Invasion Of The Podcast!

Sunday, March 10, 2019

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?

The Year of Cannon: New Year's Evil! (1980)

'My resolution? To make you never want to watch this movie a second time.'

One of my goals for this year is to watch the selected films for the podcast and the blog in chronological order. It will be challenging as some of the Cannon films had international releases before their US releases and vice versa, but the reason for this is that we want to see the rise and fall of Cannon as it happened. It would be easy to just bounce around and cherry pick all the big films and have a very specific, and yet very flawed, sample size. Yes, the goal of making this The Year of Cannon is to have fun and see the beautiful wreck that was Golan and Globus, but it isn't one meant to specifically tear down every film as a 'bad movie.' We have learned with our Year of the Knock Off that there are sometimes gold in them thar hills, and we hope that maybe this journey into Cannon (specifically the 1980's releases) will give us an appreciation of what the Go Go Boys tried to do.

So far we have dipped our toes into theweird glittery waters of The Apple and did not come away hating the film, but wishing there was more coherence with the plot and characters. I had a small glimmer of hope that the film I am covering for the blog, New Year's Evil, being a slasher film, would be able to at least follow the path that the likes of Halloween and Friday The 13^th had already had laid down.

Does New Year's Evil help ring in The Year of Cannon properly or does it make me already wish for 2020?

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

New Year's Evil starts off, appropriately, on New Year's Eve. We meet Diane 'Blaze' Sullivan (Roz Kelly) getting ready for her live radio/music show, Hollywood Hotline. Her husband isn't there because he is off at some club getting coked up and Blaze is somewhat indifferent about this. I don't know if that was the vibe of LA in the 1980's or that the script really didn't care. We swiftly move to Blaze's assistant getting murdered in her bathroom because you need one murder before the credits can start.

And this is happening at LA's hottest nightspot: The Holiday Inn!

We then follow an overcrowded convertible full of punk looking kids making their way down some busy stretch of road in LA. They have their radio blaring a song called 'New Year's Evil' (a little on the nose, but also kind of catchy) while they are on their way to the Hollywood Hotline show. They do terrible things like yell at people, spit on cars, and overact. You know, the usual. From the way the film stayed with this crowd of 35 year old looking teens who love their rock and roll, I thought that some of them would be actual characters in the film (aka murder fodder for the killer), but no, they are shown at points during the Hollywood Hotline show, but there is no real payoff. Maybe the film's goal was to murder all the subplots that would never make it out alive?

The story moves back to Blaze's son, Derek (Grant Cramer), stopping by her dressing room and trying to tell her that he got a part in a TV series. Blaze, more worried about her goings on and the show starting soon, doesn't really pay attention to him. That's okay, I really didn't want to pay attention to him either because he was kind of a wiener.

Blaze kicks off her New Year's edition of Hollywood Hotline, called 'New Year's Evil' (yeah, the movie doesn't care that everything is called New Year's Evil) by stating that they are going to be live for four hours, counting down the new year as it hits in New York, Chicago, Aspen (an odd choice, but it was good enough for Harry and Lloyd), and then LA. They will take phone call votes all night for the top songs of the year. People are expected to dance for four hours straight to live rock (sorry, new wave!) music. I don't think this was a well thought out plan.

The second phone call that Blaze gets is from a mysterious man who is using a voice modulator (more on that later) who calls himself 'Evil' (see? I wasn't wrong about how little this film cares about its details) and he tells her that is going to kill someone she knows at midnight. Blaze, in a rare smart move during the 85 minutes run time of the movie, hangs up and moves on. She introduces the band Shadow to play their hit song 'New Year's Evil.' The same one we just heard during the credits. I was beginning to suspect that we may not get a lot of 'new wave' music variety that this film was promising, but just the same wave over and over again called New's Year Evil.

We follow Evil as he goes to find his first victim. He dresses up as a nurse to gain access to a mental hospital. Evidently the hospital is okay with having their patients up later at night to watch the Hollywood Hotline show with little to no supervision. In what I thought for a moment was the film trying to make some kind of social commentary, they have near back to back moments of showing

the people at the Hotline show 'dancing' and then the patients at the hospital 'dancing':

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

I honestly don't know and maybe I am giving the film too much credit but I will say it tried to make a joke.

Barely.

The film then focuses on Evil as he gets his kills at the stroke of midnight for each of the time zones. The first one, in the mental hospital, goes according to his plan, with him killing a nurse and recording the sound of it on his portable tape recorder so that he can play it back for Blaze to hear when he calls in again. 'Wait, I thought he told her that he was going to kill people close to her?' you are going to say to me. I will answer yes, Evil did specifically say that. However, Blaze doesn't know the nurse. At all.

Evil moves onto his second victim, he needs to change his outfit and puts on a fake mustache (Why the mustache? That's the true mystery of this film), and heads to a bar to pick up a random girl. He doesn't have the victim pre-selected, which in hindsight seems like a poor plan for a killer who is promising to kill people at the top of the hour for four straight hours, and finds a woman who is bored at the bar and is easily convinced to follow him out to his car. He claims to work with some big Hollywood actor types and that they are having a party that he is going to and she can come with him. What actor do you think is the big draw of 1980 that would make any lady get into a stranger's car? Burt Reynolds? Clint Eastwood? Sylvester Stallone?

...how about Erik Estrada?

I have to give you a ticket for dat ass.

She is hella impressed and will go away with weird mustache man. She has one caveat though, she is going to bring her girl friend along because she can't just get into some stranger's car alone (though she was already promised some sweet sweet Estrada). Frustrated, Evil allows the friend to come along but he has a scheduled murder to get to. He manages to get one to go into a liquor store while he quickly kills the other and leaves a trail of shoes and clothing to a dumpster.

Oh, just so we are keeping count, that is three people that have been killed by Evil that Blaze did not know.

Meanwhile, back at the Holiday Inn (of dooom!) wiener Derek is having some kind of mental break while talking into a mirror about his mother and putting on some kind of red mesh over his face.

For when you need to rob a bank and go to prom alone.

It's almost like the film is trying to set Derek up as a red (mesh) herring but forgets that we keep seeing Evil's face and they are two different people.

Evil has moved onto time zone number 3, yay Aspen!, and has changed his clothes again (but not his car). He is now dressed like a priest and is scoping out his next victim when the film takes an odd turn, even for itself. He accidentally gets tangled up with a motorcycle gang after inadvertently striking one their bikes. They give chase and he hides his ride in a drive in movie theater that is showing a horror movie marathon on New Year's Eve. Surprisingly, this marathon was not called New Year's Evil. Evil ditches his car, while still dressed as a priest, and forces his way into a vehicle with a couple making out in the backseat. He kicks the guy out and drives the girl to a park in the middle of the night and she tries to escape. While stalking her, some police show up because Evil had almost run over two drunk party goers along the way, and scare him off. So Aspen gets to celebrate with no murder having happened.

The police then decide to close off entrance to the Hollywood Hotline show as they now believe (for no real reason) that the killer is going to come for Blaze. Evil arrives to the hotel and promptly gets into the building by tricking a cop into walking into a dark area of the parking garage and killing them and taking their uniform.

Blaze, needing a break from her own show (which I can't blamer, I needed to take a break from this film too), heads to her room with a cop waiting outside for her at the door. Once inside, wiener boy Derek is there being a wiener and said he had a surprise for her but decides to storm out of the room. Once alone, a masked figure approaches Blaze. Its Evil! She turns, scared, and he takes off his mask. She is relieved because its her husband, Richard Sullivan (Kip Niven).

Everyone's favorite slasher: the casual wear Butler.

So Evil has been her husband this entire time?! Its a twist that makes no sense. The cops find his car at the drive in, which was actually his car and not a stolen one like a smart killer would have done, and they find out that he was once a patient at the mental hospital where killed the nurse. None of his victim choices, save the assistant at the start of the film, are tied to Blaze whatsoever.

We soon then learn his true motivation: he hates all women. Oh, and he had to beg for his allowance from Blaze every week. Evidently he was a trophy husband and was fine with it until he wasn't. Blaze must be rolling in the dough for hosting a once a week music countdown show as this was right before MTV launched (eight months before to be exact), so maybe there was an in demand market for that. So he is going to kill Blaze at midnight, to start the year off right, and then take his wiener boy Derek to the Rose Bowl college football game. All in all, a great plan.

Evil decides to handcuff Blaze to the bottom of an elevator car and take her all the way up (hanging from her wrists, so that had to hurt) and then all the way down and kill her. The cops show up just in time to ruin that plan and chase him to the roof, where he quote's Shakespeare and jumps to his death.

Blaze, safe, ends up in ambulance that is now being driven by her wiener boy son, Derek! He is now wearing the weird mask that his dad wore for a scene. He drives off into the night just as the new year kicks off in Hawaii (which is stated over the radio in the ambulance for no apparent reason as the broadcast was not Blaze's show).

Guess which song plays over the end credits?

I know I said at the start of this post that our goal was not to watch these films with the goal to tear them down but to try and face each one straight on with out judgment, however, New Year's Evil never once rose above being a complete train wreck of plot and and confused motivations for me to try and see any redeeming qualities in it. I am not saying that a slasher film as a concept can't be done well and have depth because it certainly can, but even if you strip the lowest of aspirations away, you should still be able to get the basic formula right. It feels like the writer and director of this film both were told what a slasher film is and then they had to run off and make it with only what they remembered from that initial conversation. It would be like if I was on one of those TV cooking shows and someone told me to make a souffle from scratch with very specific ingredients and instructions but they would only tell me once and then send me running to the kitchen and pantry and expect passable results. I am sure I would have something that in front of the judges at the end that I believed was my best attempt at a souffle, but I wouldn't be able to speak to flavor or construction of the piece. I would just hope that I didn't screw up worse than another contestant that was told to make a Baked Alaska/Romantic Comedy.

I think a behind scenes story that Kip Niven aka Evil told the people making the special features for the Shout Factory blu-ray release of New Year's Evil pretty much sums up how I feel about the film. He stated that they were supposed to use a device to make his voice more electronic sounding and more menacing, something like an electrolarynx, but that it was broken and didn't work. So instead of thinking of anything else at all to replace that idea, Kip just made a weird voice and put the device in his mouth during filming and the director was fine with it. In one way, I can appreciate the on the fly decision making when you don't have the time and budget, but in another way, it feels lazy and not thought out, which is how most of New Year's Evil comes across. If this film was playing in the background of a party, you would think you are just seeing a slasher film like all the others, but if you take a second or two to focus on it, it soon unravels unnecessarily.

New Year's Evil had one job to do, have a killer make convoluted murders tied to a holiday and not reveal their motivation till the final showdown with the lead character, and couldn't do it. It should have just stayed at home and went to be early before the ball dropped, like the rest of us who can't get our shit together from year to year.