Bullet Points: King Solomon’s Mines
Looking back and it is obvious that Cannon gurus, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, were bound and determined to capitalize on the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The 1981 movie directed by Steven Spielberg produced by George Lucas and starring Harrison Ford, borrowed a great deal from the serials of the 1930’s and 1940’s and was a huge box office success. The success of Raiders would spawn several sequels, novels, comic books and video games and all of that combined made the Indiana Jones character an icon.
The success would also spawn a slew of imitators among those was Cannon’s 1985 release, King Solomon’s Mines…
- Joined in Progress: The movie almost felt like it was being joined in progress with famed adventurer Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain, The Count of Monte Cristo) leading a caravan through the jungles of Africa that includes Jesse Huson (Sharon Stone, Action Jackson) and Umbopo (Ken Gampu, Joe Bullet) as the opening credits rolled. The movie quickly catches us up on the who, what, where, when and why as we learn that Jesse has hired Quatermain to help her find her father Professor Huston, who came to Africa in search of King Solomon’s Mines (DING!). Quatermain and Jesse are headed to the last known whereabouts of her father and antique shop run by Kassam. But once the duo get into town, Jesse finds herself kidnapped!
- Dastardly Duo: The men who ordered Jesse’s kidnapping are the same men who kidnapped her father, Colonel Bockner of the German Army (Herbert Lom, River of Death) and the terrible Turk, Dogati (John Rhys-Davies, Raiders of the Lost Ark). Professor Huston knows the location of King Solomon’s Mines and despite their best torture efforts, the Professor refuses to spill the beans to Bockner and Dogati… but if the dastardly duo could get their hands on Jesse Huston, the Professor would have no choice but to reveal the location in order to save his daughter. But there’s a big wrinkle in this evil plan named Allan Quatermain!
- C’mon Ride the Train: Quatermain manages to rescue Jesse and he overhears where Dogati and Bockner are taking Professor Huston, so Quatermain and Jesse hop a train (literally) in an attempt to rescue Jesse’s father. Things don’t go exactly as planned, which is par for the course and this is where the movie really started clicking for me. Jesse is reunited with Professor Huston, but after being tortured for days (if not weeks) he is in no condition to go looking for the treasure he has devoted his life to, but Jesse steps up to finish her father’s life’s work and fortune hunter Allan Quatermain is not about to let her go on this mission solo… now they have to get to King Solomon’s Mine’s before Bockner and Dogati!
- Enemy Mine: It is now a race to King Solomon’s Mines… but it won’t be easy for Quatermain and Jesse, who encounter several tribes along the way, some friendly and some not so friendly. For example, one tribe wants to have them for dinner, but since they are a tribe of cannibals, they actually want to HAVE them for dinner. Fortunately for Allan Quatermain his friend, Umbopo (who disappears for a chunk of the movie) proves to be much more than a hulking sidekick. Also working in our heroes’ favor is the fact that Bockner and Dogati are constantly insulting one another and neither trusts the other… which proves to be problematic for them, but a positive for Allan Quatermain and Jesse Huston.
King Solomon’s Mines did not have the same budget as Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it did have the same spirit. There were several stand out scenes in the movie, including the sequence early on where Jesse is kidnapped and Quatermain comes to her rescue, all the scenes inside, on top of and underneath the train and the dog fight with the World War I planes was all top notch stuff in my eyes. The movie felt like it was starting to lose some steam in the third act, but overall I can honestly say I enjoyed Cannon’s first attempt at making their own Indiana Jones film.
One noticeable difference between King Solomon’s Mines and Raiders of the Lost Ark that had nothing to do with budget or box office success was the fact that King Solomon’s Mines leaned more into humor than any of the Indiana Jones films… kind of like how my reviews love leaning into some Bonus Bullet Points…
- Rumor Killer: There’s no truth to the rumor that the working title for the film was Planes, Train and Cannibal Meals… also, I just started that false rumor.
- Familiar Face: Cannon fans probably recognized Kassam the shop keeper, played by Shaike Ophir. Ophir played Father Nicholas, the priest/spy who assists Chuck Norris’ Scott McCoy in The Delta Force.
- Directed By: King Solomon’s Mines was directed by veteran director J. Lee Thompson. Thompson would go on to direct another Indiana Jones inspired film for Cannon, Firewalker.
- Tradition: The story of Allan Quatermain and King Solomon’s Mines had previous film adaptations in 1919, 1937 and 1950. In 2004, it was adapted into a TV Mini Series starring Patrick Swayze as Allan Quatermain and also starring Alison Doody of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade fame.
