J. T. Strike (Tony Anthony) is a soldier of fortune who has just returned from acquiring a special key for his client Professor Montgomery (Francisco Villena) from a booby trapped ridden castle guarded by unseen supernatural forces. Upon return, the professor enlists Striker's help once again in acquiring four magic crowns from charismatic cult leader Leo Greene aka Brother Jonas (Emillano Redondo), a former petty thief who has since gather legions of loyal followers and plans to use the crowns to further his reach. Reluctantly, Strike assembles a team to break into Brother Jonas' mountain top fortress where the crowns are held.
Treasure of the Four Crowns was the follow-up film from the makers of the 3-D Spaghetti Western Comin' at Ya!, which became a sleeper hit earning $12 million against its $2.5 million budget and signaled a very brief resurgence in 3-D from 1981 to 1983 with the format having largely died off during the 60s. With the momentum from the success of Comin' at Ya!, the team behind the film decided to apply the format to a pulp adventure setting as popularized by another 1981 re-release, Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. While the financial success of these films isn't easy to track down, per a 1983 Cinefantastique article with Tony Anthony, Treasure of the Four Crowns was supposedly successful enough that it's financiers Cannon Films were prepping a third film called Escape from Beyond that was going to be a space adventure, but the project appears to have been shelved largely due to Columbia's Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. Treasure of the Four Crowns is about what you'd expect when someone tries to copy Raiders with a fraction of the budget so you're basically watching a massively inferior knock-off of a better movie....but it's in 3-D!
In the simplest terms possible, Treasure of the Four Crowns is basically elements of Raiders of the Lost Ark grafted onto the format of a heist film but think less Topkapi and more the old Mission: Impossible TV series down to how little the characters are defined outside of their roles.
From the opening sequence that lasts a punishing long 20 minutes that follows Tony Anthony's J. T. Striker stumbling through a bunch of awkwardly staged traps and hazards that move very slowly and make few attempts to hide gaffes in the effects work (including multiple visible wires), the movie shows more focus on making things pop out of the screen than making sure those things actually look good. Now thanks to the good people at Kino Lorber I was able to see this movie on blu-ray in anaglyph 3-D so it's about as close to the theatrical experience as you can get in this day and age. The 3-D worked perfectly fine in conveying depth of field or objects in the foreground, but the image never really synced up when it involved objects rushing at the screen past a certain point. Full disclosure: I do have amblyopia so 3-D doesn't work as well for me as others, but I can still experience it and this is how it looked to me so kudos to Kino Lorber for managing to get the anaglyph 3-D down. But of course once you look past the 3-D the movie itself is a hollow exercise that stretches its 100 minute runtime with numerous protracted shots of ropes or harnesses dangling or holding out objects while the actual plot is either not that interesting or unintentionally funny. Emillano Redondo is memorable for all the wrong reasons as he gives an over the top performance as the Jim Jones inspired Brother Jonas and his hammed up deliveries as the character are very funny (even if they're not meant to be). We also have some nice sounding Ennio Morricone music that couldn't be more ill placed if you tried as the score with its softer more romantic melodies really conflicts with the tone of something that's trying to be an Indiana Jones type adventure.
Treasure of the Four Crowns is a bad movie, but at least the 3-D looks good. If we're talking objective quality, then Treasure of the Four Crowns falls well short of the mark. If however you want to see someone make an ass of themselves but in 3-D!, then here's your opportunity.
Treasure of the Four Crowns was the follow-up film from the makers of the 3-D Spaghetti Western Comin' at Ya!, which became a sleeper hit earning $12 million against its $2.5 million budget and signaled a very brief resurgence in 3-D from 1981 to 1983 with the format having largely died off during the 60s. With the momentum from the success of Comin' at Ya!, the team behind the film decided to apply the format to a pulp adventure setting as popularized by another 1981 re-release, Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. While the financial success of these films isn't easy to track down, per a 1983 Cinefantastique article with Tony Anthony, Treasure of the Four Crowns was supposedly successful enough that it's financiers Cannon Films were prepping a third film called Escape from Beyond that was going to be a space adventure, but the project appears to have been shelved largely due to Columbia's Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. Treasure of the Four Crowns is about what you'd expect when someone tries to copy Raiders with a fraction of the budget so you're basically watching a massively inferior knock-off of a better movie....but it's in 3-D!
In the simplest terms possible, Treasure of the Four Crowns is basically elements of Raiders of the Lost Ark grafted onto the format of a heist film but think less Topkapi and more the old Mission: Impossible TV series down to how little the characters are defined outside of their roles.
From the opening sequence that lasts a punishing long 20 minutes that follows Tony Anthony's J. T. Striker stumbling through a bunch of awkwardly staged traps and hazards that move very slowly and make few attempts to hide gaffes in the effects work (including multiple visible wires), the movie shows more focus on making things pop out of the screen than making sure those things actually look good. Now thanks to the good people at Kino Lorber I was able to see this movie on blu-ray in anaglyph 3-D so it's about as close to the theatrical experience as you can get in this day and age. The 3-D worked perfectly fine in conveying depth of field or objects in the foreground, but the image never really synced up when it involved objects rushing at the screen past a certain point. Full disclosure: I do have amblyopia so 3-D doesn't work as well for me as others, but I can still experience it and this is how it looked to me so kudos to Kino Lorber for managing to get the anaglyph 3-D down. But of course once you look past the 3-D the movie itself is a hollow exercise that stretches its 100 minute runtime with numerous protracted shots of ropes or harnesses dangling or holding out objects while the actual plot is either not that interesting or unintentionally funny. Emillano Redondo is memorable for all the wrong reasons as he gives an over the top performance as the Jim Jones inspired Brother Jonas and his hammed up deliveries as the character are very funny (even if they're not meant to be). We also have some nice sounding Ennio Morricone music that couldn't be more ill placed if you tried as the score with its softer more romantic melodies really conflicts with the tone of something that's trying to be an Indiana Jones type adventure.
Treasure of the Four Crowns is a bad movie, but at least the 3-D looks good. If we're talking objective quality, then Treasure of the Four Crowns falls well short of the mark. If however you want to see someone make an ass of themselves but in 3-D!, then here's your opportunity.