Part 4 - The Mines of Kilimanjaro (Le Miniere del Kilimangiaro)

If somehow the other three films that we’ve looked at (Hunters of the Golden Cobra, Ark of the Sun God, and Jungle Raiders) have not been able to satiate your lust for adventure and you’ve still been left wanting more… well, you’re in luck (or maybe out of it!) because up next we have The Mines of Kilimanjaro from director Mino Guerrini (not really known for anything notable, other than a few Euro-spy films and some sex comedies).

Professor Thomas Smith (Christopher Connelly, yet again) is a man with a secret. While he now leads a life as a respected member of the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley, a biology teacher well on his way to winning the Nobel Prize for his work in medicine, he was once a member of a group of seven German soldiers who were searching for an extremely large cache of diamonds known as the Secret of Africa (which has to be the lamest, least creative name for a hidden treasure ever.) As it turns out, his company was attacked by a local tribe and massacred, with Smith remaining as the only survivor, and subsequently the last man on Earth who knows the location of the diamonds. But not for long…

When Smith is mysteriously murdered, seemingly to keep the Secret of Africa just as its name implies, a secret, his trusted friend and associate Dr. Ed Barclay begins to investigate. Following the only lead he has, the word “Zetwan”, which Smith managed to scribble on his classrooms blackboard in his throes of death, Barclay sets out for Africa to find out who killed his mentor and continue on his quest for the diamonds.

Hot on his trail are a veritable cornucopia of racially stereotypical bad guys - Tai Ling and his Chinese henchman (totally just white guys in bad Fu Manchu mustaches doing the most incredibly offensive broken English “accents”), the dastardly Dutchman Rolf, the tribe of the savage African Leopardmen, and yes, the most hated, vile villains of them all, the Nazis (finally! one of these movies had to have them!) Thankfully he’s teamed up with Lord Kilbrook, a British agent posed as a big game hunter, and his homely-at-first-until-she-loses-her-glasses-and-lets-down-her-hair-to-be-beautiful daughter Eva. But will they be able to figure out the Professor’s cryptic clues and find the way to the secret location of the diamonds before the plethora of international rogues (who by the end all join together to form a sort of supergroup of racist caricatures) can catch up with them?

Out of all the films we’ve examined in the Italian Rip Offs of Indiana Jones series, this is the one that most accurately embodies that title, as it is the most faithful to an actual Indiana Jones film, it terms of ripping it off anyway (and it’s the first to swipe stuff from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom, like a slave-run mining camp - see the official rip off checklist below for further examples).

Oddly enough, however, it’s also the dullest of the lot. In fact, I would probably say that the best thing about The Mines of Kilimanjaro was the Demons 2 trailer that ran before it on the VHS copy that I bought (yeah, that’s right, we still watch VHS around here!). While it does have some promising moments, like a man-less tribe of horny Amazons, a bazooka wielding bushwoman, and a scene where several rats are forced into a man’s mouth as a form of torture, it ultimately never gains enough stream to be the action-packed adventure film that it aspires to be.

The pacing is drudgingly slow at parts (lets just say it seems to take forever to get to the actual Mines of Kilimanjaro) and Barclay has to be the wimpiest, biggest pushover of an action hero ever, relying on others to save his sorry ass the majority of the time. Even all of the utterly ridiculous, so-bad-that-they’re-laughable elements (did I mention the horrible attempt to pass off Italian actors as Asians?!!!) don’t really make up for the lifeless plot and lackluster action.

That said, I would obviously recommend this only to the bravest and most dedicated trash movie aficionados among you, or those of you that for some strange reason (some sort of complex, perhaps?) may feel the need to be absolute completists and torture yourselves, as I have, by watching all five films in our IROoIJ series. I’m not sure if any of you out there are crazy enough to try it, but if you are, well, the only other thing I can say about this one is “good luck.”

On to the checklist:

*- While the box cover art may lead you to believe that our hero wears a brown fedora, he actually wears a white hat that looks more appropriate for a day of some relaxing, sun-filled boating rather than dirty, rough and tumble adventuring

**- In lieu of a bullwhip, Barclay’s signature weapon is a giant metal hook! But since he even has a trademark weapon at all, we’ll count it.