The B-Masters Cabal

Comment from Tom Meade
Time: February 24, 2008, 2:56 am

King Solomon’s Mines sounds interesting. The only versions I’ve seen are the one with Stewart Granger - which was absolutely gorgeous and pretty enjoyable all round, but kind of skimped on things once everyone actually got to the mines (an odd thing to do, what with that being the bulk of the plot) - and the Cannon version with Richard Chamberlain, of which it is best not to speak.

I really enjoyed the former, though. But then, I enjoyed the mountaineering section of The Snow Creature, so I guess I may just have a weakness for such things.

Comment from supersonic
Time: February 24, 2008, 5:09 am

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge FTW!

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: February 24, 2008, 7:29 am

I flicked across something on Tv the other day where Patrick Swayze was playing Allan Quartermain… just proving that in an infinite universe all things will happen eventually.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: February 24, 2008, 10:05 am

I actually have good memories of watching the Richard Chamberlain version as a young boy. 16 years later…I don’t know. We all know how iffy certain films can be several years down the line…

Comment from lyzard
Time: February 24, 2008, 3:50 pm

“Iffy”!? Why, Blake - you’re so polite! Personally I’d call it completely @#$%&! up. And if you thought Catwoman and Basic Instinct 2 were the most embarrassing entries in Sharon Stone’s resume….

Comment from lyzard
Time: February 24, 2008, 3:57 pm

The Stewart Granger version is a good adventure film, but it hasn’t much resemblance to the novel; much less than the earlier one. Of course they both insert a white heroine, but at least the British version doesn’t line her up with Quatermain (Haggard would have been horrified, I’m sure), and it also focuses much more on Umbopa, who’s reduced to a minor player in the Granger version. Haven’t seen the Swayze; must keep an eye out!

And really, the Mines aren’t that important in any version, are they?

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: February 24, 2008, 6:43 pm

I HAVE to be polite, we need to keep this here internet a civil place.

Comment from Matthew Fudge
Time: February 25, 2008, 10:06 am

Of course Alann Quatermain’s most embarassing appearance would be in the League of Extrodinary Gentlemen. A movie which often beggers belief in it’s ability to insult a wide variety of literary and comic fans simultaneously.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: February 25, 2008, 11:54 am

So did Jimmy Wang Yu base his fighting style on Ralph Byrd?

Comment from lyzard
Time: February 25, 2008, 3:56 pm

So did Jimmy Wang Yu base his fighting style on Ralph Byrd?

I’ll let you know when I’ve seen Ralph lose an arm. Which at times I wouldn’t be sorry about. (Although to give the devil his due, halfway through SOS Coast Guard he did seem to figure out Ken’s Law Of Guns, and for the first time back away from the people he was holding a gun on, instead of getting nice and close so they could jump him. Progress!)

Comment from lyzard
Time: February 25, 2008, 3:58 pm

I haven’t seen LOEG, but I find it hard to believe that anything could be more embarrassing than the Richard Chamberlain/Sharon Stone version of KSM.

Aw, Cannon….damn, I miss those guys!

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: February 25, 2008, 4:03 pm

Yes, but didn’t the Cannon version have a giant spider and a water monster in it? Any movie with a giant spider AND a water monster can’t be ALL bad.

Comment from lyzard
Time: February 25, 2008, 7:02 pm

Was that KSM or its sequel? I don’t remember. I seem to be blanking on everything but the giant cooking pot - I remember THAT, all right.

Comment from Blake
Time: February 25, 2008, 7:11 pm

I remember that Alan Quartermain and the Lost City of Golden had some small snake/wyrm creatures in a cavern scene. KSM ends with the evil guy (was he an Arab? I don’t recall) walking onto a rock where the jewels were and the rock was the trap that caused the water monster to spring up and eat him. But I think there was a giant spider in the cavern, too.

Comment from The Rev. D.D.
Time: February 26, 2008, 10:58 am

There was a briefly-seen giant spider that ate a nondescript henchman in the mines after he blundered into its web…by walking backwards down the tunnel for a lot longer than anyone with any common sense would. Actually a fairly creepy scene; the actor playing the poor sap lets out a nice, anguished scream as the scene closes, his face portraying agony rather convincingly.
The water monster always reminded me of that “killing machine” from Red Sonja (which I also saw for the first time around this point). Probably not a good thing.

Anyway, if nothing else, John Rhys-Davies looks to be having fun, and Ken Gampu (Umbopo) is pretty awesome. I recall thinking the German officer was rather funny too, though very over-the-top.
It was one of those movies I caught when I was about 10 or so, so I was on the cusp. I was old enough to realize the whole thing was pretty ridiculous, but still young enough to enjoy it on a juvenile level (giant spider! Hot blonde! Booby traps! Crocodiles! etc.) I haven’t seen it in years, but I have a feeling it will have aged for me like other films from that time did, like Red Sonja, Deathstalker 2, and similar fare–”I actually liked this @#$@??”
Except for the wizard’s decapitation in RS. That is forever awesome.

Comment from The Rev. D.D.
Time: February 26, 2008, 11:00 am

Oh, and Ms. Kingsley–that’s the bumbling (but still evil) German officer who steps on the wrong stone and gets eaten, screaming about how the German army will not stand for it. John Rhys-Davies (the straight-up evil Arab) gets set on fire and tries to take Quartermain into a pool of lava with him, at which he of course fails.

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: February 26, 2008, 12:10 pm

Rev. - That was me that made that mistake. That’s right, though. They asked the German to get the stone and his response was, “Childish people,” after which he stepped on the stone and got eaten. Didn’t the evil Arab make the German swallow the jewels, too? You know, for having only watched the movie once (more than 15 years ago or so), I remember an awful lot.

Comment from lyzard
Time: February 26, 2008, 1:06 pm

You know, for having only watched the movie once (more than 15 years ago or so), I remember an awful lot.

I believe the technical term is “scarred for life”. (Oh, and by the way - thanks a lot! You’re bringing back a whole herd of repressed memories!)

Comment from Blake Matthews
Time: February 26, 2008, 1:21 pm

The beauties of the internet…people you’ve never met can do horrible things for you that you probably couldn’t (or wouldn’t want to) do on your own.

Comment from Tom Meade
Time: February 26, 2008, 9:26 pm

“And really, the Mines aren’t that important in any version, are they?”

I mean that they spend the whole movie trekking to the lost civilisation, and “BAM”, all the stuff with Gagool and the king and the brother and everything is over in ten minutes.

Comment from The Rev. D.D.
Time: February 27, 2008, 11:04 am

Blake–Whoops! You’re right, that was you! My apologies to Ms. Kingsley.
And yes, Davies made the German swallow a bunch of diamonds at gunpoint (after he’d been left for dead by the Germans in a cave-in), as a way to smuggle them back home, where he’d then cut him open and retrieve them. Naturally, the German is faking the swallowing, only to have a tremor scare him into actually swallowing a mouthful of them.

I cannot believe the amount of detail I remember from a movie I haven’t seen in many years. I mean, this is a level of recall I would normally have only for something like Jaws, Godzilla or Evil Dead II.
Which probably means I watched it (and those other cheesefests I mentioned earlier) more times than was healthy as a lad, to have it burned into my psyche like this.
This, in turn, probably explains a lot.