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3
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6 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Yet
another silly —
and quite bad —
jungle/sexploitation romp from France's Eurociné. After enduring
this and Golden Temple Amazons
I'm swearing off any cinematic safaris for at least a month!
Despite the
text on the DVD packaging, Diamonds
of Kilimandjaro isn't
exactly a Jess Franco film —
only parts of it are. According to writer Robert Monell,
who conducted a series of interviews with the Spanish director
over the past year, Franco has confirmed that (quote), "Eurociné
hired an additional cast and shot new scenes and then reedited
them into some of Franco's footage for El
Tesoro de la Diosa Blanca (Treasure Of The White Goddess),
adding a new score and post-production." If
Golden Temple Amazons can be classified
as Faux Franco, then I suppose that makes Diamonds
of Kilimandjaro 'Pseudo Franco'. I can't speak to the
merits —
or lack thereof —
of his original film, but
this slapdash 'composite' is a mostly wretched affair, saved
from total ignominy only by an occasional chuckle and the fleshy
charms of its mostly naked female cast members.
German sexploitation starlet Katja Bienert (who, according to
the IMDB, was only 16 or 17 years old when the Franco-helmed
footage was shot) is Diana, the topless "white goddess" worshipped
by the savage Mori tribe of darkest Africa. She and her stepfather
(actor/composer Daniel White, billed here as "Dan Villers")
survived a plane crash in the jungle years earlier and have
lived among the natives ever since, pretending to be deities.
She's a pretty wild but innocent young thang, gamboling about
nearly naked the entire movie! Then Diana's ill, dying mother
(Franco muse Lina Romay, in bad aging makeup) finances an expedition
to penetrate the dangerous Mori country and bring her daughter
back to civilization. (She doesn't care about her estranged
husband other than wanting to kill him.) Accompanying two hunters
are Diana's boozy uncle Mathieu ("co-director" Olivier
Mathot), his frequently naked young wife (Ana Stern) — they
scheme to ensure that our Jungle Girl doesn't make it
back to inherit Mom's considerable fortune — and a tough, burly
guide named Fred (Albino Graziani). Everybody's in on the plan
except Fred, who, despite being a complete Alpha Male asshole,
turns out to have high moral standards. He won't take any money
to go along. Furthermore, he won't permit anybody stopping Diana
leaving if that's what she decides to do. Such chivalry does
him no good in the end, though... He's wimpily killed by a Mori
tribesman's poisoned arrow while one of the treacherous hunters,
Al (Sadomania's Antonio Mayans),
gets to bang the tender Jungle Jailbait! (She feels horny after
watching him and Mathieu's adulterous wife get it on.) Diana's
savage sensuality ultimately converts Al to the side of Good.
But perhaps he should've taken a hint from what happened to
Fred...
It's pretty easy to tell which bits of the
movie were helmed by Jess Franco and which were not. The obvious
Franco stuff mainly involves some nicely composed 'nature' shots
— of an actual (and quite picturesque) jungle locale and young
Katja Bienert frolicking topless. The French contribution concerns
the expedition members and obligatory restless natives; much
of it looks as if lensed in a park outside Paris. Very poorly
integrated stock footage (alligator wrangling, flocks of birds,
a rhino, etc.) makes this jumbled mess sloppier still.
Nor does it help matters that the script,
at least the pitifully dubbed English version, is quite stupid
— and for the most part, not in a good way — when it
isn't dull as dishwater. (Diamonds are never seen, nor is Kilimandjaro,
Africa's highest moutain peak, ever mentioned. So where'd they
come up with the title? A 'treasure' consisting of hunks of
colored quartz does figure briefly in the story but the stones
aren't referred to as, nor even look like, diamonds.) Acting
is uniformly bad across the board, notably the strange, twitchy
performance of Daniel White. The ladies, of course, do most
of their emoting with their breasts. (Sorry, guys... No mammoth
hooters here. Just petite 'n' perky.) Apparently the lack of
any need to budget for women's costumes extended to every other
aspect of the production... As the White Goddess and Great Sky
Chief, Bienert and White rule over the most pathetic native
village set ever — only two huts, and one's the size
of a port-o-potty!
A few cheesy laughs and opportunities for
lecherous ogling are basically all this flick has to offer.
It's just not enough. (However, I'm now interested in someday
seeing Bienert in Franco's Linda,
aka Naked Super Witches of the Rio Amore, aka Orgy
of the Nymphomaniacs...)
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Shriek
Show's edition of Diamonds of Kilimandjaro
presents the film via an anamorphic (1.66:1) letterboxed transfer,
with a choice of either English or French mono language tracks.
(The latter track is aurally the weaker of the two, and unless
you're from Quebec or a French Major its lack of English subtitles
won't make it of much use.) Visually the print is quite acceptable,
although some of the clumsily-inserted stock footage can get rather
rough-looking.
Complimenting its Golden Temple Amazons
release, Shriek Show continues the video interview of Eurociné
chief Daniel Lesoeur (included with that disc) where it left off.
Running 13½ minutes, this featurette sees Lesoeur, speaking
in heavily-accented English, fielding questions on mostly general
topics concerning the history of Eurociné rather than focusing
on the particular movie at hand. The fact that Diamonds
is a pastiche cobbled together without Franco's involvement is
rather politely danced around, then dismissed; Lesoeur also gives
Katja Bienert's age as "18 or 19" when her scenes were
filmed. (He must mean in the French footage; her work for Franco
— later incorporated into the Eurociné version — was shot
nearly three years earlier, in 1983.)
An image gallery of production stills, lobby cards and international
videocassette/DVD cover art is also included, along with the trailer
for Diamonds and SS releases Faceless,
Golden Temple Amazons, Man
From Deep River and Massacre
in Dinosaur Valley.
3/21/05 |
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