Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983)    Cannon/Action-Adventure    RT: 100 minutes    Rated PG (language, violence, scary images)    Director: Ferdinando Baldi    Screenplay: Tony Anthony and Lloyd Battista    Music: Ennio Morricone    Cinematography: Marcello Masciocchi and Giuseppe Ruzzolini    Release date: April 15, 1983 (Philadelphia, PA)    Cast: Tony Anthony, Ana Obregon, Gene Quintano, Jerry Lazarus, Francisco Rabal, Emiliano Redondo, Francisco Villena, Lewis Gordon, Kate Levan.    Box Office: N/A

Rating: NO STARS!!!

 Released during the height of the short-lived 3D craze of the early 80s, Treasure of the Four Crowns is nothing more than a lazy rip-off of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The sad thing is that I chose to see it over Lone Wolf McQuade that Saturday afternoon in April ’83. It was a regrettable decision that I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.

 The week before, my friend Bill and I went to see the exploitation flick Vigilante at the same twin cinema where Treasure of the Four Crowns was playing. The crowd of kids inside sounded like they were having a great time, screaming whenever something leapt off the screen. I decided to check it out for myself the following weekend. I realized about 20 minutes in what I’d gotten myself into. All I could do was silently pray for time to suddenly speed up so my suffering would end. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

 Made by the same team who restarted the 3D resurgence with Comin’ at Ya two years before, Treasure of the Four Crowns is an Italian-made action-adventure in the vein of Raiders. I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with a name for the genre. If westerns made in Italy are called “spaghetti westerns”, what should we call action-adventure flicks made there? I’m thinking “pasta adventures”. If anybody has a better idea, let me know.

 Directed by Ferdinando Baldi (Comin’ at Ya!), Treasure of the Four Crowns opens with soldier of fortune J.T. Striker (Anthony, Comin’ at Ya!) breaking into an old castle to retrieve a key that will unlock the Golden Crowns. This sequence runs about 20 minutes for no other reason than to allow the makers to throw as many objects as possible into the faces of audience members. Here’s a partial list: spears, vultures, dogs, broken glass, ropes, swords, skeletal fingers, flaming boulders and Tony Anthony.

 After this lengthy sequence, our hero delivers the key to his friend Ed (Quintano, Comin’ at Ya!) who works for Professor Montgomery (Villena), an expert on the Crowns. He explains that two of them are in the hands of Brother Jonas (Redondo, Fist Fighter), an evil cult leader with aspirations of ruling the world with the crowns’ mystical powers of good and evil. The professor unlocks the crown is his possession and removes a scroll that explains all of this. Hidden inside the remaining two crowns (the fourth one was destroyed long ago) are gems with magical powers. He wants J.T. to assemble a team to break into the heavily guarded compound and steal the Crowns. The reluctant hero puts together a team consisting of alcoholic expert climber Rick (Lazarus, Police Academy 5), mercenary-turned -circus clown Socrates (Rabal, Dagon) and his young trapeze artist wife Liz (Obregon, Bolero).

 Listing everything that sucks about Treasure of the Four Crowns would fill pages and pages. I’m sure nobody wants to read a review the length of a novel so I’ll try to limit myself to its most significant flaws. Let’s start with how cheap it looks. It’s obvious the producers spent no money on this thing. Not only that, they display their utter contempt for the audience by not even trying to hide the wires in the scenes where objects fly. In one scene, the key takes on a life of its own and starts flying around a cabin while the characters try to catch it. The wires are very visible. Then there’s the scene in the climax where Striker’s head spins around Exorcist-style after he grabs hold of the gems. They did it better and more convincingly in ’73.

 Then there’s the editing. Now I could be wrong, but I think there’s a whole scene missing. Initially, Striker turns down his friend’s request to assemble a team for the crown retrieval operation. The very next scene shows him accompanying said friend to locate Rick in a bar in some remote, snow-covered place. What exactly did we miss? At other points, the same shot is repeated two or three times. Treasure of the Four Crowns also suffers from slow pacing and what feels like an overlong running time due to Baldi prolonging scene after scene. To be fair, he has an excuse. He didn’t have much of an idea to begin with. It’s like stretching out hamburger meat with bread cubes and hard-boiled egg.

 I may have already said this in a roundabout way, but I’ll say it more succinctly this time. The special effects in Treasure of the Four Crowns are terrible. I guess the producers figured the audience would be too distracted by the “cool” 3D effects to notice. Without the gimmick, they stand out like a turd in a punch bowl.

 All of the acting is terrible, but I would like to say that I do like the lead actor’s name, Tony Anthony, full name Anthony Anthony. Throughout the whole movie, I kept saying to myself, “There’s no need to fear, Tony Anthony is here!” His character’s name is cool in a cheesy-bad way, J.T. Striker.

 The only thing about Treasure of the Four Crowns that doesn’t completely suck is the score by Ennio Morricone (the Man with No Name trilogy). However, I feel compelled to ask if he was really that hard up for money that he agreed to score such a turkey. The storyline is idiotic plain and simple. It’s Raiders for dummies. Then there’s the very final scene. It shows a monster jumping out of a fog-shrouded bog. It has nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, to do with anything that preceded it. It looks like something from an Ed Wood movie. I know why the producers included it. They wanted to throw one more thing in the viewers’ faces, one last 3D effect. Can we say “gratuitous”?

 Of all the terrible 3D movies that came out around the time, Treasure of the Four Crowns is the absolute nadir. Yes, it’s even worse than Jaws 3D and Amityville 3D combined. It’s God-awful with the 3D and even worse without it. You can laugh at this movie, but only after the fact. Watching it is an excruciating experience. It’ll give you a headache with or without the 3D. It leaves me with a burning question though. Whatever happened to Tony Anthony?

 Let me sum up this review by quoting a line from the movie. Somebody says, “It stinks, but maybe it’ll work” after watching a particularly bad circus act. That must have been the producers’ mantra while making Treasure of the Four Crowns.