah. Probably before you took the job.
Unsurprisingly. They are captured.
Now, surely, Hamilton will come into his own.
I mean he’s got them out but I feel like the guy who built the prison helped.
But the doctor is slowing them down.
Well, don’t have to worry about that anymore.
And there’s another obstacle gone.
‘You left her there. Well what was I supposed to do?’
Err… not leave her behind?
‘Gotta get that girl out of there.’
Foolishly I assumed he meant now,
but no, he walks all the way back to civilisation, fending off...
What the hell kind of attack was that?
'Where's the brass band for the returning hero.'
The self-pitying voiceover of a man who abandoned his friends.
‘I’m gonna get that girl out of there.’
But first, a drink and some boxing dwarves while I chat up one of the Golden Girls.
Returning to his hotel room he finds Freddy Mercury and Uma Thurman waiting for him.
'I don't need this shit.'
At some point in a film you have to stop introducing things and start developing them.
‘We search for Nazi criminals who escaped after the war.’
and we’re not done yet, Donald Pleasence is here.
‘Hello…' What's your favorite musical? 'Hamilton.’
Masquerading as an anthropologist looking for a lost city Hamilton found.
‘It’s a myth Hamilton, forget it’
Herbert Lom there.
So, the running total of plotlines is Donald Pleasence’s revenge, Robert Vaughn’s experiments,
jungle plague, save the girl, capture escaped Nazis and something to do with a lost city.
‘Your motive for going to that lost city is not some little girl.’
There’s more?! Anyway, they need a helicopter.
‘You know what Johnny, when I woke up this morning...’
I was Ray Winstone.
and so to the helicopter journey winning the Dark Corners Psychotronic Man award for you don’t have to show it in real time.
The sun is now setting!
‘What the hell is that?’
You’re probably out of fuel.
The film now becomes a series of encounters with theme park pirates,
'River pirates, get down.'
Whom they blow up.
Having fortuitously brought along a bunch of dynamite,
and natives. Whom they blow up.
Having fortuitously brought along a mortar.
‘Last time I made this trip I didn’t do such a good job’
Massive understatement but seriously, you think has been an improvement?
Only 3 of them reach the lost city, where...
Nazis have taken over, headed by Robert Vaughn, who has been using the locals as test subjects, including...
‘I’m alive. For now.’
Sorry I didn’t get back sooner but there was this dwarf boxing match – it went the distance.
Hamilton is locked up with the natives.
‘It is clear that your return has a far greater purpose to our future.’
Naturally the hundreds of natives have been waiting for one white man to show up and save them,
'See the proficiency has already begun.'
None of them thought of punching a guard.
Hamilton leads them to freedom.
Another successful rescue.
Still, I suppose he can liberate the handful of people left standing
– cos that’s definitely been a key goal throughout the film –
using nothing but his cunning and a grenade that’s been here since 1945.
Meanwhile in the lab.
'I am your devil, I am the devil on your back.'
Pleasence and Vaughn face off, but…
‘Put the gun down.’
Oh good another plotline.
‘This is what you did to my father.’
I’d forgotten her completely.
'Look at your angel of death. Burn in hell both of you.'
Everybody dies while the camera focuses on the man with no stake in this whatsoever.
Hamilton heads for home.
It’s so exhausting getting everyone killed,
apparently including the girl he came to rescue, can’t be sure, the movie doesn’t even check in with her at the end.
‘All to save a girl who may or may not be alive’
Two major problems; firstly this is no fun,
which is an issue when the plot is nonsense.
‘Sounds like a bunch of shit to me’
Secondly, this was not phoned-in, everyone was trying, giving their best
and I just don’t see how they looked at the script and thought this was a workable hero.
‘I’ve been better.’
You could hardly have been worse.
'Let him go.'
Thanks for watching. Check out our Films That Made Indiana Jones Special here.
What other good, bad and ugly Indy rip-offs are out there? Let us know in the comments below.
'Keep in touch.'