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Whether one enjoys this Indiana Jones-like adventure or not, we can all clearly agree that the movie was clearly created as a tourist ad for the breathtaking natural views and mountainous terrains of New Zealand. It is a magnificent picture.
It also features four actors who were at the top of their game. One of these appears to be really poorly cast, or perhaps just a very bad rendition of a Bond type of baddie, two younger actors who do just okay as the romance leads and then we have Donald Pleasence giving us what he has as a drunken wreck having the time of his life and as was to be expected, he is the highlight of the film. If it were not for the scenery I would without hesitation say that he is the one who has torched the rest of the cast in this film.
This film was not released in the United States until 1984. This film has the same vibe as a Clive Cussler book. In this film, Ken Wahl has the character of an adventurer/salvager. His partner is a drunkard named Pleasence, and he owns an old, damaged helicopter. Pleasence remains behind for the night, in the unexplored wilderness, due to a hilarious blunder when he was in pursuit of an animal with the help of a helicopter. Here, at a deserted region, Pleasence will discover a sunken WW2 plane, known as The Yankee Zephyr, on the shore of a lake.
The plane was cleverly highlighted in the yonder while the credits were rolling. It was displayed on a newly made newsreel during the World War 2 era. The cargo had been 15 million in gold bars to facilitate the war effort. It went down and has been lost to time ever since.
Pleasence hops on and discovers every single thing from skeletons in the cockpit to cases of whiskey. Quite enough to keep him drunk, joyful, and oblivious to the millions in the crates surrounding him. By luck, he comes upon a crate brimming with sparkling new Purple Heart medals which are meant for suffering soldiers of the World War. He will sneak these in his pocket and once he is back to the town he claims as home, he goes to a local pawnshop. This is where the story will accelerate at breakneck speed.
The shop owner starts to pick up a phone as Wahl is trying to sprint off and save the crates of purple hearts that have sandwiched Pleasence in his Zephyr. As for that pawn shop owner, his life is about to come to an abrupt finish because of this phone call. A Pandora’s Box has been opened. The pawn shop owner is soon to be taken over by a treasure seeker with an awful accent played by George Peabody. To gain the title of a poor man’s James Bond villain, he arrives with a team of thugs.
Next, Lesley Ann Warren, Donald’s daughter, becomes their last viable option for a loan after Wahl and Pleasance seem to have exhausted all their means, and Pegg decides it is time to take Pleasance’s business seriously. She gives in, but only after she is guaranteed a role in it as well as Wahl’s firm. She was not easily convinced by the drunken Loafer’s requests for help. They are financially miserable and try to convince Lesley to help. Fortunately, she is eager to assist them.
Wahl knows Peppard means business as soon as he casts a few veiled threats his way, “The war medals are just a garnish.” Peppard orders, “Get Tempe in his remaining 3 moving parts chopper” With haste, Peppard now has Pleasence and Warren in the wormy chopper and off to Falcon Lake. He takes them on a ride over impressive mountains on the way to pick up the glass and teeter out over the most stunning schema of places.
While Hemmings and the film crew do get the camera to record the astounding, high-speed stunt flying done by the production team, the real question is whether Peppard and his men will catch them.
Well, this is starting to get interesting but at the same time utterly ridiculous, Let me clear something up, the man-formal British actor’s world makes no logical sense to me. How do you make movies for the sake of making money? The same thing that dictates why an actor would ever consider appearing in a masterpiece such as ‘The Great Escape’ is utterly beyond me.
I do understand the token one portrayed in the movies makes little sense, Lukins fuming and whispering in anger, ‘Can an American ever say these words without his tongue sprained’? The point I can certainly understand is an adoptive father of an American-born child is bound to face identity crises after the child has grown up to become no more than a Hollywood celebrity and perhaps even earning enough money to pay for the cast to treat severe tongue twisters.
Pleasence’s daughter looks really uptight all the time, but as soon as a decent-looking man enters her life, she totally transforms. Warren has been a very active actress since starting in her teenage years in the 60’s. She has worked on productions such as Clue, Columbo, Life Stinks with Mel Brooks, and my personal favourite, Cop, which features James Wood and came out in 1988.
Ken Wahl was a prominent figure back in the decade, starring in films along the likes of Paul Newman in Fort Apache and The Bronx, as well as leading the series Wiseguy. His stardom was short-lived, however, as he chose to leave the industry in 1996.
While the project choice might classify it as a missed opportunity, there is still beauty to behold thanks to Pleasence, as the production is endowed with Brian Mays’s score, Wahl, Warren, and Zurher’s breathtaking performance, as well as stunning locations that remind me of the adventures I will never be able to go on.
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