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KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1985)
STARS: Richard Chamberlain, Sharon Stone, Herbert Lom, John Rhys-Davies, Ken Gampu, Bernard Archard, James Earl Jones.
DIRECTOR: J. Lee Thompson. DURATION: 100 mins.
SYNOPSIS: A soldier of fortune is hired by a girl to rescue her kidnapped father, but takes time out en route to search for a whole heap of priceless diamonds.
RC PLAYS: Allan Quatermain.
It must have seemed a good idea at the time: Indiana Jones-style antics with the top female star of the early Nineties shot in Zimbabwe with the director of The Guns of Navarone. How could it fail?
Seemingly quite easily if the end results are anything to go by. But then again, Sharon Stone was still an unknown actress and it was 20 years since J. Lee Thompson directed his classic movie. And as if that wasn't enough, it seemed that whoever wrote the screenplay had never even heard of H. Rider Haggard's original novel.
Just like the first two Musketeer movies, King Solomon's Mines was made back-to-back with its sequel, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. This time though there was no all-star cast to help cover any holes in the plot (of which there were many), although veteran Herbert Lom, Richard's Shogun co-star John Rhys-Davies and James Earl Jones (who had also appeared in an episode of Dr. Kildare) all had supporting roles. Sharon Stone played the love interest, but unfortunately she displayed none of the talent - or flesh - which would make her a major Hollywood star less than 10 years later.
However, Chamberlain cuts his usual dashing figure, but it was no good - any attempts made to improve the project were swiftly drowned in the script's mire. The worst part of it was that fans had to sit through it all again when the sequel came out two years later.
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