Raiders of Raiders

Those looking to cash in on the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark could look to many of the works that influenced Steven Spielberg's film. And that's what Golan-Globus did for 1985's King Solomon's Mines. Bearing very little resemblance to H Rider Haggard's novel, the film is almost a beat for beat remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark with cheaper sets and costumes. It does have a surprisingly nice score by Jerry Goldsmith and its stars, Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone, have a campy charm.

The filmmakers decided to jump right to the Cairo scene from Raiders and we catch up with Allan Quatermain (Chamberlain) and the beautiful Jesse Huston (Stone), a character invented for the film, as they arrive at a north African city.

We won't learn who the characters are or their relationship to each other for some time, the film seemingly content to let the audience read them as Indy and Marion. The fight choreography almost replicates the Cairo scene with Jessie getting kidnapped and carried off in a rug instead of a wicker basket. Later, the film will have versions of other famous Raiders set pieces, including the truck chase (moved to a train) and a grounded airplane fight.

Jesse and this film's version of Allan are always improbably clean. Jesse's hair and clothes always look like she just stepped out of Bloomingdale's. Considering how I remarked on Stone's unrealistic hair in the opening of Gloria last week, I wonder if she had a regular clause in her contract, something like, "My hair shall always be crimped if I say it's crimped."

Chamberlain has a certain sparkle in his eye that makes him fun to watch. Still, this is no match for the 1950 adaptation and certainly doesn't approach the greatness of the book.

King Solomon's Mines (1985) is available on YouTube for free with ads.

The Second Gloria

Critics disliked the 1999 version of Gloria, the remake of the 1980 John Cassavetes film. It currently has a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. The performances aren't as good, particularly when it comes to the kid Gloria protects, and the two characters lack the chemistry the two had in the 1980 film. But I'd argue the 1999 film is much, much better written.

Instead of Gloria being a mysterious, unstoppable force with ill-defined relations with the mob, this Gloria, played by the much prettier Sharon Stone, has spent three years in prison for her Irish mob lieutenant lover.

Her hairstyle is improbable, to say the least, for a woman just out of prison.

She confronts Kevin (Jeremy Northam) and demands the payment she was promised for doing time. He'd rather pay her by continuing to pay her apartment rent and giving her shopping money--to keep her entangled in his life, in other words. When she makes off with the kid, she's partially motivated by a desire to escape and take revenge herself.

Unlike the characters in the first film, both Gloria and the kid (Jean-Luke Figueroa) actually have friends and family they can turn to, though ultimately can't rely on. They don't feel like two people dropped onto an alien planet like they did in the original version.

John Cassavetes' direction in the initial scenes of the 1980 movie had a raw energy this more polished film by Sidney Lumet lacks. But the final confrontation between Gloria and the mob boss, played by George C. Scott in his final film role, feels more even handed and suspenseful. The mobsters in this movie feel like dangerous people instead of the Keystone Kops they amount to in the 1980 movie.

It makes more sense now that Gloria can't go to the cops, and it also makes sense that she's able to go to a priest. Trust a director whose career began well before the '70s to remember there's more to priests than paedophilia.

It's no masterpiece but 1999's Gloria is nowhere near as bad as its reputation.

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