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The Amazon jungle: Adventurer Gringo (Stuart Whitman) knows about a
diamond treasure hidden deep deep in the jungle, so he hooks up with two
cutthroats, Zapata (Pedro Armendáriz jr) and Haro (Jorge Luke) to go and
find the treasure. Of course, they encounter all the customary perils of
the jungle, including headhunters, and the whole thing is not made any
easier by the fact that Zapata and Haro are in fact pretty greedy but even
more stupid.
At the same time, Barbara (Ann Sidney), Dick (Clark Jarrett) and Clark
(Bradford Dillman) find the treasure rather by accident, and while Clark,
the pilot of their seaplane, flies off again to do I don't know what,
Barbara and Dick suddenly find themselves facing the perils of the jungle,
including of course the headhunters, who eventually kill Dick. Before they
can kill Barbara too though, Gringo, Zapata and Haro arrive, team up with
the girl and chase the headhunters away, then they all collect as many
diamonds as they can carry. Eventually though, Gringo figures it would be
a good idea to head back, and Barbara is the first to join him. The other
two though decide to stay behind, get in a fight, and eventually Zapata
ties Haro up and leaves him to the njungle animals, making off with his
diamonds and joining Gringo and Barbara. When he tries to rape Barbara
though, Gringo kills him, and Barbara shows her gratitude ...
At the same time, Nazi Klaus (Donald Pleasence) and his native wife
Morimba (Sonia Infante), who has made it a habit to walk around topless
all the time, are also going to collect the diamonds, and wouldn't you
know it, they too run into headhunters, but they manage to fight them off
and collect enough diamonds to last them a lifetime ... but Klaus does not
want the diamonds to last him a lifetime, he wants to rebuild the Third
Reich, and when Morimba protests, he shoots her in cold blood.
On his return route though, Klaus runs into Paco (Emilio Fernández), a
greedy self-appointed official who wants to collect taxes on everything
Klaus has found, and when Klaus lies to him that he hasn't found anything
and Paco proves Klaus a liar, he has him hanged by his tongue (!).
Then Gringo and Barbara run into Paco, and when he wants to collect
taxes from them as well, Gringo gives him his share ... but has far more
diamonds hidden in his gun, which he plans to share with Barbara, whom he
plans to take with him to New York to live a life in luxury.
Travelling down the Amazon, Barbara and Gringo however bump into Clark
and his seaplane, and all of a sudden Barbara forgets about Gringo and
everything he has done for her to head off with Clark. Only when she wants
to show Clark her diamonds she finds out Gringo has substituted them for
sand ...
Veteran actor John Ireland plays a priest but has next to nothing to do
throughout the film.
The plot of this adventure movie is as thin and as trashy as can be,
but as a whole, the film is nothing short of a hoot, carried by many a
veteran actor, by plenty of not quite convincing gore scenes, and by
gratuitous topless nudity (apart from Ann Sidney, all women in this
feature seem to be topless all of the time). Of course, all of this
doesn't make the film good in a traditional sort of way, but it makes it
highly enjoyable on the so-bad-it's-good scale.
Recommended ... in a way.
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