ANTONIO MARGHERITI & THE JUNGLES OF DOOM:
HIS ‘80s ADVENTURE FILMS (1982-1985)
THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA (1982)
THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1984)
JUNGLE RAIDERS (1985)
Italian exploitation fans rejoice, Severin have blessed us with the Antonio Margheriti & The Jungles of Doom: His 90's Adventure Films, a 4-disc, 3-film 4K UHD/Blu-ray/CD boxset of three of his most action-packed adventure films. This set marks the North American UHD/Blu-ray premieres of the prolific Margheriti's’s ‘Indiana Jonesploitation’ Trilogy – which are now available individually or with 3-disc slipcase, newly scanned in 4K from their original camera negatives with HDR10 and over two hours of new and archival extras, plus a CD soundtrack!
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: Region-Free (4K UHD), A (Blu-ray)
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 95 Minutes 12 Seconds
Audio: English or Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Antonio Margheriti
Cast: David Warbeck, John Steiner, Luciano Pigozzi, Protacio Dee, Antonella Interlenghi
First up in this Antonoil Margheriti (Alien from the Abyss) directed Indiana Jonesploitation Trilogy of knock-offs is the rip-roaring adventure The Hunters of the Golden Cobra (1982) which opens in the Philippines in 1944. We have American soldier Bob Jackson (David Warbeck, The Beyond) and Brit RAF Capt. David Franks (John Steiner, Deported Women of the SS) infiltrating a Japanese base to stop devious double agent Yamoto (Protacio Dee, McBain) from making off with the titular Golden Cobra, a mythical artifact with supernatural powers. Yamoto escapes in a bomber and our protagonists give chase in a Japanese fighter plane. When the bomber crashes into the jungle, after Yamoto shoots the pilot, Jackson dons a parachutes and follows him into the jungle, just in time to see him killed by a tribe of jungle hunters. Jackson finds himself shot with a poison dart in the neck, but is saved by the tribe's gorgeous white queen (Antonella Interlenghi, The New York Ripper), who removes the dart and sends him floating unconscious downstream. A year later Franks, who apparently stranded Jackson in the jungle all this time, catches up to him at a cock-fight, and apologizes for leaving him behind, and after a bit of fisticuffs Franks proposes they team-up once more to recover the Golden Cobra, before it falls into the hands of a snake-worshipping cult - and with that, this pulpy adventure is underway! The pair pick-up a beauty named Julie (Interlenghi in a dual-role), who is the twin sister of tribe's white queen, and her alcoholic archeologist uncle Greenwater (Luciano Pigozzi, Yor: The Hunter from the Future) to recover the artifact and rescue Julie's twin April.
The flick was the first of the Raiders of the Lost Ark knock-offs to actually get a theatrical release, arriving just a year after Spielberg's pulp adventure tale and a couple of months before Indiana a Jones &Temple of Doom, and this action-adventure romp is terrific watch with plenty of retro serialized action-adventure, Highlighting Margheriti's penchant for miniature work, including the prologue plane chase and a later bus chase, plus a finale that takes place in a cavern temple with a lava floor, fisticuffs galore and rough-hewn action that delivers Raiders-styled thrills with an fun Italian exploitation edge to it, delivering equal measures of thrilling action and offbeat Italian humor, with Warbeck and Steiner making a bit of an odd-couple pairing, but somehow it works with Warbeck's charm and Steiner's jolly, unflappable Brit coming together, plus the action beats and adventure thrills are pretty fantastic. It never not feels like an Italian knock-off of Raiders, a little messy but overflowing with low-rent charm and energy.
Special Features:
Disc 1: UHD
- Trailer (3:25)
Disc 2: Blu-ray
- The Path Of The Cobra – Interview With Assistant Director Edoardo Margheriti (24:27)
- Bloodline Of The Cobra – Interview With Second Camera Assistant Davide Mancori (18:53)
- 1996 Festival Of Fantastic Films Award Presentation And Q&A With David Warbeck (20:31)
- Video Essay By Rob Hill, Author Of The Bad Movie Bible (6:51)
- Trailer (3:25)
THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1984)
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: Region-Free (4K UHD), A (Blu-ray)
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 98 Minutes 18 Seconds
Audio: English or Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Antonio Margheriti
Cast: David Warbeck, John Steiner, Luciano Pigozzi, Ricardo Palacios, Susie Sudlow
Next up is The Ark of the Sun God (1984), this follow-up is a bit more polished and even better executed with some James Bond-esque spy-thriller elements and a straight-up reference to Roger Moore, we once more get a re-teaming of Warbeck, Steiner and Pigozzi, all playing different characters, but still very much in the same vein as the previous film. David Warbeck (The Black Cat) plays safe-cracking cat-burglar Rick Spear, yep, good ol' 'Dick' Spear, who is hired by the wealthy collector Lord Dean (John Steiner, Tenebrae) to lead an expedition to the top of a swastika-shaped mountain temple in Turkey to steal the mythical “Scepter of Gilgamesh”, a ambiguous ancient relic. The baddie this time is Mohammed (Ricardo Palacios, The Blood of Fu Manchu), who wishes to possess the spear for himself, mounting a competing expedition that follows Spear and the group into a booby-trapped laden cave to obtain the fabled spear. Female companionship comes by way of Carol (the only movie role from model Susie Sudlow), and Margheriti's good luck charm Luigi Pigozzi (Terror-Creatures from the Grave) shows up alcoholic adventure guide Beetle, both of whom join the expedition through various machinations. Even more briskly paced that The Hunters of the Golden Cobra, this sequel is another Margheriti directed action banger with desert adventure, there's a miniature Trans Am car chase, explosions, a garroting scene, a bar fight, and a ton more Indian Jones references that strangely not only reference Raiders, but future installments of the Lucas/Spielberg franchise, and a fun straight-up life from Jaws! The finale in the tomb of Gilgamesh crypt looks terrific, huge golden door, a cob-webbed throne room chock full of skeletons and eerie green and red lighting . The action beats are top-notch low-budget exploitation, and the dialogue is pretty quotable as well, especially Spear with nuggets like "You smarmy bastard!", and he even has a 007-styled signature drink, the decidedly offbeat Bacardi with milk and crushed ice, WTF!?!
Special Features:
Disc 1: UHD
- Trailer (2:47)
Disc 2: Blu-ray
- Second Unit Chronicles – Interview With Assistant Director Edoardo Margheriti (29:06)
- Raiders Of The Sun God – Interview With Writer Giovanni Paolucci (19:18)
- Antonio Margheriti Recalls David Warbeck (2:28)
- Trailer (2:47)
Disc 3: THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA & THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD Soundtrack CD
JUNGLE RAIDERS (1985)
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: Region-Free (4K UHD), A (Blu-ray)
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 101 Minutes 23 Seconds
Audio: English or Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Antonio Margheriti
Cast: Christopher Connelly, Lee Van Cleef, Marina Costa, Luciano Pigozzi
Margheriti's Italian Indiana Jonesploitation Trilogy comes to a close with what initially saw as a bit of a let-down, after all, Warbeck and Steiner are absent and I thought they were quite charming, but in their place we get the ruggedly handsome Christopher Connelly (Raiders of Atlantis) as a trickster safari guide named Captain Yankee, who is based in South America in the late 1930s. His business model is to take gullible millionaires on bogus treasure hunts through the jungles, having them believe that they've made of with mythic treasures and and escaped head-hunting cannibals, pocketing the money with the millionaires leaving with the story of a lifetime, none the wiser. This opening prologue has a heavy riff from Raiders of the Lost Ark that is good fun. After his latest con-job he is approached by a crooked U.S. government operative named Warren (Lee Van Cleef, The Big Gundown) who recruits/blackmails him, to track down the fabled Ruby of Gloom, a legendary gem hidden deep in a volcano by Borneo Pirates! Yankee and Warren are joined by museum curator Maria (Marina Costa, The Final Executioner) and the wonderfully named Scottish jungle guide Gin Fizz (Luciano Pigozzi, Exterminators of the Year 3000), who is a bit of a drunk 'natch, in their quest, racing to obtain the jewel before a group of death-cult pirates can beat them to it.
It's Margheriti so you know we're getting a terrific action-packed Raiders-riff, chock full of double-crosses, exploding volcanoes, vehicular chases, and an adorable kid with a deadly pet cobra! I do miss the Warbeck/Steiner team-up but I have to say that Connelly and Van Cleef are a fantastic pairing, I liked the more humorous bent to this one, and there's plenty of jungle adventure with leaps off waterfalls, booby-traps and fiery explosions. This was good fun, I thought it was probably the least of the three, but even still, an exciting and fun Italian off-brand riff on the Indiana Jones flicks, plenty of pulpy adventure and cool looking low-budget set-pieces.
Special Features:
Disc 1: UHD
- Trailer (2:42)
Disc 2: Blu-ray
- The Ruby Trail – Interview With Assistant Director Edoardo Margheriti (27:48)
- Italian Credit Sequence (3:36)
- Trailer (2:42)
Audio/Video: All three films are making their worldwide 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray debut from Severin, with the exception of The Hunters of the Golden Cobra which at least had a previous HD release from 88 Films. Each of the films have been newly scanned in 4K from the original camera negative, presented in 2160p Ultra HD with HDR10 color-grades. Both The Hunters of the Golden Cobra and Jungle raiders are framed in the original 2.35:1 widescreen and The Ark of the Sun God framed in 1.85:1 widescreen OAR. The images look terrific, plenty of natural film grain with nice texture and detail. The HDR color-grade adds some plump hues tot he proceedings, advancing over the Blu-ray counterparts, the verdant greens of jungle canopies and foliage look great, as do the earthier desert and cave environs, the searing red glow of cave-lava flows and explosions look tremendous and blacks are solid. As far as source related damage, the only things I detected are just a couple of specks and faint vertical lines, the restoration efforts on display are really terrific, they still look like scrappy, rough-hewn productions, but with a bit of polish to it. A few of the optical shots involving miniatures look a tad soft by comparison, but overall, these transfers look killer.
Audio for all three comes by way of English or Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles. The tracks are clean and sound solid, the sounds of jungle carnage, car chases, the roar of plane engines and the upbeat adventurous scores by Ghein (The Ark of the Sun God), Carlo Savina (The Hunters of the Golden Cobra), and Cal Taormina (Jungle Raiders), all fare well.
Extras for The Hunters of the Golden Cobra include 25-min The Path Of The Cobra – Interview With Assistant Director Edoardo Margheriti, we get one of these for each film, here he talks about how the film was shot in the Philippines after his father fell in love with the Philippines while shooting The Last Hunter with Warbeck, Steiner, and Pigozzi. He gets into how his father loves special effects, how this was a war-adventure film hybrid, and how the airplane sequences shot with RC models. He speaks highly of the local crews who were skilled and cheap, shooting at caves in Palazzolo, Italy and Tanay, Philippines. Shooting the live cobra sequences, how they were de-venomed and noting that the snakes had their mouths sewn shut. He also speaks of the comradery on set, the cast and their friendships how film sets used to be more relaxed and fun. Also discussed are the creation of the lava flows in the caves, cinematographer Sandro Mancori's relationship with his father, the quality of his work,
Carlo Savino score, worked on many of his father's films. Next the 19-min Bloodline Of The Cobra – Interview With Second Camera Assistant Davide Mancori, the son of the DP, he talks about how they had a strict work relationship, and how his father was dismayed by his son's interest in music which took him away from film for a period. He describes Margheriti as gruff but technically knowledgeable, and getting into his duties on set, which included the camera set-ups and loading the film stock they used, and how they imitated some of Vittorio Storaro (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) style from Apocalypse Now. He also relates his interactions with Margheriti while filming, and his appreciation of the director's deep technical film knowledge, and how Italy film industry was at one time full of disciplined craftsmen, but with the advent of digital it has lost some of its discipline and the artistry has waned.
1996 Festival Of Fantastic Films Award Presentation And Q&A With David Warbeck runs 21-min, at this event he talks of having just survived an brutal attack, bringing up Hammer's Twins of Evil and laying on the love for Peter Cushing, shooting Trogg with Freddie Frances and Joan Crawford, and fun tales from the set, including defending Crawford in death and saying her daughter was a "lying bitch" in regard to the scandalous Mommy Dearest film. He also relays a Freddy Francis story from the film Craze (1974) with Jack Parlance. Disc extra from ...Golden Cobra are finished up with a 7-min Video Essay By Rob Hill, Author Of The Bad Movie Bible, a fun tongue-in-cheek appreciation of the trilogy, and a 3-min Trailer.
Extras for The Ark of the Sun God include the second Margeriti interview, the 29-min Second Unit Chronicles – Interview With Assistant Director Edoardo Margheriti. He describes this era as a prolific period after a failed science fiction production that never got off the ground slowed things down for a bit. He frames this as an adventure flick with lots of special effects starring his favorite actors, and as such, he had a terrific time making it. He notes the script by Giovanni Simonelli with whom his father made over 25 films with, highlighting the cast, and how this was an Italian Turkish co-production, as well as the locations in Turkey, including strange rock formations, and the caves. Working with a largely Turkish crew, learning to make miniatures for his father's films, opening his own miniature effects studio, the technical skill of his father, and an appreciation of Warbeck, who was in the running to be 007 around this time. He describes Luciano Pigozzi as an uncle to him. He also touches on Steiner and how Susie Ludlow was funny and easy going, and pointing out that his father was director who made films for himself, but because of his great taste in cinema, it happily appealed to many, even if that particular genre of film was not in style at the time.
We also get the 20-min Raiders Of The Sun God – Interview With Writer Giovanni Paolucci, who talks of how he ended up at Flora Film, writing the script and setting it in Turkey after reading the story of Gilgamesh, his relationships with the cast and director, and his sons, the effects and Margheriti love of shooting them, Warbeck and what a gentleman was, only needing a chair on set and time to drink his tea, describing Brut Sudlow as very British for better or worse! Pigozzi, Italian replica films, how Margheriti was never given his due in his opinion, what he learned from him, Extras for ...Sun God close-up with a 2-min archival clip of Antonio Margheriti Recalls David Warbeck, a 3-min Trailer, plus a CD Soundtrack containing the scores for The Ark of the Sun God by Ghein, and The Hunters of the Golden Cobra by Carlo Savina, which runs 42-minutes. Also tucked away inside is an index card sized insert with the song titles and credits.
Extras for Jungle Raiders include the 28-min The Ruby Trail – Interview With Assistant Director Edoardo Margheriti who describes the film being shot in the Philippines, which believably passed for Maylasia, and how his father was making 2 films year in the Philippines at this point, Noting the cast, and how his father seeing Raiders Of The Lost Arkand absolutely adored it. He also gets into creating the miniatures car chase sequences seen in the film, how they created the volcanoes and exploding mountain, and his own relationship with his father on set. he also notes that his father loved over-the-top acting, and how how many of his films did much better abroad than in Italy, which he says hurt his father's feeling to a degree. Other extras include the 4-min Italian Credit Sequence and the 3-min Trailer.
Each of the films can be purchased separately, arriving in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. These are 2-disc 4K UHD/BD combos, though The Ark of the Sun God release is a 3-disc, with the addition of the aforementioned CD soundtrack. While these are sold separately in 4K UHD/Blu-ray or Blu-ray only editions, without the slipcase, you can purchase a Limited Edition Side-Loading Rigid Slipcase direct from the Severin webstore (HERE) on it's own for $15, with a unmistakable title treatment, or you can purchase a bundle with all three films and the slipcase, also from the Severin site.
Screenshots from the Severin Films Blu-ray:
THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA (1982)
Extras:
THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1984)
Extras:
JUNGLE RAIDERS (1985)
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