The Year of Cannon: Treasure of the Four Crowns! (1983)

This looks like the cover art for a NES game I would have gotten from a
relative that  didn't understand that I just wanted Mega Man 2. 

After the difficulties I had writing about New Year's Evil, I was worried that maybe the Year of Cannon, at least in blog form, was going to be death of me. I understand my limitations as a writer and unless I can get my fingers under a corner and get some leverage with what I am trying to say, it will not end well and all I will do is pound my ham sized fists at the keyboard and hope the magic of gifs will get me through to the end.

Thankfully, I have been give a slight reprieve this time around with Treasure of the Four Crowns. Why? It has way more in common with the films that Steve and I covered last year with our look at the Year of the Knock Off. Treasure of the Four Crowns is trying to cash in off of the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, and The Exorcist (more on that later), and the sudden resurgence of 3-D that popped up briefly again in the 1980's. What can go wrong with a film that is trying to be everything to everyone... and in 3-D? Let's slow motion jump into the 'action' and 'adventure' that is Treasure of the Four Crowns.

Here is the wikipedia page about the film. Here is the imdb.com page for cast and crew information.

Treasure of the Four Crowns, referred to here as Four Crowns from this point on, starts off in an odd way: it has a text scroll like Star Wars.

Its almost like the plot wants to get out of here as fast as possible. 

'In the universe there are things man cannot hope to understand. Powers he cannot hope to possess. Forces he cannot hop to control. The four crowns are such things. Yet the search as begun. A soldier of fortune takes the first step. He seeks a key that will unlock the power of the four crowns and unleash a world where good and evil collide.'

We then meet our hero, in a shot very reminiscent of Raiders, where we are shown his back as he looks on to the castle he is about to enter in the distance.

Our hero has a name, we won't learn it till about 20 minutes from now, but we do get to see the actor's name: Tony Anthony.

No to be confused with Jim James or Phil Phillip.

Are we to believe that his real name is Anthony Anthony? I thought that was odd, but I looked up his wikipedia entry and found that he was born in Clarksburg, WV. That is about 20 minutes from where I grew up and about the same distance away from Morgantown, WV which was named after Morgan Morgan. So, it wouldn't be the first case of the first and last name being the same. I am glad that I was not named Steadman Steadman.  

I am Hot-N-Ready as well for just 5 dollars.

So Tony Tony heads into the castle to recover the key that will unlock the four crowns. This is supposed to be mini-adventure before the main story, again much like Raiders did. It is just 20 minutes of him falling from sub floor to sub floor, facing different animals on each level. The first encounter is with birds of varying degrees of believably.

Birdish? 

Soon after he deals with snakes and dogs. Once past all of that, he ends up in a chamber full of skeletons, suits of armor, and riches. He blows open a tomb to get a the key to crowns. Once he has that, the whole place becomes on big Double Dare obstacle course with spikes and fire. That all sounds exciting but it really isn't. Why? There's seems to be a tendency among Italian filmmakers of this time to show a lot of a action sequence in slow motion. I don't know if it was stylistic decision or a way to pad out the run time of a film, but if the action was shown in real time, Four Crowns would probably be a 60-70 minute film.

Tony Tony gets the key and makes his way out of the stupidly full of traps and animals castle. As he is hundreds of feet away from the structure, he then decides to dive to safety into a pile of dirt.

Phew. I almost thought he wasn't going to make it for a moment.

We then find Tony Tony waiting to be picked up by his contact in order to get paid for finding the key. We learn that his name is J.T. Striker and is supposedly one of the best at what he does (falling slowly?). He wants his money, but the contact is insistent that he meets with a professor due to the possibility of another job.

Before we get to the professor, a brief aside:

Four Crowns was made to cash in on a lot of different things, but their big hook was that this was shot in 3-D. The producers of this film had released a film two years previous called Comin' At Ya which was shot in 3D and a surprise box office success. Friday the 13th's 3^rd film, along with the 3^rd Amityville film, was in 3D. It was a gimmick to be sure, but one people were excited about and could have fun with. The idea of taking a horror film or an action adventure one and having some moments where objects are flying directly towards you seems like it would be pretty easy to conceptualize and execute. Four Crowns proves that is not the case.

At first, I didn't notice how Four Crowns was handling the 3D as it was in the initial castle segment and with all the random traps and animals flying around, it didn't stand out to me that much of it was trying to be directed towards the viewer. Only when we hit the slower middle third of the film did the weird uses for 3D become apparent

Now, when J.T. Striker Tony Tony talks to the professor, there is scene where the contact man is handing the professor tweezers and a magnifying glass. The film makes it a point to see

those objects are pointed directly at center of the screen as they are being handed over.

Its almost like you are in the room. So exciting!

Its pretty silly and could have been seen a gag knowing that this film was supposed to be in 3D, however, this kind of things happens through the entire movie. Anytime anyone needs to hand something to another person, we get a similar shot. There is a scene later in a temple where cultists are playing tambourines and they are shoved directly into the face of the movie goer. It is so off putting that I can't imagine being in the theater watching it and enjoying the experience.

Very brief aside over.

The professor tells Tony Tony that there were originally four crowns that held the power of good and evil. One was destroyed a long time ago (evidently with no impact to good or evil, but I digress), and he has one in his possession. The key that was found, unlocks it and inside is scroll that speaks to the power of the other two crowns. They have names: Santia, Spanish for diamond (I tired looking that up, doesn't seem to be the Spanish word for diamond) and Adamas, Laitn for diamond (that seems legit). One is good and one is evil .Why you need four crowns when really the power is only in tow, I don't know. Treasure of the Two Crowns doesn't sound as cool, I guess .

These powerful objects are in the possession of Brother Jonas, a religious cult leader, in a mountain fortress. He is evil for... reasons. I believe he is a threat because he is tax exempt? He doesn't have the key to the crowns, so he can't use them. Feels like a case of letting sleeping dogs lie, but I didn't write the screenplay.

He also is a keeper of the Tri-Forcehead.

The professor compels (i.e. offers a lot money) Tony Tony to put together a team of people he will need to steal the crowns from the fortress. He locates an alcoholic washed up mountain climber who is the best at what he does when he is sober, and then goes out and finds a married couple who work in the circus, he being an aging strongman with a secret heart condition and she being a young trapeze artist. These three, along with Tony Tony's contact man we met earlier, are his crack team that is going to go steal the Treasure of the Two Crowns.

Why the team? There fortress has a few security features that need to be dealt with. First, there are constant roaming armed guards. Second, the temple where the crowns are housed, have pressure sensitive floors and walls that will sound an alarm if touched. Third, there is an invisible laser grid that covers the entire temple. Fourth, an iron grate that divides the temple is electrified and will kill instantly. I will give this film credit, they really did pile on the problems that needed to be overcome.

Lasers make everything at least 10% cooler. Fact™

Once the team and plan are put in place, the film actually does get interesting. When the team enters the temple and start putting the plan in place, it was legitimately suspenseful and satisfying. The plan is to have all of them travel across the ceiling, using the trapeze artist's ability to swing and hook the mounting points into the wood beam above them. Slowly but surely they make their way to the iron grate and they need to lower Tony Tony down so that he can disable it. If he touches it directly or the floor, its game over.

If this plan sounds a bit familiar, its because it does. It is very similar to the sequence in the first Mission: Impossible film where Tom Cruise has to get into the highly secured computer room while being suspended from the ceiling. Its not note for note, but you can't convince me that the people involved in that film didn't see Four Crowns at some point prior.

This is all going on while Brother Jonas is having an over night and over long ceremony in which he is attempting to heal a wayward follower who wants to be back into the flock. I mention this because it doesn't really add to the film, except for the cultists shoving tambourines in your face, and it again feels like it is there to pad the film out. The only plot beat that happens in this time is that you see a quick wink shared between the follower and Jonas when she is suddenly 'healed.' Jonas is a fraud and has no real power. Why in the hell does he need the crowns and why did he pay what is clearly an insane amount of money to protect them if he believes they do nothing? I will say when I become a crazy rich religious leader, I will make it a point to have a high tech value/temple of some sort just for shits and giggles. Okay, so maybe I understand his motivation a little.

Tony Tony and his Swinging Gang is doing pretty good but they run into some snags because the character with the heart condition has his heart fail him, predictably so. It was easy to see from a mile away but it I appreciate the added complication. Heists aren't fun (film-wise anyway) if they go off without a hitch. Tony Tony is able to make it to the statue that the two crowns are resting upon.

They have the same look on their faces as my cats do when I put tape on the heads.

He uses the key to open and then grabs the diamonds... and then this happens. Please note, I did edit this for length and got rid of all the reaction shots from everyone else in the temple.

Maybe his heading is spinning wondering how his life lead him to this moment?

Why did his head spin like he was in Exorcist? I don't know. It was such a ridiculous moment I did have to laugh out loud while watching the film, but I don't think that was the intent.

Tony Tony then goes on to be corrupted (?) by the good and evil diamonds and faces off against Brother Jonas and his men but doing the thing we all would do if we were in the same situation: Shoot fire out of our hands for no goddam reason.

That escalated quickly.

Jonas is dead, the heist crew except for the trapeze artist is dead (you have to keep the lone attractive female alive, right 1980's action cinema?) and Tony Tony somehow is back to normal. As they get ready to escape, he tosses the two obviously powerful and dangerous diamonds, into the burning remains of Brother Jonas as that would destroy and or bury them? Its not a good plan.

There is so much about Four Crowns that does not work. The beginning is supposed to be a romp and show how good Tony Tony is at doing his job but it takes too long and nothing really makes any sense. I didn't even get into the two or three times in which the key itself had some weird magic powers that made everyone dizzy and caused things to shake and explode for no reason. These sections didn't make sense and were also marred with weird 3D and slow motion. The ending is a mess (a silly one, but a mess nonetheless), however, the 20-30 minutes that are spent with the actual heist portion of the story is surprisingly good. Not enough to make me watch the whole film from start to finish by myself but I could see me showing that portion to others because of how novel it was and how it clearly inspired Mission: Impossible.

This film suffers from what many of the Italian knock offs I watched last year: it has an idea in passing of what makes other films more successful, but it doesn't actually understand why they are. Oh, you have booby traps and balls rolling around? We can do that... but let's set them on fire and have them easily avoidable. You have ancient magic that is within a religious artifact? We can do that but let's make it shoot fire because all we know is how to set things on fire. Did someone say fire? Oh yeah, we can do all of the fire.... but let's shoot it all in slow motion. Man, we are going to need some kind of high tech vault to keep all of our box office returns in.

I can see why Cannon picked up the international distribution rights for this. It was cheap and it was trying to cash in on what was popular at the time. I could easily see Menahem Golan making something like this himself, except I am sure he would have found a way to fit in some kind of music of dance fad in the middle of it. He was striving to find things that were like American Hollywood films and I can see how Four Crowns would be 'close enough' for him to take and try to pump it up in front of others.

Treasure of the Four Crowns is less than the sum of it parts. It is fitting for this film to be about four crowns in which really only two of them actually have any value whatsoever. Most of this film has nothing of value but the heist portion of it does shine, just not enough to make it worth the journey.

Parting Cannon Shots: 

Is this better or worse than The Apple? 

The Apple is better than Treasure of the Four Crowns, and by a fair margin. The Apple is a mess, but a watchable one.

The Menahem Index: 20%

As he didn't actually make or produce this film, I can't say his presence is really felt here. I will give it some because he pick up distribution based on its knock off quality and it chasing the 3D craze at the time.

I have really come to fall in love with the work of his that I have heard so far. A lot more hits than misses and he can usually elevate a so-so film into something better than it has any right to be. This score has whisps of nice things in it. The main theme is pretty good but the majority of it gets bogged down into some weird electronic chirping. The bulk of the score is not something I would put into a

Morricone playlist, but I could see the main theme sneaking its way in there.

Would I recommend this film to anyone?

No. Maybe to Steve. He is always game for weird stuff. Like I said above, I would show the heist portion to a few people because the set up and thought that went into that is pretty good. Everyone

else should stay away from this film.

Bonus:

Ennio Morricone did the score. Weird, right?

I have really come to fall in love with the work of his that I have heard so far. A lot more hits than misses and he can usually elevate a so-so film into something better than it has any right to be. This score has whisps of nice things in it. The main theme is pretty good but the majority of it gets bogged down into some weird electronic chirping. The bulk of the score is not something I would put into a Morricone playlist, but I could see the main theme sneaking its way in there.