Review of Invaders of the Lost Gold

Invaders of the Lost Gold (I think the IMDb is wrong stating that's it's called Horror Safari) begins by informing us via an on screen caption that we are in the 'JAPANESE OCCUPIED PHILIPPINES 1945, a consignment of gold is being escorted to the coast by a small platoon of Japanese soldiers...'. The platoon of soldiers are making their way through the dense jungle. They are attacked by hostile natives, they hide the gold deep in a cave. Only three men survive and escape. The film than fast forwards to 'Tokyo 36 years later'. Rex Larson (Edmund Purdom) has found out about the stash of hidden gold from a friend in American intelligence. He tries to contact the three survivors, after unfortunately short lived meetings with two he tracks down the third named Tobachi (Harold Sakata) who agrees to go along and lead him to the gold in exchange for 25%. Larson then contacts Douglas Jefferson (David De Martyn) for financing as the expedition will cost a lot of money and the gold needs to be smuggled out of the Philippines and turned into cold hard cash, Larson believes Jefferson has the right contacts. Also along for the trip is boozy jungle 'expert' Mark Forest (Stuart Whitman), Janice Jefferson (Glynis Barber) who is the daughter of Douglas Jefferson, Cal (Woody Strode) who happens to be Jefferson's body guard type guy and two guides who are friends of Marks, Fernando (Junix Nocain) & Maria (Laura Gemser). They hire a boat to take them deep into the jungle, once there they set up camp. In fact these guys don't have just ordinary tents they bring along a marquis! As they get nearer the gold the expedition members start having mysterious 'accidents' that always end up being fatal. As their number starts to decrease at an alarming rate the survivors must watch their own backs and trust no one as one of the group wants more than their fair share of the gold and will commit murder to get it! This Italian financed production was directed by an Englishman, has an international cast and was shot in the Philippines so it comes as no real surprise that this is a complete mess of a film. Co-written and directed by Alan Birkinshaw this film is far to slow and devoid of any meaningful action. The script by Birkinshaw and Bill James gets the viewer hooked with a terrific opening sequence that unfortunately is as good as the film gets. The rest of it is really dull, first we get 30 odd minutes of Larson setting the expedition up which is frankly as exciting as watching paint dry. When the film finally switches to the jungle most of the time is spent watching our expedition travel down a river in a boat, dull. Things pick up a little, but not much, towards the end as people start to die in extremely boring ways and the surviving cast members finally find the gold and put both us and themselves out of our misery as this thankfully signals the end of the film. Apart from the opening scene there is no gore whatsoever, the nudity is provided by Laura Gemser and lots of lovely strippers in one of the haunts Whitman's character hangs out in getting drunk, a totally gratuitous sequence there only to show some naked female flesh. The cast is great but criminally wasted, Stuart Whitman, Edmund Purdom, Glynis Barber and Harold 'Oddjob from Goldfinger (1964)' Sakata who has the market cornered in short funny looking steel-rimmed bowler hat wearing villains, it's just a shame that not many films call for them! It's also a shame they didn't have a better film to appear in together. Basically it's awful, simple as that. It had great potential but in the hands of amateur filmmakers like these it fails to deliver anything that even approaches entertainment. One to avoid.