Woodyanders Review of Treasure of the Four Crowns

Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983)

A gloriously ludicrous piece of pure chintzy schlock

[8/10 · 5 August 2014]

Diabolical cult leader Brother Jonas (a rabidly hammy portrayal by Emiliano Redondo) gains possession of a set of mystical artifacts that gives him the power to lord it over his mindless followers. It's up to devil-may-care mercenary J.T. Striker (blandly played with stunning blankness by Tony Anthony, who also co-produced) and his motley crew who include a drunken dude (insipid Jerry Lazarus), a strongman brute with a weak heart (brooding Francisco Rabal), and, naturally, a token feisty babe (fetching Ana Obregon) to retrieve said artifacts from Jonas's heavily guarded fortress. Boy, does this hilariously horrendous clunker possess all the so-wrong-that-they're-paradoxically-right stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: Ferdinando Baldi's ham-fisted (mis)direction, the plodding pace, a plethora of shoddy (far from) special effects (you can clearly see all the obvious strings that levitate various objects throughout the picture!), the cardboard characters, the maladroitly staged action set pieces, the laughably terrible acting, the ratty cinematography by Marcello Masciocchi and Giuseppe Ruzzolini, and the jaw-dropping outrageous climax all give this delectably dreadful doozy a considerable amount of lovably cruddy charm. Moreover, not only does this movie hurl every possible object at the camera (arrows, spears, snakes, birds, keys, flames, and much, much more!), but it also boasts more than enough explosions to make even Michael Bay green with envy. Only Ennio Morricone's robust majestic score manages to rise above the general unintentionally sidesplitting ineptitude. A tacky marvel.